How to Juice Up Your Dating Profile

This was pretty amusing, although I could have done without the "fudging it" bit.

Has Your TV Programmed You to Be Disappointed in Love?

I wrote this article a while ago. The previous question prompted me to post it here:

Are you a fan of the fun new American TV show, My Boys, which chronicles the life and dating adventures of an attractive 20-something woman?

Do you still watch Sex and the City?

A lot of women do. A factor these shows have in common, like most fiction, is that the protagonists are rarely satisfied in their quests for love.

For instance, on an episode of My Boys last season, the main character, PJ, met up with her old flame, which sparked warm memories. She discovered she was still wildly attracted to him. He seemed to return her interest.

She got her hopes up.

He asked her out for dinner, leading her to believe they'd get together again. But, over drinks, he lowered the boom: He'd just gotten engaged--to someone else.

Like My Boys, Sex and the City is loaded with romantic disappointment. It drives the show. Face it, nobody would be tuning in for all these years if Carrie married Mr. Big in Season One and gave birth to triplets in Season Two.

Who'd care?

Drama--conflict-- makes for great TV. It makes for good books, good movies, good art. Happiness is boring.

The problem? Take in enough of this stuff, and we start believing that happiness is unattainable (or, more important, boring). We automatically assume that love must disappoint us. We subconsciously seek out drama. We go for less than we deserve.

But just because PJ and Carrie (and Charlotte and Samantha and Miranda) can't find love, you can.

You can be happy in love (even if your friends aren't, your parents aren't, your sister isn't). You can be lucky in love. Look to people in your own life who are happily married. Use them as role models.

Boredom is hardly inevitable!

By all means, enjoy television, but keep in mind it's drama. It is not reality. Write your own script when it comes to the romance you desire. What, for example, will make you feel happy and secure in a relationship?

Do you even know? If not, it's time to give it some thought. Make it concrete by writing it down. Start envisioning yourself in the relationship you desire with the kind of man who'll make you happy.

This works.

You may wonder: What's more important? Visualizing your perfect relationship, or getting out and finding it? I'd been getting out for a long time and ending up with all the wrong men until I started visualizing. The right men didn't register on my radar screen until I did.

Please do not discount the power of visualization. It works. And it doesn't cost you a dime. To attract the right man, visualize first. Then get out of the house.

Do the things you love to do (I have a theory that if everybody who claimed to love taking long walks on the beach actually took them, online dating would cease to exist).

There's a man out there who's dreaming of a woman like you. If you want him, you can have him.

Men and Women Are More Alike Than We Thought

I loved Ellen Goodman's column in today's newspaper, where she discussed the recent research that puts to rest the annoying myth that women talk too much.

I once read that women utter something like twice or three times as many words as men, but my own experience refutes that statistic. Anybody who knows me and my husband, for example, can tell you the guy easily out-talks me four words to one. (And his friends aren't much better.)

I nearly died of shock after I moved in with him and got our first phone bill; I'd shared an apartment with a female friend for two whole years, and our bill consistently came in at about half of what Peter could ring up.

So, I do object to the whole 'Men are from one Earth, and Women are from Pluto' theory. Sure, there's feminine, and there's masculine, and thank God for it. But in the end, we're all human.

Interestingly, I spoke to a woman today who has a 29-year-old son she'd like to marry off, but she says he's hit that patch in life where he's just not meeting new people. She maintains that a lot of the woman he's dated just aren't in a hurry to commit, a fact she attributes to the wider range of choices women enjoy these days.

She said she'd like her son to try the online dating route but is pretty sure he'll tell her to mind her own business. She is the second person I've met recently who's told me she has a son in his twenties who wants to get married.

So much for the stereotype that men don't want to commit.

This woman also mentioned that her 42-year-old niece met and married a guy she met online. The woman's crazy about her new husband, but unfortunately, he's an officer in the army and was sent to Iraq shortly after the wedding.

If you've done any online dating, you know that meeting and entertaining a stream of new people can get expensive. Here's a cheap date idea: Go out for ice cream and a walk. It's a relatively pressure-free way to get to know someone, and it can encourage warm and happy feelings.