Category: Dating for Men

  • The Ten Commandments of Modern Dating

    Last Sunday was Mother’s Day, which reminded me of the Ten Commandments.

    That’s because there’s only one measly commandment telling you what to do: ‘honor thy father and thy mother.’ The remaining nine are a relentless barrage of ‘thou shalt nots’, telling you what not to do.

    So if you were to follow them to the letter, then every day is Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day), since all you can do is sit in a corner calling mom and telling her how great her tuna casserole is. Unless it’s Saturday, in which case you probably aren’t allowed to do that either. And don’t even think of casually saying hi to a graven image, or worse, coveting your neighbor’s oxen.

    So for somebody living in 2009, that Decalogue ain’t all that useful.

    At the same time, perhaps there is another realm in which a barrage of negative directives would be useful. Some area in which people are hopelessly, repeatedly, incorrigibly screwing up their own chances.

    Ah yes — that would be dating.

    I’ve been on the receiving end of enough stories from men and women to notice some consistent patterns of self-sabotage in the mating dance. The good news is that once you know about them, these behaviors are entirely avoidable. Call them the Dating Decalogue, the Ten Commandments of Modern Mating or just common sense — here they are:

    1) Thou shalt not flake.

    If you like your date at all, it’s crucial that you show up — especially to your first appointment. Besides being tremendously deflating to your date when you cancel, there’s an even deeper reason that has nothing to do with your date and everything to do with you.

    Psychologists have found that humans have a perverse tendency to align their thoughts with their actions to avoid cognitive dissonance.

    So when you cancel a date or stand someone up even accidentally, something in the back of your head says, (more…)

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  • Dating: The easy way to make difficult requests

    This reader brings up a great question:

    Hi! Alex,
    I have been enjoying your autoresponder updates.  Thank you!  I am grateful that my friend told me about you!

    My question is:

    When a man uses vulgar language (mainly the “f” word) around me (and we are just getting to know one another), how do I let him know that I would rather not hear that? Sure, I have heard the word a lot in life (I am 56) and even said it myself a few times (usually softly when no one’s around!), but I feel uncomfortable when a guy uses it in front of me…

    Thanks and blessings! Maureen from Seattle

    Well well.  This is a universal issue, isn’t it.  How do we ask for what we want when it can potentially offend the person we’re asking?  It also comes up when giving unsolicited (but direly needed) advice: for example, how do you tell someone he or she has bad breath?  Or that her boyfriend is a loser and she needs to dump him pronto?

    There are a few motives here working at cross-purposes.  One is genuine concern for the friend.  Second (a corollary to the first) is not wanting to hurt the friend’s feelings.  And the third is to get some relief for yourself.

    First of all, I’d like to bring to your attention that of the three motives listed above, only one really matters: your genuine concern for your friend.  Number two, namely not wanting to hurt the friend’s feelings, is still part of the fact that you care.

    Forget about relief for yourself and instead frame it thus: “If this person continues to have raging halitosis, (more…)

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  • The Four Phases of Confidence

    Today I want to talk a little bit about confidence.  It’s probably more a yang (masculine) quality than a yin (feminine) one.  But I’ll just assume it’s of general interest and address both the men and the women.

    First of all, what the heck is confidence?  It’s what linguists call a nominalization – basically a noun that stands in for a bunch of verbs.

    Whenever you have a nominalization, you get confusion.  Because each one of us defines that nominalization in our own special way.  So words like ‘confidence’, ‘courage’ and ‘understanding’ effectively have 6.5 billion definitions.

    So however you define confidence, let’s agree on this much: it doesn’t exist.  At least not in the traditional sense of existing.

    You can’t put it in a wheelbarrow, and you can’t pinpoint its location in your brain in a PET scan.  Not even those fancy, souped up fMRI scans can find it.

    It’s a state of mind — some mixture of willingness and self-possession.  It’s a catalyst to action but not action itself.  Whatever it is, like porn, we know it when we see it.

    Our discussion today is mostly about social confidence, but it’s applicable to any other kind of confidence that matters to you.

    There are four kinds of confidence.  The first kind I’ll call unconscious confidence.

    This is a bit like ‘unconscious incompetence’, the first phase of learning, except that you’re not incompetent – you’re SUPER-competent!

    This is the fearless confidence of kids. They’ll go up to any stranger and engage in conversation.  They’ll say “I love you” within minutes of meeting you.  They just don’t know any better than to be outrageous and outgoing and do their heart’s desire.

    Gradually, through the teachings of parents and culture, they learn that it’s not okay to (more…)

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  • Book Review: “The Love Response” by Eva Selhub

    I had the pleasure of meeting Dr Eva at a conference here in LA last month where she was speaking.  As is my habit with all readings, I purchased her book and had her sign it (gotta support your friendly neighborhood fellow author, y’know).

    At the time, my reading queue was over 30 deep, and I didn’t think I would get around to Dr Eva’s book, The Love Response, for a while.  But the premise was so compelling and close to my heart – subtitle: “Neutralize the physical effects of stress; turn off anger fear and anxiety; restore balance and well-being” – that I found myself cracking it open.  I’m all about bringing together the holistic and the scientific, the spirit and the body, so this was right up my alley.  In two days, I had read it cover to cover.

    Let me tell you that this is a magnificent and supremely timely book.  First off, Dr Eva has sterling credentials: medical director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, clinical instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and founder of Alight Center for Healing in Newton, MA.

    What I love about this book is how Dr Eva has seamlessly blended together (more…)

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  • Teleseminar TONIGHT: ‘Smart, Meet Heart’

    The teleseminar I’m holding tonight, Thursday 19 March 2009, will elaborate on the concepts from the previous post. It’s free to join us on the call, although there’s only room for 200 listeners, so call in early:

    Date: Thu 19 March 2009
    Time: 6pm PDT/9pm EDT
    Duration: about 60min
    Call-in #: 218 486 1300
    Access code: 667202

    It’s totally, completely and utterly free.  We’ll have some live Q&A time, so lob ’em at me, baby.

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  • Smart, Meet Heart: 5 Remedies for (Smart) People’s Dating Woes

    Some of you, my astute readers, already noticed that the dating challenges enumerated in the last article – focusing on careers instead of relationships, expecting to be loved for the wrong reasons, not acting like a sexual being, self-sabotaging and ego identity – are not just specific to smart people.  They’re specific to people.  Smart, successful folks simply get a little extra wallop of them.

    Well, that’s nice, you say. Now what are we going to do about it, doc?

    So glad you asked.  Let’s take them one-by-one:

    1) Make meaningful connection to other human beings a priority.

    In Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, a rich Russian judge finds himself on his deathbed at age 45.  He’s spent his whole life doing the ‘right’ things – the right education, job, marriage, neighborhood, social circles.  Yet, on the brink of death, he realizes that his life has been (more…)

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  • Why the smartest people have the toughest time dating

    I have a mini-confession to make: I wrote the Tao of Dating books specifically for really smart people (both women and men).  The writing of the books was precipitated by the endemic dating woes on the Harvard campus, as I observed them as an advisor and, earlier, wallowed in them as a student.

    Those kids graduate and pretty much continue to have the same dating woes — only now with fewer single people around living in the same building and sharing meals with them every day.  So if they had challenges then, it gets about 1000 times worse once they’re expelled from the warm womb of alma mater.

    From my observations, the following dating challenges are common to most smart people.  In fact, the smarter you are, the more clueless you will be, and the more problems you’re going to have in your dating life.

    On the one hand, this makes (more…)

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  • Dating: Why dinner dates suck as a first date

    Earlier this week I was having a conversation with a friend about how dinner dates are probably one of the worst ways of getting to know someone.  It’s basic stuff, but well worth repeating, because, well, people seem to keep on having these dinner dates. Much of what I write here concerns the loftier aspects of the self and deep connection and all that good stuff.  At the same time, remember that this real-world stuff about where the pogo stick hits the asphalt matters, too.

    So let me make it clear: if a couple got together after a first date that involved dinner, it happened in spite of the date, not because of it.  You heard it here first.  Here are some reasons why.

    1) The seating arrangement promotes discomfort.

    Think about it: at what other time in your life are you face-to-face with a stranger (more…)

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  • Marianne Williamson on Divine Partnership

    Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Marianne Williamson on ‘Divine Partnership’ here in Los Angeles. In it, she elaborated on many useful ideas from A Course in Miracles applicable to dating and relationships.

    For those of you who are not familiar with her work yet, she possesses one of the most lucid voices in contemporary spirituality.  Her 1992 book A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles” is a modern spiritual classic.  There’s a famous quote of hers — often misattributed to Nelson Mandela who read it at his inauguration — that starts, “Our greatest fear isn’t that we are inadequate.  Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that (more…)

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  • Dating: How to Make Valentine’s Day a WIN for You

    I don’t think there’s any holiday on the American calendar quite so disdained and reviled as Valentine’s Day.

    I mean, how many times have you heard of an ‘anti-Christmas party’?  “Down with this fat guy who never brings me stuff I want!  It’s all commercialized kitsch, nobody knows when the dude was born, and it’s supposed to be a pagan solstice celebration with much drunken nakedness anyway!” (Hmm — come to think of it, maybe I will throw an anti-Christmas party next year.)

    And you sure don’t have Ingratitude dinners with quirky relatives, or Forgetfulness Day (“I know I’m supposed to celebrate something…”).

    And yet anti-Valentine’s Day parties and anti-V sentiments abound.  As well they should: this Hallmark holiday puts everyone in a no-win bind.  If you’re already attached, now there’s some kind of imperative to “do something nice” with or for your honey.  Many a nascent relationship was blown to smithereens because someone did or didn’t do something for V-day.  Imagine if you just met someone last week — NOW what do you do?

    And if you’re not attached — congratulations, you’re now officially a chump on The Day of Loooove since you got no one to hang with.

    Or are you? (more…)

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  • Dating for Men: The Art & Science of 3D Super-Attraction

    Recently I had the pleasure of reading a very interesting book on the inner workings of the human mind.

    It’s by Jonathan Haidt, and it’s called The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. If you’re fascinated by the science behind how humans tick and how it relates to ancient wisdom, I highly recommend that you read this book.

    Haidt mentions that in all cultures, human societies have been organized along two dimensions: hierarchy and closeness/liking. Call one the x-axis, the other the y-axis.

    Hierarchy is simple enough: people have status according to their power, title, wealth or fame.

    And closeness — what I will call kinship — is also straightforward. Society is organized according to friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances and strangers.

    Haidt then introduces a third dimension: a dimension of the divine. All cultures seem to recognize some things as nobler, purer and more divine, and other things as profane and impure. (more…)

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  • Dating for Men: What to do when you’re stuck in a bar

    Hi Dr. Alex,
    I was in a long-term relationship not too long ago. Now that I am over it, I would like to continue dating like I was, when I was younger… I have recently started college at a new University, so I don’t know too many women. I addition to that, it seems like the only plausible time for me to meet someone is when I am out with friends, and we usually end up at the bar. So, I was curious if you could give me any advice for a non-traditional student that lives off campus, and for a guy that’s trying to meet women in bars. I know that you said a bar is low on the CCC, but thats usually where I go when I am with friends. Oh, and I just started school, I was in the military for a few years. Thanks in advance.
    Jason

    Jason–
    Thanks for writing in. Well, you’re very well positioned because you’re pretty young, and you’ve gotten a hold of this material early on. You’ve got all the time in the world! In the meantime, if bars are where you end up, no worries — when the world gives you lemons, make lemonade.

    Bars are an outstanding place to practice the principles, and since you already know it’s not the best place to make a connection, you’re not too worried about success or failure. So you can practice with total abandon and detachment from results, which paradoxically should make your results go through the roof. Treat it as an arena to hone your skills, and you’ll do brilliantly.

    By the way, the Three C’s Jason refers to are the three criteria for an optimal venue for meeting women, as they appear in Chapter 6 of The Tao of Dating (available at www.thetaoofdating.com/order). The Three C’s are:

    — Conversation-friendliness: speech is your most effective way of conveying information, and you want to be in a place where you can hear and be heard without extra effort
    — Continuity: ideally, people are going to stick around for a little while in this place, or even better, return to it regularly (e.g. think evening class)
    — Community: there’s a reason for all of you to be there. The more specific the reason, the better, because the more you’ll have in common just by virtue of being there.

    Best,
    Dr Alex

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    Categories: Dating for Men