dating – Page 34

Been Out of the Dating Game for A While? Here Are Some Pointers That Will Save You Time And Heartache

You’re a widow, divorced or caught in the midst of life’s circumstances. Perhaps you’d never thought this would happen to you at this time of your life, being alone.

Maybe you’re alone by choice but not really sure if you want to remain that way. There are plenty of choices of where to go from here, but the tough part is making the one that’s right for you.

If you’ve been out of dating a number of years, you may find the dating scene has changed considerably.

I hadn’t dated for 25 when I stumbled back in. I experienced a wide array of emotions; shock, dismay, impatience, annoyance and even moments of wonder.

Some Pointers That May Save You Time and Pain

Learn to recognize those who are “takers” – those who want a physical relationship and nothing more. If you’re also looking for a noncommittal relationship, this may work for you. However, be aware that once intimacy enters a relationship, the rules change. Many times it leaves the door open for attachment and ultimately, unfulfilled expectations if one party leaves.

Unsafe and Unprotected Sex

We tell our children to use condoms and practice safe sex. We owe ourselves the same. Educate yourself on sexually transmitted diseases and how to avoid them.

A Free Meal is Only a Free Meal If…

If you are treated, there’s no obligation other than a gracious thank you. If you don’t feel a connection with someone, offer to pay for your portion of the check.

Abusive Relationships

No one deserves to be in an abusive relationship, whether verbal, mental or physical. Walk away. Don’t hold false hope that things will get better.

Smooth Talkers

We all know at least one, don’t we? They’ve had a lot of practice to talk their way through just about anything and anyone. Do I need to say more?

Needy Relationships

Everyone likes to feel needed from time to time, but if you’re in a relationship where you’re constantly bailing someone out, save yourself the stress and your wallet.

Emotionally Unavailable Individuals (Surface Daters)

They talk a good game, but can’t deliver any lasting commitment or anything beyond the immediate moment. They have a difficult time offering support in any substantial way, show no real caring in you as an individual, nor do they exhibit a real interest in sticking around.

These relationships (for want of a better word) start fast and fizzle shortly thereafter.

Clinging and unwarranted jealously might feel empowering at first, but be cautious about being sucked into a relationship based on this type of need. Do you seriously want to be in a relationship where your every move is questioned and up for inspection?

Dating Can Do a Number on Your Self-Confidence

In today’s world dating can take a hard shot at your self-confidence. You begin to wonder if the right person will ever come along. You’ve done your best to be proactive. Everyone says you’re intelligent, attractive… and yet you’re still batting zero on the dating scene. Is it you or is it everyone else? It may be a combination of both.

As a widow of almost five years, I’ve found what worked best for me was pursuing my own interests. Involve yourself in activities and work that stimulates you, instead of placing that burden on a prospective partner. When you feel more whole as an individual, you might just find that perfect someone popping up into your life when you least expect it.

Next Time You Have A Breakdown In Communication, Consider This…

By sarahelizabethmalinak

When a woman falls in love with a man, he makes her feel safe, protected, and cherished. She makes him feel seen and respected. These gifts we give each other satisfy ancient longings housed in our biology. They are why we trust each other so quickly, connect so deeply, and start planning for the future!

Moving From Trust & Fulfillment to Irritation & Frustration

At some point, couples move from this position of trust and fulfillment to irritation and frustration. It is as if a pendulum swings them back and forth, sometimes against their will. Maybe it begins with simple things.

For instance, one is a slob and the other is a neat freak. These differences started out being cute but aren’t anymore! Eventually, she will drive him nuts wanting to talk about the relationship.

He will make her worried and insecure withdrawing at every attempt she makes to talk. Before you know it, they feel like enemies to each other either some of the time or all of the time.

Breakdowns in Communication

The next time your relationship suffers from a breakdown in communication, consider what drew you to each other in the first place. For her, feeling safe, protected and cherished satisfy deep, fundamental needs. For him, feeling seen and respected satisfies deep, fundamental needs.

Instead of putting your attention on what you are not getting from your partner, put your attention on what you once gave and try giving it again.

Personality Conflicts and Communication

My husband, Joseph, and I have a personality conflict that contributes to breakdowns in communication. It has occurred to me that addressing the personality conflict isn’t the way to improve the situation.

If we go there, we will wind up monitoring each other and/or ourselves, adding to the frustration and contributing to an even bigger breakdown! Instead, focusing on what we originally gave each other in this situation might just save us a lot of heartache.

What the Personality Conflict Looks Like

The personality conflict looks like this. I have a very active mind. Whenever anyone speaks to me, they are intruding on my thoughts. This means that for the first few seconds of conversation, I am in two places at once in my mind. I’m finishing up my thoughts and beginning to pay attention to the person speaking to me.

Things can get lost in translation because of my active mind!

In addition, my sharp mind prefers details. Instead of telling me something like, “That was the best hamburger I’ve had in a long time,” when it’s been a couple of days since that hamburger was eaten; I prefer more details such as, “Remember when we ate at the Stony Knob Diner last week and I had a hamburger and fries?

That was the best hamburger I’ve had in months. We need to go back there soon!” I realize people don’t talk like that. Folks pick and choose from hundreds of thoughts to share and often begin mid-sentence. I speak like that because details matter to me. See, it’s just a personality issue.

It Isn’t Personal

It isn’t personal. What gets personal is how we handle it when I get frustrated because I don’t understand something he said.

We have dropped into the habit of Joseph periodically saying something that I don’t understand. I don’t understand because I don’t believe I have enough details to understand. I communicate that I don’t know what he is talking about with frustration and impatience in my voice because I very much want to understand.

Frustration Emerges

Also, because we have had this breakdown going on for a number of years, the frustration in my voice has grown.

He feels like I am telling him something is wrong with him and so he gets impatient with me and gives me one of these looks that brings out the beast in me! Suddenly, a personality issue has become very personal because of tones of voices, feelings, attitudes, and a breakdown in communication.

It’s Not Life and Death

Even though a personality conflict isn’t a life or death matter, it can make me as a woman feel unprotected, unsafe, and not cherished. Someone who loves and cherishes me wouldn’t look at me that way!

The same personality conflict makes him feel unseen and disrespected. Suddenly, a truly insignificant-in-the-great-scheme-of-things incident rocks us at the core because these fundamental needs are challenged!

Make Attitude Changes

Next time, I am going to respond with a different tone of voice by coming from a different attitude. Instead of reacting from the space of impatience and frustration I have made a habit of, I am going to come from the space of seeing him and respecting him.

That would look like telling the truth. Such as, “I was with some thoughts in my head and didn’t catch all that, would you mind saying some more?” I bet I will get a different response from him. Taking responsibility for what is going on in my head is far more respectful!

If Joseph were working on this on his own, he might choose to interact with me from a place of cherishing my feelings to see if he could get us to shift gears with this personality conflict. He might say, “Gosh, I know it frustrates you when you don’t get enough details and it frustrates me to slow down and provide them! But here goes…” I would find that disarming.

Without either of us manipulating the other to communicate in a certain way and by simply taking responsibility for the truth of where we are at when the communication breaks down, we are able to treat each other in a way that communicates love, respect, and cherishing.

That satisfies those fundamental needs that we once easily met and we get to walk out of a personality conflict that causes breakdowns rather than risk walking out of the relationship, causing a break up.

Honesty delivered with care and compassion rocks!

How To Pick Up A Beautiful Woman: Eradicating Self-Limiting Beliefs

By wwilcox

What dictates how successful a person can become in any given field? Is it chance, fortune, good luck? No.

Take an athlete for example, regardless of their chosen discipline, they must WORK at becoming the best. Even if they got lucky with their genes, have a good build or quick reactions, it is absolutely vital they learn, understand and PRACTICE whatever sport it is they want to master.

If they don’t, they will never be number one, or even anywhere close. The very same principle applies to attracting and seducing women, quite simply, the looks or assets you were or weren’t blessed with naturally mean nothing if you cannot master the psychological side of the game.

It’s NOT About Looks

For example, there’s a guy who looks like Brad Pitt’s better looking long-lost brother, his body, hair and dress-sense are all flawless. But, when he opens his mouth…nothing.

His attitude, personality and character fall completely flat and instantly put off every woman in the room. He’s gone from being a mysterious, handsome stranger, to an unexciting and tedious guy, who’s good for nothing except looking at and admiring, which gets very boring, very fast.

Now, the reverse. There’s a guy who doesn’t immediately stand out of the crowd because of what he looks or dresses like or because of the car he’s just rolled up in. Women are fairly neutral towards him, they neither feel attracted to him or turned off. Then, he talks and it’s like a fire has been lit, he’s fun, charming and great to be around. In short, massively attractive.

Being the Better Guy

If you want to be that first guy, I don’t know what to suggest, except perhaps painful, expensive surgery. But if you’d rather resemble the second man (as any sane guy would), you need to do something a little different. You need to eradicate self-limiting beliefs.

Self-limiting beliefs are the internal thoughts and feelings that hold you back and restrict your ability to succeed. They’re irrational and counter-productive thoughts that everyone has, but very few people try to get rid of, which is why so few men are truly successful with women. Here are a couple of examples of self-limiting beliefs:

1. “Nah, she’s too good-looking. She wouldn’t be interested in a guy like me.”

2. “Women can sense inexperience and won’t give a guy the time of day if they think he’s not sophisticated or experienced.”

3. “Girls only want sex with strings attached and would never consider sleeping with me unless I have money or a powerful job.”

4. “That girl’s way too popular. Just look at the guys who are already all over her. She’s rejecting them so would definitely say no to me.”

The Truth About Self-Limiting Beliefs

The crazy thing with self-limiting beliefs is that they only restrict YOU and you alone. They do this because they are not logical, true facts that are widely accepted as fundamental truths.

They’re manifested in your mind because you feel nervous and apprehensive. It’s your body’s way of protecting itself just like it would have thousands of years ago to stop you getting into physical danger.

These days, the only danger is that you miss a golden opportunity to hook up with a great, sexy girl. Here are 3 simple rules to always remember, use them to get rid of self-limiting beliefs.

Rule 1. Ground yourself in the present and don’t think about the past or potential future

If you’re in a bar looking at a girl from afar, forget about times gone by that you cocked up a first impression. Furthermore, don’t try to predict what could go wrong or awry. Your goal, of meeting and getting together with a hot female, is a positive one – so keep all thoughts before, during and after meeting her positive, too.

Rule 2. Don’t let other people mold your perception of yourself and the situation you’re in

Forget about the guys around you, all trying to impress girls and assert themselves as alpha males. When you show a care-free, easy-going attitude to how to move, talk and behave you become infinitely more attractive to women than all the men who are blatantly trying too hard.

Rule 3. Let negative thoughts and phrases, like those above, slip completely from your consciousness

Looks, wealth and social status mean little when they aren’t accompanied by a strong, attractive persona and personality. Let your words and confident body language take precedence and forget all about superficial possessions and all-too-common “good looks.”

How To Approach Groups Of Girls You Don’t Know, And Get Them To Think You’re Great!

By tiffanytaylor

If you’re wondering how to approach girls in a group and get them to think you’re wonderful, keep reading. For this example I’m going to use women at a bar. I will be going into lots of other techniques for non-bar pickups too but for now, we’ll stick with this.

(Note: In fact, I even recommend you try my top places for picking up that are not bars. They are WAAAAAAAY better than ANY bar and you’ll see a massive leap in your success rates with women.)

As you know, women don’t usually go to bars on their own. They go in groups.

Approaching Groups of Women Can Be Scary!

Approaching GROUPS of women can be extremely daunting and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can fail BADLY with groups and like a pack of wolves they can rip you apart. I’ve seen men get cussed at, totally ignored and even drinks poured over them.

But if you do the approach RIGHT, then your success with a group of women can usually yield great results.

Whenever I suggest approaching groups of women I get LOADS of guys looking at me as though I’m from another planet. I realize that lots of guys probably don’t have the initial confidence to simply walk up to beautiful women they don’t know. Don’t worry, this can be easily solved. I’ll give you some simple tips here.

SIDE NOTE: If you have a major confidence problem then don’t worry, I have an advanced 155-page E-book called HypnoDate which almost exclusively goes into increasing your confidence with women – and it works through the power of self-reprogramming so it doesn’t matter how shy you are, this thing WILL work for you. But guess what – it’s a bonus product that comes with my book at no extra cost.

Increasing Confidence Exercise In The Mall

Step 1. Walk around the shopping mall and when you catch a woman’s eye, smile at her. More often than not, she’ll smile back. To start with you can do this just with shop employees. Even if they don’t WANT to smile, they probably will. Good practice. And you might even brighten a few women’s lives a little.

Step 2. Once you’ve gained confidence in making natural eye contact and a smile with staff, you could move onto other women in the mall. I’m not suggesting big weird freak smiles, just nice, natural friendly ones. A lot of women will smile back at you.

Step 3. Here’s where it might seem a little weird, but this really does help and practice and repetition will make this lots easier. Just say “hi” with a smile to women (and men if you like) as you walk around the mall. It will feel HORRIBLE at first if you are not confident but slowly, after an hour or two, it’ll seem easy.

How Do You Feel Now?

After you’ve smiled and said hi to 20 or 30 women, you should start to feel good (as long as you don’t quit on your first negative response. This will happen and will happen when you’re approaching women to pick them up. You HAVE to learn to step out of your comfort zone if you want to be successful with women).

One of my male friends did the “smile at girls in the mall” technique and he actually ended up meeting the girl of his dreams and is still with her 3 years later. How’s that for effective!

Other Confidence Building Techniques

There are loads of other techniques you can do to build your confidence, most not quite as scary as the mall one. I go into others within my book…

Right, let’s assume you now have the confidence or at least the guts to approach women you don’t know in a bar (Again, I don’t just go into bar pickups in my book, in fact, I think the best places to pick up women are NOT in a bar. I think it’s everyday places where you’re not competing with other single guys).

Firstly, let’s suppose two girls are sat together at a bar. One is the ‘ugly’ one and one is the hot one (the one you like the looks of and would like to get to know more).

You see the girls. Go up to them and talk to them NOW! Don’t waste time. Within 3 seconds of seeing them, approach them. Some people call this the 3 second rule and I must say it really does seem to work.

If you see her and like her, it’s best not to think too much about the approach, or you’re more likely to work yourself into such a state that your approach will be ineffective or you’ll just pussy out altogether!

(Don’t worry I’ll tell you WHAT to say when you get there in a future lesson). So within 3 seconds, go TALK to her!

ALWAYS, ALWAYS approach a woman from the side or an angle from the front. !!! NEVER from behind – IMPORTANT!!!

If you go up to the group at the bar and approach from behind you will INSTANTLY invoke a negative response, and they will be put on the defensive – for obvious reasons. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS go in from the side.

Men Are from Way Farther Away Than Mars!

By maiaberens

Many of you probably have read the book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus and many of the rest you have heard things about it if you haven’t read it. Well, I didn’t write it.

But I worked with John Gray for 18 years, wrote workshops and a training based on the Mars Venus stuff and trained over 500 speakers and therapists on how to give those workshops. So I should know about men, right? Well, I know some things about men.

In order to feel loved in a relationship, men need to be trusted. Men need to be accepted the way they are. They don’t want you to try to change them. Men want to be appreciated for what they do.

They also want to be admired, to be regarded by their partner with “wonder, delight and pleased approval”. Men also need encouragement so that they become hopeful and courageous to go out and do what they do all over again even when it’s hard.

This is all vintage Mars Venus. You may not agree but the expert says so and the following are how I observe this to be true about the man I live with all these years:

Men Need to be Trusted

One of the most hurtful things I can do is not trust my husband. When he does his household disappearing act like leave, say nothing to me that he’s leaving or where he’s going, he is disturbed by my not trusting that if he were going some place for long or really away, he’d tell me.

After all, he just went to the car for twenty minutes. I shouldn’t be worried that he died somewhere or was captured by other Martians.

Men Need to be Accepted the Way They Are

Now I’m a woman and if my husband tells me lovingly that when we are with other people, I sometimes (or often) interrupt him or finish his sentences and we could have a signal so I know when I’m doing it, that’s cool. I don’t mind. He’s right. I don’t want to be the person who does that.

But in his case, he’d rather I tell him how what he does affects me and trust that he’ll make his own improvements. He doesn’t want me to tell him what to do or how to do it.

Men Want to be Appreciated and Admired for What They Do

My love in the form of appreciation and admiration has helped my partner grow from a shy, somewhat timid man, to an outward-going yet quiet type with lots of inner confidence.

I know because he’s told me. I don’t think it would have worked this way if it weren’t truly authentic on my part. I do admire and appreciate a zillion things about him. It’s funny. Admiration alone leaves me feeling a little empty or needing something else. I seem to need his commitment and respect. Those are totally satisfying to my inner self.

Men Need Encouragement

When my ex- used to come to me for encouragement, I basically wanted to kill him. He was mean and ugly a good deal of the time and then it seemed he wanted me to be a good and kind mother. I wasn’t happy about that at all. Whereas when my current husband is low, I find it easy, most of the time, to offer encouragement and, amazingly, it usually works for him.

Men and Their Caves

John Gray also says men like to go to their caves. This was truer in the beginning of our relationship and I’m grateful I knew “men go to their caves”. Maybe the cave has changed but it doesn’t look like it used to. It used to look like hours alone or away.

Now reading without interruption seems to do it for my husband. I’m not sure why it’s become different. I have a suspicion that it’s because he now knows I trust him to leave the cave and I don’t have to try to break my way in to get him to come out.

Why Men Are Further Away Than Mars

If I agree with all this Mars Venus philosophy, why do I say, “Men are from way farther away than Mars”? Because sometimes I cannot understand his thinking, his worldview and the way it must be inside the being of a man.

For example, I knew my husband for probably 20 years, our relationship has a very high level and amount of communication and he, shockingly, one day revealed that he believed in capital punishment!

How can a man who is, like me, peaceful to the point of believing in the possibility of world peace and who is nice and friendly to my ex-, who has liberal views on most anything else still believe in capital punishment?

Another example: say he thinks he’s coming down with a cold. He has lots of sick days. Why does he persist in going to work anyway? It isn’t because he doesn’t take good care of himself. He exercises.

He eats healthy. But he will just muscle through until he can’t stand up any more. And I don’t get martyr vibes from him either. I just don’t’ get that. If I feel sick, which isn’t often nor am I wimpy about it, I lie down. If I muscled through, I would definitely feel like a sacrificial victim. Under those circumstances, I do what I have to but not a drop more.

Since women can’t see the world through the eyes of a man and men can’t view the world through the eyes of woman, my husband and I have both been known to marvel that any relationship ever works, anywhere, any time!