Author Interview: Cindy Lu of The Four Man Plan

One night, while staying up way too late roaming about the various online dating sites of which I was a member, an advertisement caught my eye. "Are you single?" it asked, "Very, very single?" The animation then asserted that in order to find that ONE man, I needed to be dating FOUR men... at the same time!

This concept was more than I could wrap my little good-girl head around, so naturally my curiosity got the better of me. I clicked, and landed on a site advertising the book, complete with a video of the author performing in a one-woman show of the same name.

"Okay," I thought, "I can't imagine this book has anything really useful to teach me, but this chick cracks me up, so it's got to be worth it for the entertainment value alone."

Little did I know...

Not only did I discover that the book did indeed have quite a lot to teach me, but I have to say the process of doing the Four Man Plan was one of the biggest self-growth experiences I've ever had. (And yes, it was also worth the purchase price just for the entertainment value! Cindy Lu is a kick in the pants.)

I'll review the book in a future post. Today I've got a special treat: an interview with the author herself, Cindy Lu!

Welcome, Cindy!

The Dating Queen: Cindylu, your book, The Four Man Plan: A Romantic Science, outlines a comprehensive system for finding the man who's really right for you, complete with theories, postulates and principles. I suspect few people would think to approach dating in such a systematic fashion – I know I didn't, until I read your book! How in the world did you come up with this system?

Cindy Lu: The system of The Four Man Plan was born out of a necessity to separate myself from my disastrous past. Using the Graph and having a structure helped me to observe my own behaviors, patterns and habits in all areas of my love life. By multiplying the men I dated at once, I could see ME. Who I picked, why I picked them, how we treated each other, and how I felt about things. When you can observe yourself, you are taking the first step to healing old wounds and releasing old patterns that no longer serve you. Plus, it was FUN! And boy, before the Four Man Plan, dating was a dreaded chore, a means to an end rather than the delightful life process that it is.

TDQ: Was there a lot of tweaking involved before it took its current form?

CL: The way I did it was definitely the embryonic stages of where it is today. Girls now have support, lots of detailed answers to common questions, and lots of wiggle room to design it for their particular desires and lifestyle. Originally I designed it for just little ol' me. But now that it's been out in many countries and tested by women of all ages, I dare say that the current plan is pretty bullet proof for any single girl looking for love in her life.

TDQ: Did you learn from any mistakes you'd care to share?

CL: I share lots of those in the book! What a mess I was! But of course, life is learning from the "mistakes" we make. I rabbit-eared "mistakes" because I don't believe we make any mistakes. We are part of a gorgeous design that we are creating as we go, becoming conscious of that is the best way to prevent future "mistakes."

TDQ: When I started doing the 4MP, I realized that it was really just a modernized version of how my mom dated in high school and college (plus, of course, the option of having sex, which Mom didn't have). In her era, girls got to know lots of different guys at the same time, but when I started dating that was simply not done; it was one at a time only, and a girl who dated around was very uncool, probably because she was assumed to be sleeping around. A big hurdle for me (and for most women I tell about the 4MP) was the notion of dating more than one man at a time. Was this challenging for you as well?

CL: It is definitely counter to the current culture to date well. Giving yourself choices in the dating arena is frowned upon for sure and yes, it was challenging for me. But then I realized that it was much more bizarre to become attached to a man and design a future around him when I didn't know him at all. It's very strange to pin your life on someone you've had a couple dates with and maybe a romp in the hay. How do you know that the are a match? Why spend so much energy pretending someone is something they are not rather than just getting to know each other until that naturally develops.

This is an "old fashioned" style of dating and I think that is where much of it's powers lie. There is wisdom in our ancestry, and as much as we look to the future for new ideas, we can always look back for things that seemed to work rather than reinventing the wheel.

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Have you ever pinned your life on someone you've had a couple of dates with and maybe a romp in the hay? How did that work for you? Is that you you still operate?

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