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While women can stand in front of the mirror checking their partings are perfectly symmetrical, their eyelashes are an even number and their shoes match their eyeshadow, it’s worth bearing in mind that imperfections can sometimes be the key to turning a downhill directed date into a recipe for success.

My cousin Holly went out on a date once with Henry, who she met on a dating site.  The evening dragged, and although he was a decent chap, she decided he wasn’t for her and called it a day.  She wasn’t particularly disappointed by this as she already had another date lined up for the following evening with Ted, also from the same dating site.  They hit it off really well, and dinner turned into drinks, and as the night was still young, Ted suggested they visit his local bowling alley.

As they walked in, he spotted a friend of his.  “Nice to meet you”. Holly raised her eyes to be greeted with none other than Henry of Yesterday.  Cringe.  No, cringe is just not a powerful enough word to describe this situation. Her cheeks turned boiling red.  You could have fried bacon off her face. Henry quietly explained they were already acquainted. Should she pretend she had a twin sister?  Should she deny she had ever met him and suggest Henry’s milkshake was spiked with a hallucinogenic drug?  There was no obvious exit strategy.

Her body decided for her, as unable to contain the awkwardness, she broke down in hysterical laughter. Soon they were all in fits of laughter.  Ted saw a side of Holly that he liked, a side of her that laughed at life, and did not take herself too seriously, a side that said this lady might just be a keeper.

Coversely my friend Hannah went on a date and accidentally elbowed a bowl of spaghetti into her date’s lap.  He did not see the funny side, and asked her to contribute to the dry cleaning.  She still laughs about it today.  She has no idea if he does.  He’s not in her life anymore, having revealed his inability to take life on the chin and see the comedy in a crotchful of pasta.

Seems that while we spend a lot of time trying to achieve perfection in our dating experiences, we can sometimes forget the value of a gut churning blunder, and forget to appreciate the bonding potential that it brings.

Not being remotely religious, one of the ten commandments may seem like a strange place to extract dating advice, however, the issue of idolatry has to be one of the most plaguing factors in our dating dilemmas. Some worship idols, some find themselves being worshipped, and there are some who simple can’t cope without their pedestal.

Charlie had a pattern that was driving her crazy.  Throughout her life, she had poured blood, sweat, tears and toil into the pursuit of unattainable men.  Whether they be attached men, ambiguous men, addicts, tortured souls unable to sustain a relationship if their lives depended on it, or even celebrities, these were the guys that drove her to distraction.  The men she fruitlessly pursued, though flattered at her idolatry, and pleased to have been put on a pedestal, at the end of the day, couldn’t see her unless they looked down.  She desperately wanted to meet the guy that would sweep her off her feet, yet she would nonchalantly stroll on past the line of interested men at her doorstep, in favour of chasing rainbows. A self defeating prophecy by any standards, and one that was driving her self confidence to the ground she was failing to kept her feet on.

It took Charlie a string of heartbreaks (along with a teenage realisation that it wasn’t going to happen with Johnny Depp) to face the fact that she had developed a mentality that dictated, if you have to bust a gut to attain it, it must be highly valuable.  You got the impression that if any of these men actually became available to her, these idols would soon lose their glittering gold shimmer (OK, maybe not Johnny Depp) and look like base metal. Her epiphany relationship came when she met Josh.  Clearly interested in her, but not forthright enough to have her clasping for her running shoes, and highly forgiving of her initial signs of disinterest, slowly but surely, with him, Charlie decided to face what actually turned out be her fear, her fear of actual real intimacy with an available guy. And this was the turning point that led to Charlie’s relocation to reality.

When we adopt the Indiana Jones dating strategy of making an adventure out of pursuing hard won goals, do we choose the chase over the relationship?  Are we in essence choosing to run towards something, because it hides the fact that we are running away from something else?  That something else being a real, mutually fulfilling, risk taking, vulnerability exposing relationship.

“Do I Look Fat in This?”

Now that’s a question that irked my friend, Adam; a question that was posed by his girlfriend, Jill.  Jill is a beautiful woman, inside and out, and Adam adores her.  But Jill is convinced she looks terrible on a regular basis.

Jill’s routine goes as follows:

• Jill gets dolled up for a night out, with flawless makeup, curly hair, and a dress that would make Carrie Bradshaw proud.
• Jill looks at Adam and says, “Do I look fat in this? My thighs/butt/stomach is/are huge!”
• Adam shakes his head and tells her she looks beautiful.
• Jill changes anyway and spends the rest of the night talking about how she needs to lose weight or change something about her looks.

The thing is, Adam is perfectly cool with her body, and in fact, thinks she always looks great.

Contrary to popular belief, “Do I look fat in this?” is not the phrase men loathe to hear.  The answer to that one isn’t as complicated as a mediocre sitcom makes it out to be: “You look good” will suffice, or even a “It looks fine, but I love you in this other outfit.”
Or, as Ross says in this “Friends” episode: “You don’t look. You just say ‘No.’”

http://youtu.be/emHSO5dr6dk

No, the real thing that drives men up the relationship wall isn’t the question. It’s the implication.  What really gets under Adam’s skin is spending so much time trying to convince someone they look fine only to have them dismiss it.

When a man hears “Do I look fat in this?” again and again, he’s really hearing a woman who doesn’t believe him when he says she’s beautiful.

A lack of self-confidence is a kind of hidden killer of relationships, because it’s not as obvious as being terrible in bed, a lack of chemistry or relationship baggage from an ex.  It simmers like a stew – a stew that tastes great but thinks it tastes bland.  It’s one thing to casually ask how you look. It’s another to not take a guy at his word and make him be your own personal pep squad.

Adam told me he always felt like he was dealing with her confidence issues and never about anything he was worried about.  Eventually, he decided he didn’t want to spend his nights telling someone something they’d never accept.  Have you ever been the one who felt like you weren’t hot enough for your partner, and needed them to support you? Did you ever get to the point where you believed them?  Or were you on the other end, and got tired of validating all the time?

Carrie was smitten.  Ever since she clapped eyes on Cory, she felt her stomach churn into a fluttering butterfly zoo.  She had never felt such instant attraction.  The bassist in a band, Cory was a touring free spirit. He emanated fun, youth and excitement.  And to further amp up the electricity, the sexual chem was clearly a two sided current. However, they had two very different styles of relating to the opposite sex. Cory lived in the moment. The concept of tomorrow never really occurred to him. Carrie on the other hand, though attracted to his libertarian ways, wanted the security of a relationship. But she knew an outright declaration of this would scare him away.

She decided to orchestrate a sleight of hand.  She decided that if she could go along with the casual for long enough, sleep with him, they would naturally bond, and he would arrive at the realisation that she was the one for him.  Each morning, after tossing her hair nonchalantly into a ponytail and strolling airily out of his apartment, Carrie edged nearer to   the realisation that her plan wasn’t really working. From his end there had been no, “do you have to leave?”, “stay for breakfast” or “so, what shall we do for Valentine’s Day?” Eventually, the situation started to chip away at her ego, her insecurities snowballed and she decided to abandon her reverse psychology stance and ask, “where is this going?” She was met with a stunned silence, followed by a “I thought we were cool as we were? I’m not really looking for a girlfriend.”

Carrie felt cheated. She had put her own needs onto the back burner, compromised her comfort levels, and this was all she got in return. After a few rounds of punching her pillow, and three or four viewings of John Tucker Must Die, Carrie had to admit to herself that her rage at him was actually rage at herself.  She had operated from a hidden agenda, and rather than make her needs clear, she had catered to his needs in the hope that he would, in turn, fulfil hers. A bargain he had no part in negotiating.

Do we shy away from declaring our desire for a potential relationship because we fear being rejected for it? Are we afraid to let go of crumbs because we know deep down there was never a loaf to be had? Or is it the fear that if we state our needs clearly, we’ll be left with only men that actually want a relationship, which means the even scarier possibility of actually having one?

Elaine’s crush had a psychiatrist. One he didn’t hire, or even know about. This psychiatrist was Elaine. They had been dating for a couple of months, and in that time Drew The Crush had exhibited some pretty inconsistent behaviour. One minute, he would be staring deep into Elaine’s eyes, professing a connection like no other. The next, he would be forgetting to take calls, and Elaine would arrive dolled up to a date to find a 15 minute old text stating, “Literally swamped in an ocean of paperwork. Make it up to you. Promise.” Rather than throw this man into her Waste of Space basket and shut the lid, Elaine had a better idea. She decided she would dedicate a substantial chunk of her life figuring his psychology out. Using leaflets on abandonment issues, books on attachment phobias and spending hours trawling the internet for behavioural analyses, Elaine transformed herself into an armchair psychologist. The last time I checked, her degree was in Ceramics and not Psychiatry, yet by the time she had finished, she felt she had Drew The Crush pegged, and knew exactly which psychological pigeon hole to place him in.

The problem was, despite having enough psychological insight to write a Drew based thesis, she was still seeing a man who thought about her a mere fraction of the time she thought about him. So, was this chest of knowledge really treasure or trash?

A friend once came up with a theory that she always knew when one of her friends’ relationships were going to work out because she would hear very little analysis about what a text meant, why he hadn’t called and conjectures about his psychological make up. She would hear very little at all in fact, because there was very little to interpret. Was she right? Is working someone out just a way to convince ourselves that their rejection of us is down to a profound psychological malfunction? Is this easier than swallowing the possibility that for whatever reason, they don’t feel like making an effort or investing in the relationship? According to Trina Parham, getting a deep insight into the male perspective is an overestimated factor when it comes to dating, and has very little bearing on dating success:

If we find ourselves spending more time trying to figure our partners out than conducting a relationship with them, would our time be better spent working out why we’re still seeing them?

You’d be hard pressed to find a more virginal citizen of the 21^st Century than Penny.  During college, she stated that she would keep her V plates firmly intact, and save herself for ‘The One’. Her friends admired her rock solid boundaries. Would be lovers, depending on their bitterness levels, either placed her on a sanctified pedestal, or compared her to a certain food cooling kitchen unit. Whatever people’s stance, Penny stuck to her guns. She was adamant that only upon meeting ‘The One’ would she hand over the keys to her most preserved possession: her chastity.

At the tender age of 22, in walked Michael, a deep thinking Phd student. Over picnics, opera viewings, and riverside walks, Penny declared her quest for her male version of the holy grail at an end.  Michael was ‘The One’.  Their love was consummated one evening under the stars, and that was that.  Juliet had found her Romeo.

Years later I caught up with Penny over coffee.  She was still with Michael, and wishing to escape wistfully into someone else’s paradisical world, I asked about their lives. After a long pause, her face fell.  She told me that Michael had been unfaithful twice, and they were working hard to put their relationship back on track. Penny was doing this by organising couples counselling, having long chats, making quality time, and Michael was doing this by agreeing not to move out. Nice. While aching to implore her to cut her losses, and shake her into seeing this guy had transformed into the ultimate douchebag, I could see that Penny was too attached to the notion of ‘The One’ to draw the line. Despite the fact that Michael’s idea of ‘The One’ meant, one for Saturday, one for late work nights, and one to clean and cook, this did not prise her away from placing all her eggs in one pretty shoddy basket, and though there were many better baskets available, her eggs were staying put.

It begged me to question whether this age old notion of ‘The One’ is actually less self preserving and more self sabotaging.  Does it lead us to discard our boundaries and make allowances for deal breaking behaviour? According to Debra Berndt, healthy love comes with boundaries fully installed:

When we afford someone ‘The One’ status, are we affording someone unconditional love at the expense of loving ourselves unconditionally? Should ‘The One’ status actually be preserved for the one person we know will be on our side through thick and thin? Ourselves?

Caitlin was mortified.  The reason?  The guy she had been seeing for the past few months had tarred her with the one of dating’s more humiliating brushes. She had been tarred as needy.  Over breakfast, we all bit on our fists as we prepared ourselves for the embarrassing story to unfold.  Preparing for a tale of Fatal Attraction proportions, we all feared the worst.  What came was slightly anti climactic.  “I asked him if he was still seeing other women”.  Oh. “He told me to stop being so needy”.  Hmm. “I think I blew it”.  Right. Was it my imagination or was Caitlin’s question to her beau residing in the field of …. perfectly rational?

Neediness, in both men and women, as a characteristic, is a well known source of ridicule, embarrassment and fear:

Feeling like you have to constantly be there to prop someone else’s ego up is draining at the best of times, and we have all borne witness to incidents of partners carpet bombing their wearier halves with texts, emails, phone calls, pigeons and every other form of communication at one’s disposal.  But is asking whether a relationship is exclusive or not a needy crime?  Is asking whether someone is looking for a potential relationship a needy crime? Is expecting someone to be interested in the potential of a relationship before you sleep with them a needy crime?  More than once I’ve heard people use the phrase, “Don’t worry.  I’m not expecting a relationship” as if to ease the other person’s mind, or to appear uber cool, and low maintenance. I’ve felt that pressure myself, and realised that not honouring my needs, even if they’re at odds with the other person’s, has never led to anything other than heartache.

My cousin Martin threw another perspective into the mix.  He announced that if he felt his wife Sue didn’t need him, the relationship would fall apart. Even in such simple terms as fixing a fence, or massaging her stresses away, all these things made Martin feel needed, and like The Don in his world.

It could be that we have an overactive pride-o-meter, but being branded ‘needy’ can produce heart palpitations of shame. And both sides of the gender fence can attest to the fact that feeling responsible for someone else’s self esteem can turn the attraction stakes to Power Level 0. However, is the word needy too often used to fend off the fact that sometimes men and women have perfectly reasonable, perfectly understandable, and perfectly natural needs?

Theresa was drowning in regret. The man who invaded her dreams, the man who had induced in her multiple inner swoons as soon as she clapped eyes on him, the man unlike any other male creature walking the Earth had turned out to be a sleazy, non calling the next day player.  Ouch. Double ouch when she realised she was one of many ‘victims’, and he had in fact seduced two of our other friends the same week.  Triple ouch that she had tried to send a friendly text only to be greeted with stone walled silence, and quadruple ouch when she came to hear how his friends had been treated to every single detail. “I wish I could turn back the clocks” she lamented. “I’m just a number”. As I considered and related to her cringe factor, it got me thinking, there wasn’t one of our group of friends who hadn’t, at some point, suffered at the hands of a creep ridden player.  However, were any of us ‘victims’? I looked around the room, and thought, despite the occasional bout of misjudged idiocy, we were a pretty rock solid bunch.

Recently airing was web based comedy “Dating Rules From My Future Self”, which features a girl who receives advice from the future, via text, to stop her from making mistakes in her love life.

It got me thinking, would I rather cringe about something I had done, or regret something I hadn’t? I asked myself, if I was given the option to improve my love life by heeding warning texts from my future self, would I opt to receive these nuggets of foresight? After much debate, I’d like to think the answer would have to be no. I would rather not know and experience the full on cringe. And that includes incidents high on the cringe richter scale, such as the love letter I sent to my teacher, and being rejected by my piano teacher, and still having to take lessons. Looking back, there isn’t a single dating mistake I can recount that hasn’t in the long run improved my judgement when it comes to future relationships.

Theresa’s experience happened in college.  Since then, she met and married a wonderful man, who wasn’t the alpha, hunter type she used to go for, but the open, sensitive type who made a great husband, and fantastic Dad to their two year old daughter. I wonder if close encounters with the wrong kind is necessary to re-jigging our tastes in men, and preparing us to embrace the kind of men that actually deserve a place in our future.

It used to be so simple. Painful, of course, but simple at least. He sent his buddy to break up with you (if you were in grade school), or he did it over the phone. Now the possibilities for breakups are almost endless. IM, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Text, Email… It seems the more connected we are these days, the easier it is to avoid the uncomfortable breakup by hiding behind these technologies.

Drew Barrymore said it best.

Men and women alike are using these technologies to send the message “I’m just not that into you!” But have we gone too far? Are we eroding all sense of courtesy and responsibility by employing these tactics?

I had a friend who was de-friended on Facebook – that was the first inkling he had that she wasn’t seeing him anymore. Ouch. But perhaps it says more about her than it does him. They had been seeing other for about 6 weeks. Surely she could have braved a conversation, or perhaps a less cowardly text message. Wow. I never thought I’d hear myself say that a text message is less cowardly.

Facebook leads to the demise of countless relationships. Pictures, status updates and wall posts from the wrong person can lead to jealousy and lack of trust. Like my friend, it’s even possible to find out you’ve been dumped just by logging onto Facebook! A text is bad, but breaking up with someone on a social network – that’s like making an announcement about it to everyone you know. It’s humiliating! Not to mention you were probably the last to know.

Will we get to a point where I will think a Facebook de-friend is preferable to something else? Where does the degradation end?

For anyone who watched last season of the Bachelor, I’m sure you remember runner-up, Lindzi Cox. On the show, Lindzi shared with viewers that prior to coming on the Bachelor, she was dumped by a text message sent by her (now ex) boyfriend of about a year! The text read: “Welcome to Dumpsville…population YOU!” Lindzi said that the Dumpsville text was worse than being dumped on national TV.

It’s not about the method of technology used (they’re all bad), but the message being sent. Using technology to breakup with someone is like saying ‘our relationship meant nothing to me, so little in fact it’s not worth my time to talk about it, so I’m going to send you a one sentence text and then move on with my life.’ It’s harsh, I know.

When technology is used to end a relationship, there is no sense of closure. Julia, a friend of mine, was dumped via text message. She called her ex to try and get some answers, but he labeled her as a stalker and told all of his friends she was crazy.  She’s not crazy; she just wanted a straightforward answer. To this day she doesn’t understand what went wrong in that relationship.

It’s common courtesy people!  Breakups are uncomfortable, awkward and painful for everyone involved, but having an adult conversation is still the best way to do it. With a deep breath and little bit of confidence (and maybe some rehearsing) you’ll get through it. In the end, you’ll still have your dignity and your ex will— in time, respect you for it.

Note: This is a guest post by WeLoveDates

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just about looks.

What you’re NOT wearing. 

What women wear can tell a guy a lot about them, but what they aren’t wearing says even more.  When you walk into a room, what you don’t have on is just as important as what you do. Of course, it’s all assumptions, but that’s what first impressions are all about.  A guy will do a quick scan when he see’s a woman he finds attractive, making sure you aren’t wearing the obvious things like a wedding ring, but that’s not all that he will base his initial judgments on. He might notice that you aren’t wearing any makeup, and he’ll assume that you are laid back and low maintenance, perfectly comfortable in your own skin…even though the  truth is that you just rolled out of bed to grab a coffee and you never like leaving the house without a full face on.  Or maybe he notices that you are overdressed, wearing heels in a sea of flip-flops, and wrongly assumes that you must be super high maintenance…when in actuality, you have dinner plans later that caused you to dress up a bit more than usual.

How you treat the people around you.

Women always talk about how one of the biggest red flags when dating is if a guy is rude to a server, bartender or valet.  But the same goes for women, except it doesn’t just apply to those in the service industry. Men are looking to see how you treat the people you’re with, and the people you’re not with.  Women have a bad reputation of being a bit catty, especially when there are other attractive women in their midst.  Do you roll your eyes at someone’s outfit, or appear standoffish in situations when you’re a bit uncomfortable?  Above all, men are attracted to women who won’t be full of drama, so if a guy notices that you’re easy to get along with and not easily threatened, he’ll assume that you’re easy-going and therefore be more likely to approach you.

Your energy and confidence.

You know how some women breeze into a room and it’s actually more like a tornado-they have so.much.energy!  Maybe they talk a mile a minute, and seem like they take over the place with their intense personalities.  Or how other women fly under the radar, not desperate to be the center of attention-quite the opposite actually.  They are subtle and demand attention in their own way.  One personality type isn’t better than the other.  What’s crucial is that the way you act in public is a correct reflection of what kind of person you are, and no matter what you do you with the utmost confidence.  Trying to be someone you’re not might work initially, but if you’re hoping to meet someone for the long-term, he’ll eventually get to see your true colors.  If you’re hyper, rock it.  If you’re shy and reserved, own it.  Do you-nobody does it better.

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