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Not having much luck dating? Check out this article:
“If You’re Immature and Controlling, Please Call Me and Waste a Year of My Life,”
That’s an advertisement one of my clients put in her Internet dating profile. Let’s call her “Julie.” Julie also announces these specifications whenever she’s around single men – at work, at a party, on a cruise, at church.
HERE IS THE REST OF JULIE'S AD:
**Looking for immature, controlling, analytical man to mother. Sons have left home, need someone to fuss over. Engineers, and lawyers particularly invited to apply. If you like me to call you by your childhood name, i.e., Nickie or Sammy, you get one bonus point. If you live within two blocks of your childhood home, and have lived their your entire life, add two points. If your father abandoned the family or was emotionally absent and you lived in a female-dominated household, add three points. If you’ve never committed to a mature relationship with a woman, 10 points.
HERE IS AN AD EDWARD WORKED HARD ON:
**Looking for a woman substantially younger than me from a moderately dysfunctional home to marry me, then get stabilized, let me pay for her Ph.D., become preoccupied with her career, have an affair with one of her professors, and leave me with a broken heart and debts.
Add one point if you’re more than 15 years younger than me. Add two, if you’ve never held a real job and are looking for a father figure. Add three if you’re over 35 and never been claimed because no other man wanted you, though I will fool myself that it’s because you were saving yourself for me. Add four points if you’re the only girl in the family, and the “baby.” Five points if when you leave me, you do it in a way that humiliates me publicly, and 10 if you manage to get at least half of my assets in the divorce settlement.
NOW LET'S LOOK AT PAMELA's:
** Looking for a man who is gorgeous, vain, spoiled, and has some major flaw making him unsuitable for marriage. Someone who says they have an exotic profession is preferable, something glamorous like venture capitalist, yacht salesman, or “promising” writer, but it doesn’t have to be a real job. Must be someone I can be infatuated with, but one I can’t fall in love with, so I won’t get hurt again – too young, bankrupt, something like that. Since I’m used to taking care of everyone, please be jobless, or marginally employed, and expect me to support you.
One point if you’re ambivalent about your mother and take it out on me. Two points if you keep promising you’ll get a job and don’t. Three points if you do recreational drugs behind my back, so you have no motivation, but lots of unpredictable mood swings. Four points if you’re jealous of my children, and compete with them for my attention. And a big 10 points if you move in with me, then disappear one day with no explanation, then call two months later and try to borrow money from me.
No, of course these aren’t real ads. No one intends to attract such awful relationships and go through so much pain, but it happens, sometimes repeatedly if we aren’t mindful about what’s going on.
SELF-DEFEATING PATTERNS
As a relationship coach, I often help people discover and become aware of self-defeating dating patterns like these. “The beginning of wisdom,” say the Chinese, “is to call things by their right name.” If, as one man told me, you can walk into a room of 200 women and find the one who’s an alcoholic, then you are “looking for” an alcoholic, even if you don’t want one consciously.
It doesn’t matter how these patterns come about, or why (that’s more the realm of therapy), just that they be recognized. Self-defeating patterns like these can be changed, with awareness, dedication, and practice. Our behavior is functional, that is we work to get rewards and avoid punishment, and in this case the ”punishment” is there, but what leads up to it needs to be recognized earlier. It requires breaking the process down into steps you can analyze and change.
Julie figured out that since she’s raised three sons alone, she was in the habit of “mothering” men. She learned to recognize this knee-jerk reaction, and to stop herself at the first sign that she was “mothering” or “counseling” instead of behaving like a romantic equal. When she refused to do that, the men who wanted “mothering” quickly left.
Edward decided to do some work on the EQ competency of “constructive discontent,” realizing that he had trouble with the relative assertiveness of women his own age, preferring a younger woman he could dominate … for a while. He was tired of getting beaten up, and losing portions of his heart and assets, and was willing to “try something different.” He had been in relationships with women half his age for so long, when he got with a woman his own age, their personalities seemed “domineering,” when they actually weren’t. When Edward’s ability to handle what he called “confrontation” increased, which it did quickly once he realized what was going on, so did his self-esteem, and he was no longer primarily interested a “trophy wife” or “eye candy” and began to date women with whom there was the possibility of what he really wanted – mature, female companionship and a long-term relationship that would build and last.
Burned one last time, Pamela was poised to change and it moved fast. She “sat down and had a talk with herself,” decided she wanted to get married again, and had best find someone suitable. She knew herself that she’d been dating “safe” men, and her list of the ideal husband revealed she knew what would work and what wouldn’t.
What helped was when I asked her to make a list of the qualities that would prevent her from marrying a man. “That’s easy,” she said. “I’ll just write down everything about that last one.” Once she got in touch with her intentions and true desires, it was easy for her to avoid men who weren’t marriage material for her.
If you’re dating and it’s not going well, take some time and write down the characteristics of the individuals you have chosen to attract. Chances are you’ll see a pattern. Some patterns are so deep-rooted they require working with a therapist, in which case, please get help. Other patterns you can change more easily once you get authentic, and honest about what you want, and working with a coach can help you clarify, stay true to your purpose, and learn and practice some winning skills.
Good luck!
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