Kathryn's Blog: Articles from *eMAIL to eMATE*
Fast forward to January 2002. Keep in mind that this was just a few months after 9/11, when we all were thrown for a huge loop. As well, Drew and I had crises in our own family that had required the full attentions of us both. We needed something good to happen.
In 2002, I had been a psychotherapist for 25 years. I had started three private practices (Maine, Florida, and Mississippi), and while I love being a therapist, it was grueling, kept me tied to one location, and was frankly depressing. I had heard about life coaching and was intrigued: I liked that it was positive, future oriented, and best of all, could be done anywhere via the Internet and phone.
I got a brochure in the mail advertizing a workshop by MentorCoach on coaching aimed at mental health professionals. I could tell that it was a promo for an intensive—and expensive – training program.
I was feeling poor (remember that 9/11 had a negative financial impact for many people) and also questioning the quality of the program being offered. I was very skeptical. To help me decide, I asked Drew to come with me – the workshop was being held in Birmingham, Alabama, four hours away.
Ben Dean, the MentorCoach founder, presented, and that guy is GOOD. Drew checked him out at lunch and was also impressed. By the end of the day, all that stood in the way for me signing up for the training program was the fee, a hefty $2,000+.
But…fate stepped in. At each of the workshops that Ben Dean presented, he drew a name from the attendees and gave away the tuition for the course.
I won.
I couldn’t believe it.
I had no reason at all NOT to go ahead with the training.
Most of you know that I met my Sweetheart Drew on Match.com in 1998. If you don’t know that story, you can read a little of it here. What you probably don’t know is how my story evolved into Find-a-Sweetheart.com and YOUR story.
Not too long after I met Drew, which was hugely successfully and quickly apparent to my friends and family, I got a request for help. My long-time friend Christine, happily married for many years, had been recently widowed. A still energetic woman in her late 50’s, Christine asked if I would help her get online and start looking for a guy friend. She knew that she wasn’t ready to jump in yet (her husband had been gone less than a year), but she was thinking about the future. I was more than happy to help. Online dating, I knew, was such a great resource, and with a little perseverance, could really pay off for ready singles.
I suggested to Christine that we get online on her computer and look around, and we did.
I don’t remember much of what we actually talked about and did, but I found that helping Christine was fun! I loved it. How great it felt to be able to offer someone a tool that could change their life!
Unfortunately, Christine was not having as much fun as I was. Super enthusiastic and wanting my good experience to work as well for Christine as it had for me, I was not sensitive to the fact that I was scaring the bejesus out of her. Even after a decent length of time, I didn’t hear any more interest from Christine as far as online dating was concerned. I blew it.
However…it really had been fun.
Definition of ‘Due Diligence (DD)’
1. An investigation or audit of a potential investment. Due diligence serves to confirm all material facts in regards to a sale.
2. Generally, due diligence refers to the care a reasonable person should take before entering into an agreement or a transaction with another party.
Do not assume that your dating site has done ANYTHING to verify your correspondent’s identity or anything to check his/her background. Even if the site purports to do background checks, it would not be hard for a devious person to figure out a way around the check. Participating in a site that claims to check backgrounds, or sites that appeal to moral virtues like Christian dating sites may actually make you MORE vulnerable. You may relax your “radar,” assuming that others on the site are vetted or are “like you” and honest. Due diligence is YOUR responsibility.
If they have nothing to hide, then they should hide nothing. Your dates should EXPECT that you are going to check up on them, and you should expect that they are going to check up on you.
BTW, if you DO have something to hide, then you should be figuring out how to handle the matter. What if the secret were discovered? Should you proactively tell before discovery? I cover this extensively in my book “Find a Sweetheart Soon!” Chapter 13.
In the early days of Internet dating and the beginnings of search engines like Google, doing a search on someone’s name was difficult and seemed rude and invasive. No more. You should be Googling, right off the bat, as soon as you have someone’s name. Conversely, you should be expecting that they are going to be doing the same. So it is important that you be aware of what is Out There that might come up connected to you in a Google search.
Don’t know how to do a Google search? Type your name inside quotation marks in the Google search box. Mine would be “Kathryn Lord.” What comes up when I Google my name is mostly me, but also someone at the University of Massachusetts who specializes in dogs. Also on page 2 of the search is a fungal cell biologist – not me.
So, do a regular Google search on your own name, because your date is sure to do so and will want an explanation of anything that does not jibe with what you have told them. My uncle had an odd spelling of his name. It was the same name and spelling of a gay porn star, definitely not my uncle, but good for laughs.
So, this is just the beginning of how to do “due diligence.” Stay tuned for future instructions to help you stay safe.
So you have cleaned up your act and are telling the absolute truth. You are doing your own searching and contacting. But then you have another whole set of problems about truth and lies: How do you know if your date is telling you the truth?
Most of us would like to think that we can tell if someone is lying. I’ve even written about it. What I wrote in that article sounds pretty good, frankly, though a heck of a lot of factors to keep track of on a date.
However, even with practice, most of us would only catch the liars who weren’t very good at lying. In reality, we learn to lie very early in life, starting around age 4. And we get progressively better at it. (See “Nurture Shock” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, Chapter 4 “Why kids lie.” According to the authors, who reference a number of studies, even the children’s parents cannot tell if a child is lying.)
We do seem to want to keep our belief that we can detect liars, though, and we are not alone in that wish. I stumbled on this TED talk by Pamela Meyer. I don’t know if what she has to say will make anyone more able to detect a liar, but I did find a couple of points she made very useful: 1. She says that lying is a cooperative act – it takes a liar plus someone willing to be lied to, and 2. You are vulnerable to being lied to around what you want to hear. For singles, that might mean you want to hear that you are lovable and desirable, and you are willing to suspend disbelief if someone tells you those very things.
I like to think that I have sharpened my ability to spot liars by watching Dr. Phil – not so much by what he says, but by watching the “guests” squirm and evade when Dr. Phil tries to pin them down. Here’s an example of the most believable con man you are likely to meet.
Regardless of whether you are able to spot liars at all, meeting strangers in your efforts to find love requires that you do your “due diligence.” Here’s part of a definition of “due diligence” that I found online:
Generally, due diligence refers to the care a reasonable person should take before entering into an agreement or a transaction with another party.
I’ll write more about “due diligence” in the next *eMAIL to eMATE*. In the meantime, let me know what YOU do to check out prospective mates. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with your suggestions.
Lord knows, I’ve written plenty about the importance of telling the truth. I’ve pointed out over and over how short-sighted lying is. Here’s a great quote that I got off a Starbucks cup: “It takes two seconds to tell the truth and costs nothing. A lie takes time and costs everything.” Randi Rhodes
What do people on dating sites seem to lie about most? Age. Here’s what “Social Q’s” in the NY Times’ Style Section had to say last Sunday, with my comments in red:
I am on a dating site called OKCupid.com and list my age as 33, even though I am actually 43. When people meet me, they assume I am in my late 20s or early 30s. I feel fortunate to get away with looking so much younger than I am without Botox. My plan is to admit my true age on a second or third date, and hope he’ll forgive me. Or should I correct my age now? K.S., Bridgeport, Conn.
I hate to be the bearer of hard (gravitational) truth, but no one who is 43 looks as if he or she is in the late 20s (or early 30s, either). And if people are telling you that you do, they are fibbing to make you feel better.
Ain’t that the truth? No one EVER has told me that they look old for their age, but I regularly hear that they are “young looking.” The other day, a service man at my car dealership called me “young lady.” Argh! I am 62 with a full head of gray/white hair. “Young lady” to older women seems to be meant to be a sort of Southern compliment, but Yeesh! Did he think I would fall for that? Maybe. See Pamela Meyer’s points about lying #5 below,
Correct your listed age. Better to underpromise and overdeliver on dating Web sites, and elsewhere, than to play it in reverse. There is also the small matter of honesty with potential mates. Why not be the youngest-looking 43-year-old on the Internet?
Great strategy. Make your date pleasantly surprised when you meet, rather than angry and feeling tricked. (It happened to me. I drove quite a distance to meet a guy who said he was 53. In person, he was clearly quite a bit older, verified by his telling me about his 38 year old son. I doubt that he was a father at 15.)
But I was not born yesterday (either): Online daters tell me that age shaving to the next-lower 9 (listing yourself as 39 when you are 43) is a common ploy. That way, we turn up as matches for folks who only want to date people under 40. That may be ageist of them, but it’s their loss. So why waste your time?
Tricky, huh? That’s a good reason not to do it (lie about your age to trick someone into contacting you). No one likes being tricked. Besides, it is a waste of time to be trying to figure out and out-maneuver everyone else. Be honest, do your own searching, and write those first emails. You will be much more likely to get what you want if you do.
Regular readers know that I comb the NY Times for tidbits. This article in the Style section last month was a lot more than a tidbit. In fact, there were so many juicy bits that I have pulled some out for your edification:
The major dating sites had more than 593 million visits in the United States last month
Of the romantic partnerships formed in the United States between 2007 and 2009, 21 percent of heterosexual couples and 61 percent of same-sex couples met online
81 percent of people misrepresent their height, weight or age in their profiles
People tend to tell small lies because, since they may eventually meet in person.
People were most honest about their age, probably because they can claim ignorance about weight and height. A different study found that women’s profile photographs were on average a year and a half old. Men’s were on average six months old.
Liars tend to use fewer first-person pronouns. Liars use more negative words like “not” and “never,” yet another way of putting up a buffer. Liars use fewer negative emotion words like “sad” and “upset,” and they write shorter online personal essays. (It’s easier not to get caught if you say less.)
Same dates same: Internet dating shows a very high proportion of same-ethnicity dating—white more than black, women more than men, and old more than young prefer a same-race partner.
Women prefer men who are slightly overweight, while men prefer women who are slightly underweight and who do not tower over them. Women have a stronger preference than men do for income over physical attributes.
Unwillingness to state political affiliations—“People were much more likely to say ‘I’m fat’ than ‘I’m a conservative.’ ”
Most of us understand the importance of planning financially for when we get older. Whether we do it or not is another matter. Go here to see some chilling facts.
But this article is not about money. It’s about time. It’s about investing time now for future payoffs.
I had two different phone calls yesterday that stirred up my thinking about time investment and future payoffs.
In the first, I listened to a fellow coach I have known for 10 years talk about her partner who is dying. They have been a couple for 15 years. I met them both on a cruise to Alaska sponsored by our coach training program MentorCoach.
All treatment for her partner has now stopped and he has been referred to Hospice. Hospice care is usually suggested for very ill people with only a short time to live.
My coach friend is exhausted, understandably. But she is pulling her resources together and trying to give her partner the most compassionate caring possible in these last few days and weeks of his life. She said she was going to decorate for Christmas this weekend.
The second phone call was with Bernice who is in a new relationship. Interestingly, Bernice is about the same age as my coach friend (early 60’s), though she has been out of a relationship for about as long as the coach friend has been in one.
Bernice is exhausted, too, but for a different set of reasons. A professional with her own business, a young adult child just “getting launched,” and elderly parents wanting her energy, her “time plate” was already full to overflowing when she met a new man. He however is essentially retired, full of energy and wanting a playmate.
While excited by the new possibilities, Bernice easily tips into the “too much” mode. How does she make the time this man wants while taking care of all her other responsibilities, not to mention herself?
No doubt about it: relationships take TIME. I’ve always been struck, when I was not in a relationship, how much time I had.
My coach friend is now paying back the time investment she and her partner have made in each other over the years. They both clearly invested in devotion. Nothing says “I’ll be there for you” like the care given when a loved one is dying.
Bernice is not alone. I see it all the time with my other clients and single friends. The common advice to singles? Stay busy, fill up your life. And they do. But what they do not do is save back time for investing into an intimate relationship, even though they want one. Their time gets so full that there never seems to be a good time to look for love. When they find the possibility, like Bernice, they then find it difficult to give the time to allow the relationship to develop.
Looking for love, then taking care of it so that love will grow, takes time. A lot of it. But given plenty, the relationship will pay off in the future. When you need it. When, if you don’t do the work now, you’ll wish that you had.
As the saying goes, no one says on their death bed “I wish I had spent more time at the office.” Where should you be investing your time, right now, for future gains? When you face your proverbial death bed, who will be there with you?
Yesterday I was on the road, coming back from visiting my mother and her husband George. They are getting up there in age now, George 93 and Mom 87. Married a little over six years ago, I still think of them as newly weds. Mom said the minister at there retirement facility said anyone marrying in their 80’s has a lot of courage. I was so proud of Mom for taking the risk.
Mom and George have not had the years together than many other couples their age can look back on. They only had three years in relative health before George’s lack of mobility put him in a wheelchair and the nursing facility. Mom is in her own apartment a couple of hundred steps away. They visit every day and eat at least one meal together.
What they haven’t done in years of time investment in each other (see 5. Investing for your later years – not what you think below) they have made up in other ways. George is super-generous with the compliments, telling Mom daily how beautiful she is and how much he appreciates her. He is publicly affectionate, with kisses, hugs, and hand-holding. Mom just glows in the warmth. A retired minister, he is comfortable in talking emotionally and in depth, which Mom also loves. In return, Mom takes care of George, easing his loneliness with her visits, running errands, and accompanying him on medical appointments. His confinement would be torture without my mother.
Investing in a relationship now can be like saving for retirement. It is so easy to keep putting it off for a better time, but the more you wait, the harder it gets, and the more likely it becomes that there will be nothing when you get there. Yes, putting yourself out there to date is scary, but so is spending the rest of your life alone. Think about it.
I turned 62 in 2011. Eligible for Social Security. Drew just turned 65 and got a barrage of stuff about Medicare and the impossible puzzle of insurances. My friend who is about to turn 70 keeps telling me about Silver Sneakers and the Senior Citizens Center activities. Drew and I are about to become grandparents for the third time. How did all of this happen?
I grit my teeth and accept what I cannot change. Most are facts. But I am not ready for Silver Sneakers or anything with “Senior” in the title except discounts. (My favorite local market Earthfare calls it the Wisdom discount – isn’t that WONDERFUL? Yea, Earthfare!)
(Speaking of gritting my teeth: I had my teeth cleaned this morning and had a bit of a complaint about food getting caught in my teeth (TMI?). The hygienist said “Well, it’s all due to that horrible word …” and whispered so that I couldn’t hear. “What?” I asked. “Aging,” she stage whispered back.)
Ageism pops up in dating all the time. What do singles lie most about in their dating profiles? Their age. And it pops up again in the age parameters that they specify for prospective mates. Men routinely look for women much younger than the age they list for themselves (and they may be lying about that too). Women too are telling me that they are attracted to younger men, that men their age are OLD.
What do you think when you see a single, male or female, looking for younger partners? To me, it screams “Ageism!” This person is having trouble accepting the age that they are.
As we get older, it becomes more and more apparent how well we have taken care of ourselves and how well we have lived our lives. Plus genetics plays a part too. There is a dramatic difference in how old people exactly the same age look. And of course, feel.
If you feel and/or look younger than your birth date suggests, isn’t that great? It is something to celebrate. And guess what? There are plenty of others right around your age who are right there with you.
Don’t be ashamed of the fact of your age. There is nothing to be done about a fact like that. Much better than to broadcast your own discomfort with your getting older by lying or saying things like “youthful” or “young looking.” People will figure it out quickly enough. It will be a nice surprise.
You’ll do much better being truthful (and being able to back it up in person). You’ll get more first contacts and answers to your emails if the age range you post is 5 years +/- your own age. If you see someone younger, go ahead and email them. But ask yourself “Why might they be interested in ME?” and be prepared for silence.
I got a message a couple of weeks ago from my client Linda. She had just resurfaced – we had talked a couple of times six months ago, and now work had settled down and she was ready to get going. I’d written a profile essay for Linda, and she got professional photos, but she reported that something seemed wrong. She could tell that over 40 men had viewed her profile, some very good looking candidates, but she had gotten no emails at all, not even a paltry wink. She asked me to take a look at her profile and see if I had any idea what might be going on.
Well. Did I.
Linda’s Match.com presentation was terrible! She still had old not so good photos mixed with the new ones, which were not all great either. The profile essay bore no resemblance to what I had written at all. Every sentence had a “but” in it, which erases everything that comes before. Negative.
I know Linda has a great sense of humor and is funny in person, but (here’s another “but”) that humor did not translate well in writing. It was self-depreciating, negative, and just plain silly. And this is a well-educated professional woman! Her professional photos were largely more attractive than the ones she had previously, and had far better backgrounds. But she had a professional one that had the same silly attempt-to-be-funny pose and expression as one of the earlier ones I had her get rid of.
Linda defended her work, even though it wasn’t getting the results she wanted. She said that the essay I wrote “didn’t sound like her,” even though it was accurate. I suggested that she completely change the presentation, including her screen name, use my essay, and take out all but the most attractive photos, then see what happens.
She did, over a weekend.
Silence. Then I got a call the following Wednesday. Not only was the new profile working much better, she had a date for the weekend!
Now is that Romance Coach magic or what?
Is your profile getting the results you want? Could you use my magic touch like Linda? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to set up a profile review and see the magic.
Long time singles often get very patterned in their behavior which only serves to keep them single. One of my clients – a VERY long term single—told me that he was trying the George Constanza rule to try to break free of some of his old habits. Just in case you have not already made the connection, George Constanza was one of the main characters on the old Jerry Seinfeld Show. George was a loser and knew it. Here’s a youtube video of George discovering the George Constanza rule and trying it out:
George tries the opposite
And then on a date:
George gives ‘em hell.
This next one is the cast and director talking about the episode—a little long, but watch it to see what “George” says about guys who followed the advice.
What if you decided to use the George Constanza rule? What might you do that is the opposite of what you usually do? What else could you apply the George Constanza rule to?
Just about everybody worries about rejection, particularly in dating situations. None of us like hearing “no” when it comes to something we want. Yet, we hear “no” all the time in our everyday lives and manage to live through it. Why does hearing “no” from someone we are attracted to hurt so much? And can we change that?
The hurt we feel from “no’s” stems from our very beginnings. As infants, we felt perfect and powerful. Only with time and the civilizing attempts from our parents did we realize that we do not always get what we want. But our infant selves retain that feeling of total power, and understand (faultily) that if we don’t get what we want, there must be something wrong – with us. So when we hear a “no,” we get a double insult to our egos: we don’t get what we want, and it is our fault. It’s not true, but that’s the way our childlike selves understand the rejection.
What is true is that we are busy rejection people all the time. It’s all a matter of taste and preference. We reject 99.99% of possible mates without even thinking about it: they are too tall, too short, to fat or too skinny, the wrong color, religion, or political party, too poor or too rich, not well educated enough or too smart for their own good. And everyone else is busy rejecting 99.99% of others, too. Then we get overly focused on the .01% that do interest us, then devastated if the interest is not returned.
But when you think about it, it is pretty arrogant to think that the .01% of folks we do honor with our attention will, of course, be equally interested in us. Some probably will, maybe 10% of the .01%, but by no mean will all. The sweet spot is the overlap: those you like who also happen to like you.
Since so very few people fall into the “Sweet Spot” of mutual attraction, it is to your distinct advantage to know as soon as possible whether anyone you are interested in is also interested in you. You do not want to waste your time, nor do you want to waste theirs. Rejection needs to be WELCOMED, because it is information you need so that you will not waste time and energy – and money – on a lost cause. Better that you use your resources to find someone whose feelings of attraction are mutual.
Here’s what to do to minimize the pain:
1. Do not let yourself “fall in love” with anyone profile or person before you establish that they are equally interested in you.
2. Develop a long favorites list and send out first emails of introduction in bunches of 5 or so, again, to protect yourself from getting to focused on any one at this point.
3. When you get a “no” or a non answered email, welcome the quick answer and move on to the next person on your list.
4. Learn to essentially ignore those who are not interested in you, just as you ignore all whom you are not interested in either.
5. Remember, that as personal as this process feels, it is NOT PERSONAL.
It can be pretty disconcerting to realize that the best possible resource for finding love has taken a heretofore private matter and puts it out on an electronic billboard for the entire world to see. Internet dating sites are now close to the top (if not already there) of the best and most successful routes to finding your best mate. The majority of the success relies on putting singles who are looking in front of other people who are looking, too. You can’t expect Mr. or Ms. Right to get in touch if they can’t find you.
Just a brief word for sanity here: What’s WRONG with wanting love in your life? What’s so horrible about others finding out? Why should you be ashamed of having your desire for a mate be seen? If you are free to get involved with someone else and are telling the complete truth, then why are you worried about being recognized?
However, some folks do have legitimate reasons for wanting to keep their private lives private. So here is how to do it:
Basically, you have three choices:
1. Hide your profile completely, so no one can access it except you.
2. Post a profile essay but no photo (making sure that the information in your essay is not identifiable).
3. Post a full profile, with photos, but use a different zip code than your home territory where you do not want to be found out. For instance, if you live and work in New York City, use a Boston zip code, or the zip of an area that you would like to visit.
There are problems with each of these solutions. Hiding your profile completely (as well as not posting a photo) will make it seem as if you have something to hide, which is true: you are hiding.
If your profile is hidden, no one will be able to find you at all. You will have to do all the looking and contacting yourself, and then perhaps copy, paste and send your profile to anyone you contact.
Many will find your hiding rather creepy. You can be seen as a lurker, poking around but not playing fair by posting like everyone else.
#2 is somewhat better, but not perfect. Some folks won’t even reply if you do not have a photo posted. Most folks search only profiles with photos, and yours will not have one. And you could be recognized anyway: when I was looking for love on Match.com—with no photo posted—one of my clients recognized me by my writing style. It would have been much better if I had been more comfortable being completely open about my search.
The best solution, if you really want to hide in your local area, is #3, posting a full profile and photos in another zip code where you are unknown and unlikely to be recognized.
While your profile will not come up in a search by people located nearby your home zip code (after all, that’s how you are avoiding recognition), you are “public” on the site and not lurking. You’ll need to do your own searches to find people near you, and since you will be able to see THEM, then you can screen and eliminate those you don’t want to see YOU. In your first email, you will need to tell your contact why you are not public in your home area, and refer them to your profile by including your dating site screen name. An additional plus is that if you post your profile in a zip code that you visit or would like to, someone there may find you cute as a button, contact you, and you’ll then have a reason to travel.
So there you have it: not perfect, but a solution to that persistent question: How do I avoid being recognized?
Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, I talk to who has spent any time on an Internet dating site asks me “Why don’t they answer my emails?” The nastiest littlest-known secret is because the guy or gal you wrote to probably is too cheap to join the site: Most sites require that you pay before you communicate.
Think about it: It’s to the dating site’s advantage to encourage you to post your profile, and they make it free to do so. Every dating site needs lots of people’s profiles and pics to draw other new members. But dating sites, like any business, need money to continue offering and improving their services, and they get people to pay up by making emailing a paid-only privilege.
So if you, in good faith, pay your membership fees, then email a cutie or two or three, you can see how the odds are really against you. It’s a very high probability that the object of your interest has not paid up, 10 or more to 1, unpaid to paid. And you have no way of knowing, because there’s no indication of payment status on profiles. So from the cutie’s point of view, with each contact they receive, they need to decide if the privilege to respond to adorable you is worth the $25 or so it will take them to join up.
The second biggest reason that they don’t answer your emails is that they are rude. Even if someone is not interested, a short, polite note saying something like “Thanks for your interest, but I don’t see a match here” takes only seconds. You can boilerplate a No, thanks” message and just paste and copy your message into an email. Match.com even has a button below the email you get to make it super-easy: Say “No, thanks.” Why not use it? An unanswered email is so distressing. Event though “No, thanks,” might not be what you want to hear, at least you know.
Unfortunately, rude is becoming the norm. It is absolutely customary now for younger people (older people, too) to just ignore emails they are not interested in. In some ways, this makes sense, because email is so easy to send that many of us are deluged every day. Sorting out what we really want to see from the junk and the communications that we simply aren’t interested in has become a major daily chore. Many people now are simply using the delete key rather than responding. I have also noticed that on sites like Match.com, new emails in your email box have a thumbnail photo, plus age and location. It’s not uncommon for people to not even open the email, based on that tiny bit of information.
So here you have it: Non-answered introductory emails likely mean he/she is cheap or rude. Subset of rude: people who routinely don’t answer any email because they are not interested. You don’t want to be cheap or rude, do you? Nor do you want to be seen as cheap or rude either, so pay up and say “Thanks but no thanks” to all who think you are a hunk.
P.S. If you post a profile, play fair: Pay the fee! Most sites offer great deals for multiple months (less that 50 cents a day!). You’ll be financially supporting the site you are using and sharing the costs with the other fair-playing members. The dating sites will be able to improve their services with the money you send. And your posted profile, which implies that you are available for communication, will actually be telling the truth!
Years ago, when I was a newer Romance Coach, a prospective client with a fine-tuned sense of business asked me about my success rate in helping singles find love. I said that was hard to establish, because people hired me for various reasons and jobs, plus I had no control over what they did with the help I gave. And that is still true.
Most folks that I help, truthfully, I never talk to. Thousands of people get my enewsletter *eMAIL to eMATE*, visit my blog and website, buy and read my books, and I never hear from them otherwise. Some people talk to me once only, and that is enough for them. More people hire me to do a specific job, like helping them build a quality profile package, and then I never hear from them again either.
But the clients I truly love working with hire me to get the job done – to help them find a mate – and stick with me until the job IS done, sometimes even longer. With those folks, I can confidently say that my success rate is 100%. Yes, that is right: 100% of the people who hire me, stick with me, take my advice, no matter how long it takes, eventually find the love they are looking for. Here’s why: I am good at what I do.
But…though I’d like to take full responsibility, a huge factor in mate-finding success is persistence. These folks stick to it. They may get discouraged or scared. They may get angry at me or the whole darned process. They may take a break now and then. But they are persistent, do not waver from their overall goal of finding love, and eventually, by God and with help from me, they do.
Now, many people who I help but never hear the results from also find love, because they too persevere. They keep at it. You only have to get lucky once at this game, and you make your own luck.
I know that some people give up. But the people who are successful do NOT give up. And those who stick with me never give up. I never give up on them either.
So want a 100% guarantee that you will find love? Hire me to help and stick with me. We’ll figure it out. I promise.
Be a Cyber Treater
How to be a Cyber Treater:
1. Look like your photo.
2. Tell the truth, especially about things a potential mate would want to know (relationship histories, children and families, disease or disabilities, or financial difficulties, for instance). If you have a secret that keeps you from dating, you need my article “Do you have a secret? How to tell your Sweetheart Your Worst”
3. Be polite, kind, responsible, and prompt in your communications. Kindness and courtesy cost nothing.
4. If you are not interested in pursuing contact, say so in an email. Be tactful. This process is hard enough on everyone. Rude and nasty need to take a hike.
5. Do not continue contact or date if you know that this person is not for you, just because you don’t know how to say “no” or don’t want to hurt the other’s feelings. It is cowardly, not kind. Exit graciously and free your date up to find someone who truly would appreciate them.
6. Take your share of the responsibility in keeping communications going and building a relationship. Dare to initiate contact, offer plans for meeting, and be ready to share expenses.
7. Show by your behavior that you treat the possible relationship as important. Groom and dress for meetings—neat and clean go a long way, as does freshly barbered or hair-styled. Show up when you said you would. Offer to help pay.
8. Try to relax and don’t push yourself in an attempt to impress. If you are interested in your date and ask questions, that will help you feel less in the spotlight.
9. Avoid alcohol and drugs, one drink at the most. You need your senses totally sharp so that you can decide whether you want to see this person again. And no one is more attractive drunk or high.
10. Expect and insist the same respect and honesty from your date as you are willing to provide for them. If your date misbehaves or you find that you have been lied to or misled, you are not obligated to see this person again or even endure the rest of the date.
Despite the “Trick or treat?” of Halloween, most of us want the treat part and would just as soon skip the trick. No one likes feeling tricked. If you’d like the option of a second date, improve your chances dramatically: make yourself into a treat.
P. S. If you are unsure if you are a “Trick or treat?” you could use my book “Find a Sweetheart Soon!” [ www.YourLoveTripPlanner.com ] It will take you through all the ways I could think of that singles undermine themselves in their search for love, and help you design your solutions. There is nothing like being ready when the right person shows up. “Find a Sweetheart Soon!” will get you readier than you can imagine.
Trick… Or Treat?
Anyone who has done any online dating or listened to other singles knows that dating horror stories abound. What you hear less of is the successes, and there are plenty, believe me. I’m one of them—I met my husband online. If people like me weren’t finding love online, Internet dating sites would have gone out of business years ago.
But if there is ever a time for horror, it’s Halloween. If you need a few lessons on how to scare the willies out of your cyber sweetheart, try some of these Trickster Tips. You won’t even need to yell “Boo!”
How to be a Cyber Trickster:
1. Lie—about your age, weight, height, or marital status.
2. Post an old or deceptive photo. (Most men have learned how far a “glamour shot” is from reality, but not all…)
3. Start writing/talking about sex in the second email or first phone call.
4. Neglect your personal hygiene. Do not have your teeth cleaned in recent memory. Or take a bath. Or clean your nails. Or have your hair cut. Or your gray roots dyed.
5. Treat your first date like a trip to the Laundromat. Dress accordingly.
6. Expect the worse and make it happen.
7. Take your time. Be late. Very late.
8. Forget your wallet.
9. Show up drunk or high, or proceed to get that way.
10. Say that you will call or email and then don’t.
Scary, huh? Well, if you’d like to more of a treat and less of a trick, avoid the boo-boos that so many others have made before you.
Want to find out how you can blow it before you get started? Believe me, none of these are new under the sun…
Ten Best Ways to Blow Your First Date By Kathryn Lord
1. Don’t look like your picture.
It’s fairly common that people use old pictures when they were
thinner or had more hair.
You could post a photo of someone else: your daughter (folks
always say you could be twins, right?), a model you plucked from
an online site (Hey, didn’t you say always wanted to be a
model?), or your “sort of” twin brother. Non-identical.
2. Don’t make any special effort to present yourself well.
Sometimes folks dress for a first meeting the way they would for
a Saturday night at home, rationalizing it that they want to
appear “real” and be liked for the way that they are.
Maybe it is a kindness to show, right up front, what your date’s
Saturday nights would be like if they were to marry you.
3. Be late.
Nothing says you care less than not to be prompt. While being
early might give you the advantage of being able to see you date
before he/she sees you, being late implies you are too important
to be polite.
4. Forget your wallet.
Male or female, the “I forgot my wallet” schtick is the fastest
route to being labeled cheap.
If you are a guy and this is a coffee date, springing for both
cups is a bargain rate way to look good.
And ladies, men notice if you offer to pay, even if they insist
on opening their wallet for your latte.
5. Plunk your cell phone down on the table between the two of
you, leave it on, and answer every call, taking as long as you
want with each while ignoring your date.
Cell phones are the best excuse for blanket rudeness that has
been invented. They have no place on a date, except as a safety
mechanism.
6. Brag.
My old grandma used to say “Don’t brag,” and when you are on a
date, she was—and is—so right.
However, if you can’t resist, talk about the price you paid for
your car, flash your Rolex, and prop your implants on the table.
Tell how important you are at work and how many men or women are
dropping at your feet. And see how your date reacts. If they
are still at the table.
7. Complain.
Whine. Grouse. Say how no one listens you and you are looking
for someone who will.
Go on and on about your health problems or better yet, your
dietary wierdnesses. Then notice that your date is in such a
rotten mood, whine about that, and chalk this date to yet another
one of those horrid experiences.
8. Be rude. To your date, and to everyone around you.
Talk down to the wait person and don’t leave a tip. Complain to
the management about the poor service. Ask your date what the
last STD they had was or whether they are still fertile.
If you must, really pull out the stops and get all your orifices
going: burp, pass gas, scratch scabs, pick your nose or blow it
on your hand.
9. Try to get sexy.
Tell your date that she is turning you on and you want to see her
naked. Move in too close too fast, hugging, touching or kissing,
despite what your date is signaling.
Grab his butt when you meet. Wear clothes that are too short,
too tight, and in general too slutty. Talk sexy and do it loud.
10. Tell dirty, racist, or just plain poor taste stories.
You know that you are funny, especially after you have a couple
of drinks. If it is a coffee date, then stop off for a couple of
quick ones before you get there.
You know that men (or women) like a good sexy joke, so fire away.
And most people think that racist or bathroom stories are
hilarious, so your date should too. After all, you want a
partner who can take a joke, don’t you?
One of the questions I get most frequently (right after “Why didn’t he/she answer my email?”) is “Why did he just disappear?” The “he” is purposeful, because I practically never hear that women “just disappear,” though the men seem to on a regular basis.
The disappearance usually happens in what has up until then been a pleasant email exchange, or after the first date, or somewhere in the dating process. It’s a frustrating and painful experience for the receiver of this non-behavior (dropping out of contact), and “Why?” is the natural question.
Well, first off, you probably will never really know why, because part of the nature of online dating is that you don’t know this other person and probably will never run into them in real life so that you can ask. And if they refuse to reconnect via email, phone or otherwise, you are left with your “Why? What happened???” And the natural next question is “What did I do wrong?”
Most likely, you did nothing wrong. Or nothing so grievous to deserve a silent cutoff.
Here are possible explanations:
1. He got hit by a bus. His computer died right after he sent you the last email. He lost your phone number. He has been abducted by aliens. Or worse.
Unlikely, but possible.
2. He decided he is not interested in pursuing contact and is too rude or unskilled or scared to tell you directly. Email and anonymity make silence a perfect solution.
More likely and quite possible. Don’t let “I was too busy with work” excuse this kind of behavior. It takes practically no time at all to zip off an email or speed dial your cell phone.
3. He got scared. Yeah, scared. Grown ups get scared about developing relationships, even when they are lonely and want one. At each point that a budding relationship takes a baby step towards more closeness (like moving towards a first meeting, deciding on date #2, going public by meeting family and friends), fear can get stirred up and bad behavior result.
Most likely, and usually the reason behind deciding not to pursue contact, too.
Now, both men and women have fears about getting closer, but men seem most prone to silence and the disappearing act. Here’s why:
1. Disappearing is easy. You just do nothing, and probably you will never get directly confronted.
2. You don’t have to give bad news and face the upset of the other person – ie crying.
3. You also don’t have to confront yourself about the implications of your callous behavior.
Guys, correct me if I am wrong about this, and/or tell my about your experiences with disappearing ladies. I’m willing to learn!
Anyway, I had exactly this kind of issue come up with one of my clients recently. Lisa is a lovely lady, just over 60, very pretty and looks much younger. She had been emailing nicely with a gentleman named George and they were starting to plan their first meeting. Then…nothing. This was not the first time this had happened to Lisa, and she was dumbfounded about what was going on. Why would someone just “drop out of sight”?
I explained the “Hit by a bus, he’s decided ‘no, thanks,’ or he’s scared.” Lisa was incredulous. “Why would he be scared? I’ve done nothing to scare him.” Of course, we couldn’t know precisely, but getting closer risks potential loss, maybe being “found out” as not being as presented, old pains getting reactivated.
Here’s what Lisa (who as she says, has a hard time giving up) did – and this was all on her own, without my prompting – she emailed George the following:
George,
Is this the point when someone gets scared .. and thinks
(Multiple Choice)
a- she may be the size of a tent and not look like her pictures at all
b- she may want to get me drunk and take advantage of me
c- she might expect me to give up my freedom and see her
constantly and never have a free moment again (even though
she lives 3 hrs away)
d- she may throw away my remote control
e- she may be the mean step-mother type
f- what if she has a social disease
g-what if she is after my money
h- maybe she shops til she drops and brings in bills instead
of money
i- Other
George’s email reply:
I guess I must plead guilty to not getting back to you…I work a lot….sometimes too much….and I tend to slip away from things that are out of my comfort zone…like “dating”..LOL!
I have come close to the number of “dates” where one questions his choices or his dating skills..I think I am bad at both.
NO….I’m not afraid if you don’t look like your photos….I’m used to it…
it would be nice to find someone who is MORE interested in What you are about..more than what you have in life.
I’m a little burned out and dissapointed in people ,“our” group…who just Don’t get it.
So take my remote..there’s nothing on that I haven’t seen before.
LOL!!
Stay warm
George
Bingo. I was right. George was scared. Even this note showed it – though he had the guts to write back (Lisa had done a fabulous job with her light, humorous, yet to-the-point email), George did not clearly indicate a “yes” or “no” to further contact. So Lisa hits the keyboard again:
George,
Thanks so much for the great and honest answer and for not taking the easy way
out by fading into the woodwork and disappearing.
This means you have character. :-) big points
I have experienced the dating disappointments and the people who
just “don’t get it”. I have questioned what this dating thing is all
about and how people can be so “reckless” when we are all putting
our heart and ego out there. But, I’m not good at giving up and
I hope you aren’t either. Plus, you have the sense of humor to
keep this in perspective.
What can I do to make you feel more comfortable? First, I do
come with references. LOL and I promise not to steal the remote.
I won’t even ask where you live nor become a stalker. LOL
Second, you pick the place and timeframe
that makes it easy… 10 min at the local 7/11??
enough time to eat a great burger?? one drink and one
dance at the local casual bar (lesson free) Timer and batteries
included.
Besides, if you didn’t meet me, wouldn’t you wonder? Did I miss
meeting somebody who DOES get it? and is as nice as she says
she is? How can someone who adores a true Irish twinkle be so
bad? Wow, and she knows how to dance (even lead if necessary)?
Lisa
Isn’t Lisa something? She is handling this situation PERFECTLY, and subsequent emails indicate that George is gingerly taking his fear in hand. They are talking about meeting again.
Here’s the lesson:
Singles pursuing love get scared easily. Expect that fear will crop up, especially when the budding relationship gets ready to take a step forward.
Acknowledge fear (maybe expressed through silence), treat it gently and with humor. You don’t want to stir up still more fear.
Be persistent, though do not become a stalker. If someone tells you a clear “No,” then respect it.
What do a fly in a urinal, an alarm clock that jumps off your bedside stand and dives under your bed, and parking places in Florence have in common? Even better, what do they have to do with your efforts to find love?
The fly, clock, and parking spaces are all examples of the new trendy trend “nudging.” A nudge is a gentle push, or when used as a verb: To push against gently, especially in order to gain attention or give a signal. Nudging is the hottest thing in getting people to make the right choices.
Some bright dude figured out if guys had a target to aim at in a urinal, “spillage” was reduced significantly. Ergo: The fly. A nudge towards aiming better. Take a look.
The clock actually does jump off onto the floor when the alarm goes off, and then proceeds to dash around madly until you get up, chase it, and turn it off. By then you are up. Might as well stay that way.
Parking spaces in downtown Florence, Italy, are the size of Smart cars, so no big vehicles can park there. Ergo: a nudge towards buying Smart cars.
Getting and keeping moving towards finding love can be terribly difficult for singles. Even if you are lonely and miserable, the anxiety of going out and looking for love can keep you stuck in singleness forever. Jumping in the seemingly icy water of dating, Internet or otherwise, can be too much of a shock to contemplate.
So how can you use the concept of nudging to get you and keep you moving in a direction that is likely to find you love?
I use the “slice and dice” method all the time, both with myself and with my clients. “Slice and dice” is chopping up a task into smaller and smaller bits until you can actually do one of the bits – and then another – without distress. Nudging is similar.
What can you do to give yourself a little push in the right direction? Not a big push that would scare you and stop you in your tracks, but just a little push that gets you moving.
Here’s a fabulous gadget, another alarm clock configuration, that would get me moving for sure: the SnuzNLuz Wifi Donation Alarm Clock. You’ve GOT to take a look: http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/snuznluz.shtml You can set the SnuzNLuz to donate to your least favorite charity or organization automatically unless you turn it off beforehand!
Now, we are talking about getting you moving to find love, not waking up in the morning, so how could this alarm clock help? How about if you made a deal with yourself to do something, anything! Or take a particular step each day towards finding love? If you HADN’T done anything that day by 9pm, let’s say, the clock would automatically make your donation.
You set up a similar system without the clock: Write a series of checks to your least favorite organization in an amount that is significant to you, place each one in an addressed envelope, line them up on your desk, and put one in the mail every day you do nothing to find love.
Whether or not you have been using an Internet dating site to find love, a better question than “Why try Internet dating?” is “Why not?”
Yes, online daters experience myriad frustrations. Here are a few that I hear regularly from my clients:
It takes so much time.
I hate all that emailing.
I feel so exposed.
What if my friends/relatives/clients see me on a dating site?
Love should happen naturally, without this kind of effort.
The only people who contact me are jerks/fat/crazy/boring/out for my money/interested only in sex/not interested in sex/ugly/loaded with baggage/scary/liars.
I can’t write about myself.
I don’t have any good pictures.
Any of these sound familiar? Of course, there is some truth in each statement; otherwise, the complaints would not sound so believable. But none of these excuses are good enough reasons not to use the best tool that has come around to help older singles find love – singles over 30, I mean.
The Internet and dating sites are merely tools, good, sophisticated tools, but just tools, nonetheless. You the user have to learn to manipulate the tools to do what you want. If you are not using the tool properly, or haven’t learned how, it’s no surprise that you don’t get the results that you want.
Think of Internet dating sites like specialized telephone directories. Just as everyone with a land-line telephone gets a listing in the local telephone directory, any single with access to a computer and the Internet can sign up to be listed on an Internet dating site.
We all know how marvelously useful telephone books are. I’ll bet it would be hard to find a household without one. If you have a business, you’d be crazy not to have a phone book listing, because that’s where people go to find a plumber or beauty salon or the closest pizza parlor.
Similarly, Internet dating sites are very, very useful. The biggest advantage is that everyone listed is looking for love. Keep in mind how hard it is to tell if someone is looking if you bump into them in the grocery store. On a dating site, you know. And so does everybody else.
But also, think about how much more information you get about an individual who had listed on a dating site, much, much more information than you would get in a Yellow Pages ad. We never think twice about using the Yellow Pages to find a plumber, let’s say. We may ask a friend for recommendations, but we don’t blame the telephone or the directory if the plumber turns out to be a jerk. Nor do we never hire a plumber again. We use our judgment. We simply don’t use that plumber, and we go back to the phone book for another one.
We don’t throw out the phone book or the phone simply because we dialed a wrong number either.
The phone book is full of people who lie, cheat, and you wouldn’t want to marry. But the phone book also contains nice people, great folks, even, and we all know that. We know how to use the phone book as a tool to contact those folks, and we never even notice the listings we wouldn’t be interested in. We skip right over what we don’t want.
Don’t throw out the Internet equivalent of a phone book for singles, simply because you haven’t figured out how to use it to your advantage. Yes, Internet dating sites are much more sophisticated than a telephone directory, and therefore harder to learn how to use effectively, but the principal is the same. Dating sites list hundreds of thousands of singles, 99.9% of whom you will not be interested in. Same with phone books: 99.9% of the listings in the phone book you will never call and never want to. But that .01% you would be VERY interested in, and the phone book/ dating site allows you to find them.
The anger, disgust, disappointment that you may feel about looking for love online is not the fault of the dating site, that is, if you have picked a good, reputable one. Your frustration most probably is that you have not learned how to use the Internet and dating sites to get what you want. Or perhaps, what you want doesn’t exist, so you need to readjust what you are looking for. But the point is, the solution lies in you – and part of that solution may be getting help to learn what you don’t know about making online dating work for you. This is where hiring a coach can really pay off handsomely – just try me.
My client Leslie has been working her way through my book “Find a Sweetheart Soon! Your Love Trip Planner for Women” and also my ecourse “Ten Days to Get Lucky at Love.” She’s a great student and taking to it all like “a fish to water.” After President Obama’s Inauguration, she emailed me the following – I liked her views so much that I asked if I could preprint it here so you could enjoy it too:
On page 16 of “Get Lucky at Love,” you write:
“BTW, women find men who can dance VERY attractive. And a man willing to get out on the dance floor, despite not being perfect, can ask any woman there to dance. And she will probably say ‘Yes.’”
Analytical student-type that I am, I’m looking everywhere for Love Luck and Bright Spots, and I found one in the coverage of the inaugural festivities. What I saw really proves what you say about guys learning to dance—or even trying to dance. Just a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have seen this myself, so thanks a lot for that, too!
Everyone—absolutely everyone—is talking about the new President and First Lady and their first dance. The recap on ABC opened and closed with footage from it. They do look terrific; I think it’s the first time I’ve thought any of our American presidents actually looked romantic. But here’s the thing. President Obama isn’t doing anything all that complicated. People are saying that they “glided” through a “slow, dignified two-step,” but it’s the same left-LEFT, right-RIGHT, three-two-one-spinnn that I remember from high school.
So lesson A: You do not have to know how to move like a professional to look awfully good. You just have to look comfortable and into your partner. People will think you’re attractive even if you’re the President.
Fewer people are talking about the new Vice President’s first dance, but he’s happy to say why. He says he can’t dance. He’ll tell anyone who will stand still long enough to listen. He freely admits stalling so that he won’t have to dance as long. But here’s the thing. The new VP DID dance in front of the assembled company, even if he didn’t think he was good at it. And for double bonus points, he said he might not care much for dancing but he loved being close to his wife.
So lesson B: Willingness will get you almost as far as ability. In some cases, it will get you even farther.
Now, there were doubtless tons of guys at the inaugural balls who couldn’t dance, told their dates they couldn’t dance and then punished themselves and their dates by refusing to dance. I can’t say for sure because no one at all is talking about them.
Which leads us to lesson C: You only lose if you don’t play.
Dance-shy people take notice!
Talk to you Friday,
Leslie
When I was dating online back in 1998, I met a guy who not only was doing online dating, but also “It’s Just Lunch” and several other organized activities. When I asked him why he was doing all those things as well as Match.com, he said his philosophy was to start up as many avenues as possible that might lead to love, the more, the better. While I think that Internet dating is the best thing since sliced bread for singles, I agree that Match.com and the like are not the only shows in town when it comes to finding love. This fellow was right: The more options that you create for finding a partner, the more likely it is that you will find one.
I’ve been interested in the Meetup Group phenomenon for awhile, and last week I met with a woman who is active here in Tallahassee Meetup groups. We actually met because she wants a Romance Coach, but come to find out, she coordinates several Meetup Groups here and has had dates and relationships with men she has met through the Meetup Groups. For those of you who don’t know, here’s the definition of Meetup for Wikipedia:
Meetup.com (also called Meetup) is an online social networking portal that facilitates offline group meetings in various localities around the world. Meetup allows members to find and join groups unified by a common interest, such as politics, books, games, movies, health, pets, careers or hobbies. Users enter their ZIP code (or their city outside the United States) and the topic they want to meet about, and the website helps them arrange a place and time to meet. Topic listings are also available for users who only enter a location.
Meetup has only been around a few years now, really taking off after 2002. Meetup’s became part of the political action in Howard Dean’s campaign, then John Kerry and John Edwards. The grass roots efforts that were so important in getting Barack Obama elected have a strong Meetup flavor.
But Meetup is far more than a political movement. Meetup groups spring up for all kinds of reasons, but basically, they are a way for people to with similar, perhaps obscure, interests to meet when they otherwise would not.
The longer you have been single, the more used to the single state you are and the more likely it is that you will stay that way.
I don’t have any research to back me up on that, but frankly I am pretty sure that is so. Particularly if you have never been coupled (living together for a year or more) or married before at all.
It’s pretty hard in our culture to have managed not to marry at least once by the time you are 35 or 40, if you are heterosexual. The pressures to couple and marry are fierce. In fact, you probably worked a bit to stay uncoupled, either avoiding dating at all, or getting out of developing relationships before committing.
Being and staying single is what you know how to do. Your thoughts and behaviors keep you that way. And you will probably stay single without putting in enormous effort to get different results.
Interestingly, singles are often unaware of what they do that keeps them single.
Most folks have some ambivalence about looking for love. Ambivalence means having thoughts, feelings, or actions that are in contradiction to each other, like love and hate. Because it is hard for us to keep two conflicting thoughts or emotions conscious and in focus, we are often aware of only one side of the ambivalence. Therefore, you may think and believe that you want to find a partner, that you are willing to do anything in order to get one, but you may also be equally unsure or not wanting to give up your single privileges, and you act unconsciously to undermine your best efforts to get what you think you want.
What might you be doing that undermines your finding love?
If you are stumped, take a hop over to my readers’ “50 Ways to BLEEP Your Lover” for a funny take on the question. But I’ve got some serious suggestions that might be indications of ambivalence:
 You do nothing that will move you towards finding love.
You think that love should “just happen” with no effort on your part.
You are always “too busy” in the present and vow to start sometime in the future when you have time. But that time never comes.
Perhaps you are listed on a dating site, but you do not post a photo. Or your profile essay is negative or otherwise poorly written.
You never make the first contact to potential partners.
You are critical of those who contact you.
You do not answer first or later emails promptly, waiting days or weeks to respond.
You complain about how much time Internet dating takes and the poor quality of people on your dating site.
You have long lists of “must have’s” and “deal breakers” that eliminate just about everyone.
Your schedule is so full that it is next to impossible to arrange even a coffee date.
You don’t show up at the first meeting, or you get lost, or you are late, or you change plans multiple times and then complain when your date backs out.
You are negative and critical at you first meeting, complaining about other dates or your ex.
You focus on some small detail that totally turns you off to your date, like he is balding or she is a little heavier than her pictures indicated, or he doesn’t talk easily, or she can’t spell.
You do not express positive interest, even if you are interested, and leave getting in contact again after that meeting to your date.
You consistently are not interested in people who are attracted to you, are reasonably healthy emotionally, and are truly available for a relationship.
You are interested in complicated, artistic, wealthy, elusive, moody, or eccentric people who perhaps are married or otherwise paired, or never married, alcoholic or drug-addicted, unemployed or deviant.
You expect your partner to make your life exciting. But exciting may really be a synonym for scary.
Well, as you probably can guess, I could go on and on. But I am sure you get the picture.
Now, if you keep reading, fair warning: I’m going to spoil it for you. You won’t be able to use your old excuses as reasons why you are single.
You are the reason. The consistent factor in your staying single is you.
And it’s not because you are fat or short or bald or use a cane to get around. Plenty of short, fat, bald, lame people are in relationships or married. The fact that you aren’t one of them is you.
Ugh. That’s the bad news, hard to hear and not easy to deliver, believe me. But there’s good news, too, because if you are the reason you are single, then you can do something about it.
Custom Made Mates
Are you able to buy your clothes off the rack and they fit perfectly? Or do you have as hard a time as I do finding things that fit? I have NEVER been able to get a good fitting pair of jeans. What I learned to do is to buy them too big in the butt and then get out my sewing machine and take in the hips.
Even then, they are not perfect. Frankly, I’d about given up.
Imagine my surprise when I found a website where I could get jeans custom made, and priced so that I didn’t have to take out a loan. Not only could I get my odd dimensions covered in denim, I could pick the particulars, like the color of the denim and the number of pockets. Even better, when the new jeans came in the mail, I found out if they did not fit perfectly, I could get a new, adjusted pair made at no extra cost!
Come on! I’ve got to be kidding, right?
No, I’m not. And I’ll never be jeanless again. I’ve got that site bookmarked.
The Internet is fantastic for finding things like custom made jeans, recipes for Mint Juleps, and now romance. But you know, there’s something about the ability to find what you want online that I think sets singles up to be disappointed. Maybe you have been disappointed, too. Here’s how that happens:
Like with my custom-made jeans, dating sites encourage us to get very specific about what we are looking for, all the factors we think will make a good fit for us as a partner. We can put in the measurements, the religion and race, the location, even down to eye color, of our fantasy date. And then with just a click on “Seach,” magically, we see all those who the perfectly fit our parameters. Maybe.
Many of us have very specific ideas about what we are looking for mate-wise. After all, we have been thinking about Mr. or Ms. Right for a very long time. But here’s the bad news: It’s a fantasy! And our ability to find what we want on the Net (like those custom-made jeans) coupled with the way dating sites work encourage us to think that we will be able to order up exactly the kind of man or woman we want in our heads. And he or she will be perfect, just like our fantasy, right?
Of course, we also have our romantic mythologies, too, that encourage us to believe in Prince or Princess Charming. Do you have a story in your head about how love should go that you compare all your dates to? One guy I coached said “I think if she were the right one I’d be thinking about her all the time and always want to jump her bones.” All the time? What about work, or when you are in the middle of a good book?
Behind the photos, behind the essays, are real people, with flaws and warts, just like you’ve got. If you get too hung up on your perfect fantasy, coupled with the illusion that the Internet and dating sites feed – that your fantasy really exists and that somehow you deserve it – you will be disappointed over and over. It’s a great way to stay single.
Get real and get reasonable about what you are looking for – and what you reasonably will be able to attract – in a partner. Start with a “Must Have, Can’t Stand” list, winnowed down to 10 each (you won’t believe how hard that exercise is!), and then stick to it. Think about the Rolling Stones’song: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need.”
P. S. Haven’t done a “Must Have, Can’t Stand” list? Send me an email and get the exercise by return email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Get a date in 2009! was the lead article in my December 15, 2008, *eMAIL to eMATE*. Yes, the holidays are over for now, except for the one that singles really dread: Valentine’s Day. But the December holidays roll around once a year, and it is good to be prepared. Really, though, what this article is about is how to get yourself moving to find love, no matter what time of the year. If you are stuck, maybe this will help:
Get a date in 2009!
In case you haven’t noticed, we are right in the middle of the winter holidays. For many singles, the holiday season is a sad time. Without a Sweetheart, singles can feel like they are outside in the cold, peering longingly through the window at the happy families around the fire.
Of course we all know that not all families are happy, but many of us sure do wish we could have a chance to try making a family, happy or not.
If you tend to look towards the holidays with dread, you can do something about it. And actually, you can use your sadness to work for you, to spur you on to do something about your situation that you let slide the rest of the year.
While others are working themselves into a frazzle with holiday preparations, too much food, and excess in general, how about taking a little time each day to build a “love trip planner” that will make it more and more likely that you will meet the Sweetheart of your dreams?
This time of year is a great time to start moving towards your goal. Likely you will have some time off, and you could opt out of those miserable parties rather than to go alone.
But then again, what is your goal? That’s your next step: define what you want, as clearly as you can. Write it in big bold letters on bright colored paper and post it all over your house.
Then, get yourself moving by focusing on your discomfort: magnify your sense of aloneness until you feel so uncomfortable that you can’t NOT get moving and change things. Do you really want to go through another holiday season alone and hopeless, and then to see yet another ghastly stretch of gloom next winter? Don’t you just hate that the other side of your bed is empty and cold?
After you have made yourself sufficiently uncomfortable with the present and defined clearly where you want to go, the route to get there becomes more obvious. That doesn’t necessarily mean smooth sailing—it’s all too easy to get thrown off your route.
But you do have a sense of where you are headed and you are readier to get started.
Continue to strengthen these two extremes—how uncomfortable, even miserable, you are in the present, and how much you would like to have what you currently do not. The increasing tension will make it harder and harder to resist getting started.
P. S. If you are really serious—and why wouldn’t you be? – my book “Find a Sweetheart Soon! Your Love Trip Planner for Women” will take you step by step through a process to clear away any stumbling locks that might be in your path to love. Check it out at: http://yourlovetripplanner.com
From my January 1, 2009, *eMAIL to eMATE* You are not a subcriber? Here’s how: http://www.find-a-sweetheart.com/pages/signup_for_newsletter/
Whether or not you have been using an Internet dating site to find love, a better question than “Why try Internet dating?” is “Why not?”
Yes, online daters experience myriad frustrations. Here are a few that I hear regularly from my clients:
It takes so much time.
I hate all that emailing.
I feel so exposed.
What if my friends/relatives/clients see me on a dating site?
Love should happen naturally, without this kind of effort.
The only people who contact me are jerks/fat/crazy/boring/out for my money/interested only in sex/not interested in sex/ugly/loaded with baggage/scary/liars.
I can’t write about myself.
I don’t have any good pictures.
Any of these sound familiar? Of course, there is some truth in each statement; otherwise, the complaints would not sound so believable. But none of these excuses are good enough reasons not to use the best tool that has come around to help older singles find love – singles over 30, I mean.
The Internet and dating sites are merely tools, good, sophisticated tools, but just tools, nonetheless. You the user have to learn to manipulate the tools to do what you want. If you are not using the tool properly, or haven’t learned how, it’s no surprise that you don’t get the results that you want.
Think of Internet dating sites like specialized telephone directories. Just as everyone with a land-line telephone gets a listing in the local telephone directory, any single with access to a computer and the Internet can sign up to be listed on an Internet dating site.
We all know how marvelously useful telephone books are. I’ll bet it would be hard to find a household without one. If you have a business, you’d be crazy not to have a phone book listing, because that’s where people go to find a plumber or beauty salon or the closest pizza parlor.
Similarly, Internet dating sites are very, very useful. The biggest advantage is that everyone listed is looking for love. Keep in mind how hard it is to tell if someone is looking if you bump into them in the grocery store. On a dating site, you know. And so does everybody else.
But also, think about how much more information you get about an individual who had listed on a dating site, much, much more information than you would get in a Yellow Pages ad. We never think twice about using the Yellow Pages to find a plumber, let’s say. We may ask a friend for recommendations, but we don’t blame the telephone or the directory if the plumber turns out to be a jerk. Nor do we never hire a plumber again. We use our judgment. We simply don’t use that plumber, and we go back to the phone book for another one.
We don’t throw out the phone book or the phone simply because we dialed a wrong number either.
The phone book is full of people who lie, cheat, and you wouldn’t want to marry. But the phone book also contains nice people, great folks, even, and we all know that. We know how to use the phone book as a tool to contact those folks, and we never even notice the listings we wouldn’t be interested in. We skip right over what we don’t want.
Don’t throw out the Internet equivalent of a phone book for singles, simply because you haven’t figured out how to use it to your advantage. Yes, Internet dating sites are much more sophisticated than a telephone directory, and therefore harder to learn how to use effectively, but the principal is the same. Dating sites list hundreds of thousands of singles, 99.9% of whom you will not be interested in. Same with phone books: 99.9% of the listings in the phone book you will never call and never want to. But that .01% you would be VERY interested in, and the phone book/ dating site allows you to find them.
The anger, disgust, disappointment that you may feel about looking for love online is not the fault of the dating site, that is, if you have picked a good, reputable one. Your frustration most probably is that you have not learned how to use the Internet and dating sites to get what you want. Or perhaps, what you want doesn’t exist, so you need to readjust what you are looking for. But the point is, the solution lies in you – and part of that solution may be getting help to learn what you don’t know about making online dating work for you. This is where hiring a coach can really pay off handsomely – just try me.
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