12 Fun Facts About Dating

Here are 12 random facts about dating that I found interesting. Hope you do, too!

1. According to member statistics at Match.com, 44% of its members in the U.S. have children. Additionally, 92% of single parents would rather date other single parents. (Janis Spindel, matchmaker) 

2. If men are having a difficult time deciding what to wear on a date, they might want to choose something blue. Studies show that women are attracted to men in blue. (from “How To Pick Up, Seduce, and Hook Up With Hot Women”) 

3. Here’s a statistic from N.C. Warren in “Falling in Love for All the Right Reasons.” 33% of online daters form a relationship; 33% do not; and 33% give up. 

4. Mirroring, or repeating someone’s body language, often impresses a date because it subtly conveys interest to the other person, although copying every move is a little bit over the top. (from “Flirtology: Over 100 Ways To Release Your Inner Flirt”) 

5. Choosing exciting places for a first date increases the chances of the other person falling for you. There is a definitive link between danger and physical and/or romantic attraction.(from “Flirtology: Over 100 Ways To Release Your Inner Flirt”) 

6. Worst places to go on first date include fast-food restaurants, your kids’ birthday party or school play, your parents’ house, strip clubs, X-rated films or swingers parties, a party where your ex will be, church activities, or window shopping. (from “Flirtology: Over 100 Ways To Release Your Inner Flirt”) 

Offering you the world.

7. In American society, when a man offers his date his palm face up, he is most likely deeply attracted to the woman. In fact, a human’s brain is wired to respond to hand gestures and hand shapes, though the brain’s response depends on the man or woman’s culture and ethnicity. (Steve Santagati, in “The MANual”)

8. Body language studies show that revealing areas of the body that aren’t usually on display (such as the inner wrist, the inside of the upper arm, ankles, feet, inside calf muscle, and the nape of the neck) has an immediate effect on a date and shows an instant liking. (from “Flirtology: Over 100 Ways To Release Your Inner Flirt”) 

9. Depending on the type of women a man would like to meet, he should visit that type of clothing store. For example, if a man likes “outdoorsy” women, he should go to an outdoor clothing store. (Steve Santagati, in “The MANual”) 

10. Men, here’s how to read a woman’s body language. If a woman is interested in her date, she will often smile at his jokes, play with her hair, fidget with an object such as a glass, blush when he pays her a compliment, pout or pucker her mouth, stumble over words, or lean in towards him. Signs that a woman is not interested in her date include avoiding eye contact, faking a smile or not smiling, leaning away, answering in monosyllables, sagging her shoulders, looking at her watch, tapping her foot, or staring blankly. (Victoria Zdrock in “How To Pick Up, Seduce, and Hook Up With Hot Women”) 

11. If a group of women are standing together but their eyes are wandering, they are likely to be looking for guys. If they each take a turn to break away from the group to head to the bathroom alone, they are on the prowl. If they are huddled together giggling, they are usually not interested in finding men. (Dushan Zaricc and Jason Kosmos in "You Didn’t Hear It From Us: Two Bartenders Serve Women the Truth about Men, Making an Impression, and Getting What You Want") 

12. Dating specialists suggest that if a woman doesn’t return a call after two messages, she is not interested. (Victoria Zdrock in “How To Pick Up, Seduce, and Hook Up With Hot Women”)

Of course, as with all things, use your own discernment on which of these "facts" you believe and incorporate into your life.

Relationships 101

There’s no shortage of books on how to find the partner of your dreams and how to have a good relationship. I, myself, am guilty of writing many books on this subject. 

Each author believes he or she has “the answer.” In truth, there are many answers because what may work for one person may not work for another. I suggest you treat the array of advice as a smorgesboard and choose the pieces that fit with your life and your circumstances. 

That said, what do you think is at the root of the myriad of problems encountered in the course of a relationship? 

In my book on teen pregnancy prevention, I put forth the idea that at the root of the problem is that children aren’t taught relationship basics. With so many broken families, there is a lack of role models for both boys and girls, and children don’t get to observe how a loving relationship works. Often children go looking to fill the void left by the missing parent. However, they haven’t observed or been taught about love so, very often, they confuse physical contact with real love. 

I believe society is missing the boat by not teaching “Relationships 101” at the middle school level. It is here, and even earlier, that misconceptions begin about love, relationships, bad boys, good guys, etc. 

This might be an extreme example, but compare this to the situation in the Middle East where children are taught to be suicide bombers as a way of showing allegiance to a higher power and to strike against those who hold a different belief system. Just as it’s imperative to educate the youth of the world so these ways of thinking will not be perpetuated, it’s also important to correct misconceptions about all that a relationship entails. 

Girls and boys need to be taught what is acceptable and appropriate behavior, for example, the idea of “control” has no place in a healthy relationship. Accordingly, trying to change someone into who you think you want him/her to be is a relationship killer. That's not to say you don't compromise with each other. 

Couples naturally tend to start acting like each other anyway, if they have a healthy relationship. The question to ask is, "If you want to change someone so much, then why are you with him/her in the first place?"   

Truthfully, I think one way to have a good relationship is to close your eyes half the time. It's hard to live with someone else, even if you love them to pieces. We all have different ways of doing things, and if you were with your clone, one of you would be unnecessary! 

I say keep the good stuff in the forefront of your brain and let the rest fall away. You have to fall in love with your partner EVERY DAY! 

And, if you're still looking for love, I urge you to look for it in the right ways so you can find the right person. It gets me upset when I hear many women lament that there are no nice guys out there. I say that it's possible they have done a good job at pushing the nice ones away by dismissing them for their lack of looks, money, risk taking attitude, or some other reason. 

This is part of my mission with my books and speaking engagements. I hope to teach people about relationship tenets. Really, my basic theory is pretty simple: you just need to be nice to each other. Nice, although a benign word, goes a really long way in every day life!

The Shift in Gender Roles

The way a pendulum swings back and forth and eventually comes to rest in a neutral position is reflective of how both individuals process their emotions as well as how society reacts to new ideas. 

For example, look at the issue of women’s equality, specifically in regard to relationships. Not so long ago, women used to be regarded as chattel – mere property that was owned by a husband. She did as she was told and had no rights to speak of, in or out of the house. 

Women eventually rebelled and gained more freedoms, such as the right to vote. They started attending college on a regular basis and becoming a force to be reckoned with in the workplace. In general, gender roles started to be less clear cut and more confusing, and this was reflected in the relationship arena, too. 

While once women had limited options so they stayed in loveless, unfulfilling or abusive marriages, they now were able to support themselves and the divorce proceedings initiated by women started to increase. 

The balance of power was shifting. Whenever freedoms once denied are experienced, the pendulum tends to swing wide with emotion to one side until the freedoms are tempered with common sense. 

Here’s the problem. The pendulum hasn’t come to the middle yet. Both women and men are still confused by what will actually bring them, if not happiness, at least contentment with their lives. 

Women want BOTH to be independent and in charge AND taken care of by a man. Add in the survival instinct that all humans have imprinted in their DNA of women wanting strong men that offer protection and men seeking out women of an age with whom they can procreate, and we are at the mercy of our primal instincts. 

It seems as if no matter how you slice it, many remain unhappy, wanting their cake and to eat it, too. No wonder the divorce rate is so high! 

So, can you have a relationship where you are both the care-giver and the care-taker? You can, if you don’t get caught up in a power struggle and an overriding need to always be right or to feel as if you have won. Additionally, you must remember that giving and receiving are simply two sides of the same coin, so when you give to your partner, you’re also receiving and vice versa. Lastly, in a relationship, the “balance of power” is always shifting according to the particular circumstances encountered. It is unlikely that a relationship can always remain at 50/50, although it is the striving to reach there that makes up the days of your life. Learn to enjoy each of the days that you're granted. Good and bad, struggle and triumph, even winning and losing -- each of these circumstances,  while reflecting the natural duality of the world, allows you to experience the wholeness of life.  

Dating Fears: How To Identify and Overcome Them

What is life coaching? 

Generally speaking, life coaching is a practice that helps people identify and achieve personal goals. Coaches can help clients set and reach these goals using a variety of tools and techniques. 

Who can be coached? 

Well, anybody CAN be coached, but in order for it to result in beneficial change, the client has to be WILLING to be coached. 

To determine if you’re a good coaching candidate, answer the following four questions. 

1. Are you willing to take on a challenge? 

If you’re already feeling overwhelmed by your professional and personal obligations, are you willing to make the time to take on a new challenge? 

2. Are you willing to accept feedback? 

Coaches can offer feedback, but in order for the client to hear it and implement change, he/she must release self-protective mechanisms such as rationalization, justification and blaming others. 

3. Are you willing to be emotionally honest? 

A tendency exists to tell others (and ourself) what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. 

4. Are you willing to be innovative? 

Rather than just trying a variation on your usual method, are you willing to risk feeling “unsafe” while you look for new ways, or out-of-the-box methods, to accomplish your goal. 

EXERCISE: IDENTIFYING YOUR FEAR

There is a lot of fear around dating, so a good exercise to complete is one that identifies the specific fears around this activity and allows you to release them. Normally, you would be led in this exercise by a coach, but you can try it yourself. 

1. Imagine a fear you are harboring and how it is keeping you from your goal. 

2. Clarify and describe the fear/obstacle in detail. 

3. Take several deep breaths and release any physical and emotional tightness you’re experiencing. 

4. Close your eyes and focus on your fear/obstacle. 

5. As you’re focusing on the fear, can you imagine that there is some way for you to become aware of your goal, which lies on the other side of the obstacle? 

6. With this visualization in place, continue to see that your goal is waiting for you on the other side of the fear/obstacle. It’s your job to figure out how to get around it, get beyond it, or move through it. 

7. With your eyes closed, imagine a way that you can remove this obstacle. 

8. Once you have opened the space, imagine taking the necessary steps to move closer to your goal. 

Additionally, it can help to clearly identify your fears on paper. You might find out that you’re getting tied up in your head and listening to negative or defeatist self-talk. Once you hear it outside of your head or see it in black-and-white, you might realize it isn't really the truth.

Here are some open-ended statements you can use to start this process. 

1. I am afraid that __________________________________ 

2. If this happens, I believe that ________________________ 

3. If that happens, then I believe that ____________________ (this can have multiple responses) 

4. The truth is ______________________________________ 

Of course, a coach can help you with these types of exercises and make you accountable once you commit to an Action Plan to accomplish your goals.


Visit me on my website, if you're interested in relationship coaching.

Three First Date Mistakes

Without risk, or allowing yourself to be vulnerable, there can be no great reward. Of course, there is the proper time and place to reveal your innermost thoughts and the minutia of your life — and it is not at a first meeting! 

A common mistake made by newcomers to the dating scene is to pace a new relationship improperly. 

REVEALING TOO MUCH 

Perhaps due to nervousness and not wanting there to be any awkward pauses in the conversation, daters may find themselves talking too much and feeling obligated to tell their life story. Try to keep a first meeting light and not turn it into a therapy session where old romances are rehashed. Possible talking points are current events, activities that interest you and the world around you. 

GOING TOO FAST 

Do not look for a commitment on the first date or, for that matter, the first few dates. Relationships take time to develop, and it is over this time that all things can become known. A person can only project a false image for a finite time, and true personalities eventually shine through. 

PLAYING TOO HARD 

Try not to meet a person with a preconceived agenda in mind. Don’t rush it. Courtship and the slow discovery of the other person is more than half the fun. Don’t overwhelm the other person by calling repeatedly the next day or showering the other with gifts immediately.

If you go to my Author Page on Amazon, you will find a video where I discuss the preceding three items. (It's the second video)

In all, there are 4 videos posted: How To Tell When You Are Ready To Date; Reinventing Yourself; Thoughts on Suicide; and 3 Dating Mistakes.

The preceding is a short excerpt from Love After Loss: Writing The Rest of Your Story, which is now available as a Kindle book for $9.99 (in paper at $14.95). Remember, you don't need a Kindle to read it. Just download a free reading app to read on a variety of devices.

Understanding Love

Drama Queens and Kings need not apply here! They tend to complicate the simple, as do a lot of others. In fact, as Charles Mingus said, “Making the simple complicated is commonplace.” On the other hand, he continues, “Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple – that’s creativity.” 

I am a very big fan of simplicity and have found an easy way to be “creative” in dissolving any drama in my life is to embrace the principles of K.I.S.S., which helps to Keep It Super Simple. 

Love tends to be a complicated subject, especially when you're alone and can't figure out how to secure the love you desire to share with another. 

Additionally, some find it hard to define because it has multiple manifestations and, thus, is expressed differently with a partner, a parent, a child, a friend and so on. 

I suggest, rather than holding onto one finite definition of love, look at this deep emotion as wearing multiple faces and accept that these faces are manifested through numerous and different types of relationships. 

 In truth, what you know about love is instilled in you as a child. Your familial home is the place where you learn how to love and be loved (or not). 

When you view love through the language of your childhood, your understanding of this hard-to-define emotion can have varying degrees of meaning. This is because the dynamics of your upbringing colors how you see everything in your life. 

So, if you have experienced difficult and abusive relationships in your lifetime, you might confuse (emotional and physical) pain with love. This type of love (or what you think of as love) is of the conditional sort. 

If you recall, in last week’s blog, I asked if love can truly be unconditional. The conclusion was that there are always conditions, even in the best of relations. That’s what makes them work! Those conditions, or the most important ingredients for a successful male to female (or soul to soul) relationship, include respect, allowance and non-judgment. Without these essential emotional aspects being present in a relationship, love (no matter how you define it) can still fail. 

Unfortunately, the “human condition” allows for the idea of love to be present even when there exists a high disregard for a partner. Accordingly, a person can believe that disrespect, control and manipulation are a form of love, while, in actuality, they are only comfort zones or simply actions to which he/she has become accustomed without knowing any better. 

Furthermore, these kinds of relationships can be repetitive throughout a lifetime and can perpetuate the idea that all connections cause pain and suffering. Until your childhood dynamics are examined and you allow yourself to be released from faulty beliefs, you will continue to draw dysfunctional partners to you. 

In the most successful of relationships, both individuals respect the other’s personal soul growth. Also present is a mutual respect of each partner’s ability to adapt to the various situations encountered. This is demonstrated by restraining from projecting feelings that would make a partner feel inadequate and his/her actions feel inappropriate. 

Granted, this is an especially hard task to do since human frailty and ego are built on the “right” way. However, if two people can give each other the boundary space to adjust to a mutual experience, and accept that there may be a trigger back to an inner child response, then the relationship can flourish and both can share with one another to create a balance. 

HERE'S THE BOTTOM LINE: the most important person to love on this planet is you. Unfortunately, due to the competitive energy that runs through society plus the various challenges met in life, people find this to be the most difficult type of love to preserve. One reason is that self-talk is often completed in the negative with statements such as the following. “I feel stupid.” “I look too heavy or too thin.” “Why can’t I be more like my parents or my siblings?” 

This self-defeating and disapproving language is hard-wired into your thinking patterns. It creates an energy of its own and is very hard to remove. Only through the proper use of affirmation can this energy be transformed. 

Remember .... you are what you think. Consequently, it is imperative to utilize your thought processes to their fullest potential and, at the same time, release your fears. This allows you to take responsibility for your personal power. Once this power is harnessed, you have the ability to change your life. 

By KEEPING IT SUPER SIMPLE, you can begin to peel away the layers to get to the core of any issue. This allows you to come to the conclusion that the answer to any problem is always love. 

There are some preliminary questions to be answered before you can embrace love and life. So, here’s your task. 

1. Figure out what love means to you and why. 

2. Discover from where your language of love stems. 

3. Think about how the way you love has affected your life. 

If you can learn to love yourself, as well as place yourself first (although not in a negative selfish mode), you will be successful in sharing your love with others. 

For more Keeping It Super Simple tips, purchase the K.I.S.S. book.

K.I.S.S. Principles on Spirituality: 

30 Ways To Find Clarity by Keeping It Super Simple 

http://amzn.to/L9imWj 

It’s available on Amazon.com as a Kindle book at the above link, for which you don’t even need a Kindle to read. Just download a free reading app to read on another device.

This book is part of the Kindle Select program for the months of June, July and August. As an Amazon Prime member, you can borrow it from the Kindle Lending Library.

Additionally, I will be offering this book as a free download on June 8 and June 9, 2012. Three more promo dates will be announced to take place in July/August 2012. 

Can Love Be Truly Unconditional?

We've all heard the pleas for unconditional love, but you must understand what unconditional means. It doesn't mean that one person can do or say anything he or she wants to another and still expect to be loved. 

The following poem addresses what unconditional means. It is an excerpt from Love After Loss: Writing The Rest of Your Story, which is available via my website.

GROWN-UP LOVE 

I believe that unconditional love is a fairy tale

that does not co-exist with mature love. 

For love to flourish and eventually deepen there are unspoken promises

 ... To treat each other with respect 

... To speak to each other with words of caring 

rather than those that carry hurt 

... To show each other one’s best side rather than the worst

... To continue be the same person one presented to

the other once the “honeymoon is over” 

... To make time spent together a priority 

... In discussions, not to make the other person wrong, even if you disagree

... To consciously decide not to reach a point

of anger or defensiveness with each other

... To not expect anything of your partner that you,

yourself, can’t or won’t do 

... Above all ... to be nice to each other and 

make each day a celebration of having found each other

If you recall, in last week's blog I wrote about how our collective consciousness has also taught us that romantic, or true love, equals neediness. In fact, the opposite is true. 

Keep in mind that, in order to have a healthy relationship, there must be a boundary space between the two individuals. After all, if two people agree on everything – one of them is unnecessary!

A Final Reminder:

Love doesn't happen within the confines of a fairytale, although you and your partner can live happily ever. You simply must be willing to continue to write your story over each day as you encounter new obstacles to overcome and new opportunities of which to take advantage.