Greetings from Austin. I decided to attend the SXSW Interactive Fest at the last minute, and I gotta tell ya – it’s fascinating stuff. I’ll be blogging periodically from the events and sending updates on talks and my whereabouts via Twitter: @dralexbenzer. Find me if you’re here!
This is a great point, and a challenge particular to all the smart women out there. It’s a little bit like the issue tall women experience: many guys are simply uncomfortable being shorter than their mate. The fact is that the tall women themselves aren’t usually hung up on that — it’s the guys who take themselves out of the running. In the end, the guy you want to be with will be so comfortable in his own skin such that all this will be a non-issue.
More on Relationships
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of ‘Eat Pray Love’, gave a TED talk about genius which I really liked (www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html). She said that it’s not about *being* a genius, but rather about each of us *having* a genius, in the original Latin sense of the word. There is greatness within each one of us which is worth nurturing. It’s an inclusive and life-affirming message, and one we would do well to propagate.
The power is within you,
Dr Alex
http://www.taoofdating.com
More on Relationships
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
RHR —
Please do not ever dumb it down, under any circumstance. There are legions of men who love you because of your eloquence and intellect, and it would be a crime to deprive the world of your gift.
Settling means giving up what truly matters to you and enriches your life for something that doesn’t. That’s just not a path to fulfillment.
The point is to be very clear on what really matters — and what doesn’t. Once you start having too many requirements, then you start being in self-imposed loneliness. Practice keeping your heart open just to make sure you remember how, but if there isn’t someone who meets your minimum requirements, then it’s perfectly okay to spend some time with yourself. I mean, you are pretty good company, right?
More on Relationships
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The Tao of Dating is getting ready for prime time with our first article up on The Huffington Post. Check it out there, and if you like it, Digg it, spread the word via Facebook, and post a comment:
I have a mini-confession to make: I wrote the Tao of Dating books specifically for really smart people. 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, indulged 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 who happen to live in the same building and share meals with them every day. So if they had challenges then, it gets about 1000 times worse once they’re tossed from the warm womb of alma mater.
From my observations, the following dating challenges seem to be 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. Once upon a day I used to be pretty smart, and believe me, I had a lock on clueless.
On the one hand, this makes no sense. Smart people can figure stuff out, right? And this stuff is simple!
On the other hand, it makes total sense. For simple things, it takes someone smart to really screw it up…
Continue here on The Huffington Post.
Today I want to talk about how being discriminating in dating can make you more successful in dating.
Before I start, I want to follow up on the story from the last article about my friend Aaron.
Remember how when he asked out this really attractive young woman, she immediately reeled off the names of the 4 most expensive restaurants in town?
Remember how I told you that it was a sign of trouble?
Well, let me tell you what happened on that date.
Contrary to my advice, my friend Aaron agreed to go on the date. And also agreed to go to one of the restaurants she named.
He also did not use my little formula for turning around the expensive taste of the young lady on herself by saying something like this: (more…)
This is the first post by The Phoenix as part of The Tao of Dating Experiment. We’ll be putting up her posts here; you can also follow her postings at taoofdatingexperiment.blogspot.com.
–noun
1. a mythical bird of great beauty fabled to live 500 or 600 years in the Arabian wilderness, to burn itself on a funeral pyre, and to rise from its ashes in the freshness of youth and live through another cycle of years: often an emblem of immortality or of reborn idealism or hope.
2. a person or thing of peerless beauty or excellence; paragon.
3. a person or thing that has become renewed or restored after suffering calamity or apparent annihilation.
How did I get here? Odds are I’m probably a lot like you or someone you know. Female, early 30’s, reside in Los Angeles, California. I think most would consider me reasonably successful given my age (more…)
Just wanted all the ladies (and curious men) out there know that the Tao of Dating Experiment for Women has officially kicked off.
One of my friends here in Los Angeles volunteered (completely unbidden) to test out the principles in the book and to document, via blog, how it affects her life in the dating realm and beyond. She is a professional in her early thirties, successful, smart, quite attractive and single — in other words, precisely the kind of person The Tao of Dating is intended for.
I just handed her the text and audiobook, so the experiment begins right about now. One of the ground rules is that I am not to give her too much extra coaching other than that which she receives through the blog and the email coaching that comes as part of the course.
She’s fiercely independent and brutally honest, so I didn’t have to ask for an extra dose of that. She’s doing this completely anonymously (except for me and a couple of close friends), which has made for some frank discussion so far.
If the whole thing comes out pear-shaped, it’ll be here for the whole world to witness. Oh joy. The good news is that you’re bound to learn a lot about the Tao of Dating course through her writings and my comments. Join us for the adventure as Phoenix (her pen name) learns to fly again.
This is a reader’s response to the article “How to decipher what men really mean: principles for handling casual relationships.” If you haven’t read it yet, no big deal, but it’s available via the newsletter, which you can subscribe to in the left-hand box over there <–
Dear Dr. Benzer,
Some helpful and thought-provoking points below. I’m very impressed. I’ve written a few questions in response. Sorta rhetorical but if you have any thoughts, I’d be very interested to hear them….
You say “Now it’s possible that your long-term fulfillment is in having a committed relationship with a man that’s heading towards marriage.”If fulfillment is a feeling, not an idea, then how do know an idea will really fulfill you – if you’ve never felt it?
Let’s say that filet mignon is marriage, or a committed relationship. How do you know that filet mignon is right for you? You can deduce that you might enjoy it, based on the precedent set by your species in the form of millions of happily married or committed couples eating filet mignon, but until you’ve finally chomped down into that first supposedly succulent bite, how can you know if if that’s what you should be aiming for? I *think* I am very happy eating my Independence-flavored ice cream. BUT it’s hard to fully enjoy it when society tells me I should be trying to get myself some filet mignon.
You also say “But if you *are* cool with dating around and having fun, then go ahead and be cool with it.”
Dating around – traditionally, women aren’t supposed to date/sleep around just for fun. Society tells me, my religion has told me, health reasons tell me, and therefore I tell myself, that I will be a lesser woman if I do this. If you’re going to be marched through the fiery gates of hell for something, best to avoid it. If you’re going to die a miserably death from an STD, best avoid it. If you’re going to be talked about in hushed, sympathetic voices by your friends for being single the rest of your life, best avoid it.
How do I get to a point where I’m ‘cool’ with just dating (does this mean ‘sleeping’ ?) around, when my sources tell me I should want otherwise? I recently ruined a relationship and scared the guy away by trying to force commitment before we were ready for it – I knew we weren’t ready for it, but I asked for exclusivity because that’s what I felt I should do (or…maybe it’s really what I wanted but I don’t want to admit that to myself). In reality, it shouldn’t have mattered – we were both quite enjoying the ice cream…and I ruined the flavor with talk of filet mignon.
– Suzie E. from D.C.
Well, Suzie. Thanks for writing in. Your letter brings up a lot of questions, and I’ll see if I can address each one individually.
You say “Now it’s possible that your long-term fulfillment is in having a committed relationship with a man that’s heading towards marriage.”
If fulfillment is a feeling, not an idea, then how do know an idea will really fulfill you – if you’ve never felt it?
Suzie, that’s very well put, and exactly the point. The only guide for fulfillment is how you feel. Things like companionship, warmth, love, someone to cuddle with, someone to share brunch with — these evoke fulfillment-related feelings. They’re a little different for each person. As the passage said, it’s possible that a long-term committed relationship is fulfilling for you. It’s also possible that it’s not. Find out what works for you. (more…)