7 Reasons to Date More Than One Guy at a Time
When I was in high school and college, nobody really dated. You might go out with someone once or twice, but you pretty much decided up front whether to make a go of the boyfriend/girlfriend thing, and then either became "an item," or not.
And dating more than one person at a time? It just wasn't done.
In my mom's era, though, things were totally different. Things were lighter then, it seems. You went out with lots of different people – to the drive-in, the soda shop, or wherever it was young adults went in those days.
You got to know lots of different guys before you went steady with one of them.
Apparently, my mom thought the whole hook-up-with-one-person-right-away dating M.O. of my youth was nuts, and decades after the fact, I'm now inclined to agree with her.
I didn't come to this conclusion easily, however. I remember, years ago, talking to a girlfriend who confessed she'd dated two men at the same time for awhile, and I was shocked! Not to mention very, very curious.
How did it work?
Did the guys know about each other?
Did she sleep with both of them?
Wasn't it emotionally confusing?
I seriously did not think I could ever do this myself.
But that was before I picked up The Four Man Plan, by Cindy Lu.
Retro-Dating: A New (Old) Approach
Lu presents an alternate approach to the quest for a mate, which says that in order to find the one man who's right for her, a girl should always be dating four men... at the same time!
It's a bit more complex than that, and the number of men on the radar is really not necessarily four (read my review for more details), but the upshot is to date more than one at the same time.
Lest you fear that 4MPlanning is a deceptive, sneaky tactic, let me assure you that part of the deal is complete honesty: you must make it very clear to every guy you're seeing that he is not the only one.* You are getting to know lots of different people at the same time.
Caveat: dating more than one man at the same time does not mean sleeping with more than one man at the same time. In fact, if you're following the rules of The Four Man Plan, you are explicitly not allowed to sleep with more than one guy at a time.
I suspect that my generation's squeamishness about dating lots of guys at once is because I'm of a post-Sexual Revolution generation, in which it's generally sort of assumed that if you're dating someone, you must be sleeping together. Whereas in my mom's era the opposite was true: birth control was unpredictable, the morés were different, and although some people were having sex, it was assumed that you weren't. Dating implied nothing more than getting to know someone.
This, I propose, is a vastly superior way to approach dating! Hooray for retro-dating!
So, why date more than one?
Having followed The Four Man Plan almost to the letter for a year and a half (and having dated over 45 men during that time [there's a reason I'm The Dating Queen]), I consider myself something of an authority on the benefits of this way of dating.
However, if you're feeling a bit uncomfortable with the dating more than one guy thing, I understand – I've been there! To ease your transition, here are 7 reasons why dating more than one guy at a time is a really good idea:
1) It keeps you from obsessing
Admit it, you've been in that oh-so-crazy-making place of obsessing over some guy, wondering if he's going to call, wondering if he's dating someone else. My own obsessions were frequently with guys I didn't even like. But because he was the only guy on my radar, I'd start obsessing about him!
I don't know if it's hardwired into the female brain, but I don't know any woman who hasn't had this experience.
If you're dating more than one guy, however, obsession is less likely to get you in its grip. You're simply not as liable to stress over what the guy from Tuesday's date is thinking/feeling/doing if you've got a date with someone else on Friday.
Magic!
2) You get to compare and contrast
Be honest: you want to find the best match for you, right? You want someone who is going to treat you like the queen you are, someone honest, loving and willing. (And of course it wouldn't suck if he's hot, too.)
But how do you tell if a guy's the best match for you if you never compare him to other guys? If you couple up right away, you never really know for sure if you've picked Mr. Right, or Mr. Best-Thing-That-Was-Available-At-The-Time.
No matter what anyone might tell you, no matter what the latest media sensation might claim, settling sucks.
And believe me, he doesn't want to feel like the default selection. Would you?
When you're juggling multiple dates, taking your time to get to know several guys at once, you get to really experience each guy for who he is, and how he treats you.
Maybe Guy A is a great kisser, but is always late to pick you up, and interrupts you constantly; while Guy B is really shy, but arranges everything around your comfort and happiness; and Guy C is TOTALLY HOT, but arrogant as shit.
While you may notice a guy's qualities, I can tell you from experience that they stand out a helluva lot more clearly when you've got side-by-side comparisons!
Sometimes it's even useful to keep dating a guy you know doesn't treat you as well as you'd like – what Lu calls an Icky – because when you're dating other guys as well you'll be more likely to see his icky behavior for what it is.
And quite possibly even get yourself out of a long-term habit of falling for Mr. Wrong.
In any case, with side-by-side comparisons you're in a much better position to put your energy into a guy who's really going to be right for you, instead of wasting another big chunk of your life (admit it, you've done this more than once) on Mr. Best-Thing-That-Was-Available-At-The-Time.
3) You're less likely to jump in too fast
How often have you jumped into a relationship, only to realize a few weeks or months down the road that things are not all as rosy as you'd thought in the first blush of infatuation? But by this time you're both invested, so you spend tons of energy trying to make things work.
Don't get me wrong: a relationship will always require work – that's the nature of the beast – but if you're working too hard, it ain't working!
When I look back at my long-term relationships, I seriously doubt whether I'd have ended up with most of them if I'd been dating lots of other guys at the same time. First of all, I wouldn't have been in such a rush to pair off with the first guy I felt an ounce of chemistry with. And second of all, I think I would have been more likely to notice – and flag – the areas that would become ongoing issues.
Keeping things light, and moving slowly, helps prevent I Jumped In Too Soon/LTR Regret Syndrome, and when you're dating lots of guys, and just enjoying the experience of dating – without concentrating on getting your M.R.S. or finding a baby-daddy – this is much easier to do.
4) You cultivate an abundance mindset
Oh, how we women love to complain about the dearth of good men. "They all suck," is the constant refrain.
Sometimes it really does feel that way, but in fact, there are really great guys out there! I've been on dates with a lot of them!
Were they all for me? No. But meeting so many good guys made me realize that the situation is not really as hopeless as it sometimes feels.
Sure, it can get frustrating when you're going on your 22nd (or 44th or 57th) date and still haven't found someone you could imagine sharing your life with. (I know, because I've been there.) BUT, going out a lot, meeting lots of different guys, experiencing that there are good ones out there, helps cultivate a mindset of abundance, rather than scarcity.
When you're in a scarcity mindset, you're likely to settle for the first guy who comes your way, because you fear he may be the only option to spinsterhood you'll ever have.
Well fuck that noise!
You are a phenomenal catch! You deserve the best, and when you cultivate an attitude of abundance you're more likely to attract it and recognize it.
And you know The Secret, right? Whether you're a woo-woo person or not, living in an attitude of abundance simply brings more good stuff your way. Plus it's just a lot more pleasant way to live.
5) It takes the pressure off... for both of you!
Have you ever had a guy be way too into you from the start? Scary, isn't it? It makes you want to run the other direction.
Guys are the same way. The biggest way to scare a guy off is to make him feel pressured (as Lu puts it, "poke him with your ring finger or your fallopian tube.")
But guess what: if he knows you're dating other guys, the pressure's off!
And if you've got another date with someone else next week, your less likely to rush forward inappropriately.
6) It brings out the best in men!
I was skeptical about this part. Lu claims that men, being born hunters and loving the thrill of the chase as they do, will up their game if they know they're competing.
Turns out she's right.
Competition does, indeed, bring out their good sportsmanship and inner chivalry. Not in every case, sure, but in most cases, if a guy is really interested in you, if he knows he's not the only one on the field he will play his darnedest to prove to you he's the best candidate.
He will do whatever he can to win you.
And if he doesn't, then that tells you something useful, doesn't it? Don't you want a guy who is so into you that he'll navigate any obstacles in his path?
In this way dating multiple guys at once (as long as you're totally honest about it) acts as a fantastic filter mechanism! The guys who are in it to win it will stay in the game, while the others will naturally drop out.
Brilliant!
7) It's FUN (dammit)!
Cindy Lu's tagline for The Four Man Plan is "Have fun, dammit!" Which ROCKS.
Sometimes the quest for a partner can feel way more like work than play. Meet & greet 1st dates start to feel like job interviews, when they should be something to look forward to!
Even if you don't think a particular date is promising for the long term, even if you may never see the guy again (though I think The Four Man Plan's postulate of a 2-Date Minimum is wise, and highly recommend it), there's no reason why you can't have a perfectly enjoyable evening.
Dating more than one guy at a time can help make each individual date less pressurey and stressful. And having lots of guys competing for your attention totally doesn't suck!
Granted, it isn't always the way it pans out. Sometimes there are long dry spells, which totally do suck. But when you do have a few different guys pursuing you and making you feel wonderful, it's fun!
That alone, is worth the price of admission.
In Summary
Hopefully I've convinced you to try this retro-dating thing, if you haven't already done so.
For lots of additional tips, I encourage you to pick up a copy of The Four Man Plan (if you can find it; Lu told me that the books in the US warehouse were shredded when that division of the publishing house folded, so it's become a scarce commodity. And no, I'm not giving away my copy!) Check it out, and give it a try.
Then come back here and tell me how it worked for you. It's not for everyone, but if what you've been doing so far hasn't been working (and if you're reading this, then I'm guessing it hasn't), it might be time for a change.
Maybe you'll even come up with some more reasons why this is a great way to date.
----
*This is not a heavy conversation; quite the contrary, the more matter-of-factly you can slip it into conversation, the better.
For example: "I'm having such a great time dating, and of all the guys I'm seeing, you are the funniest!"
Or, here's one I've used multiple times, when guys would comment on my restricted phone number showing up in their Caller ID: "Yeah, with all the dating I'm doing lately, I decided it would be safer to keep my phone number private until I get to know someone. You can't be too safe these days!"
Most women find this part excruciatingly hard, and expect that men will react badly when they hear they're not the only guy on your dance card. In my experience, the opposite was true: in most cases they didn't even flinch! (Sometimes I wasn't even sure if they heard me.)
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
The Great Age Experiment: Week 1 Update
Part of an ongoing series, in which your intrepid correspondent offers herself as a guinea pig in an admittedly not-very scientific online dating experiment to determine, once and for all, whether a younger age on her profile will result in greater response to said profile.
--
Week 1 Update
In case you missed part one in this series, the deal is this: response to your correspondent's online dating profiles seems to have dramatically decreased since her debut as an internet dating ingenue a decade ago, and the ever-present question – is it age? – must be addressed.
Of course, lying about one's age is epidemic in the world of internet dating, but your correspondent has never managed to bring herself to commit such perjury... until now!
The guise of a journalist is, it turns out, incredibly liberating.
Note: Lest you fear for your correspondent's progress with men she might meet under deceptive circumstances, rest assured that the protocol is to fully disclose the experiment and its purpose in the initial reply to any promising pursuer. (And in case you're wondering, so far, nobody's bolted.)
The data are compiled in a graph below, but first, a few notes:
- The data collected from the previous 30 days on match.com, with a stated profile age of 43, are not precise, because your correspondent did not realize she was going to conduct this experiment until many emails, etc. had already been deleted. It (the aforementioned data) is included here just because, well, for the time being it's all we have to go on. And also, why not?
- Your correspondent has also included data from the responses to a profile on another well-known, if less well-respected dating site, Adult Friend Finder (or AFF – tagline: "meet real sex partners tonight!"), just because, well, it makes for some amusing data.* As a result, the Great Age Experiment has morphed into the Great Age and AFF vs. Match.com Experiment. Which makes it even less scientific than it already was, but hopefully somewhat more entertaining.
- The age that was chosen for the purposes of this experiment – 7 years younger than your correspondent's actual age – is somewhat random, but admittedly affected by the fact that your correspondent is extremely vain, and although she is usually assumed by new acquaintances to be a decade (or even more) younger than her actual years, the fact is she still wanted to be considered "young-looking for her age." (Even though anyone she might meet would know her true age before meeting her. Go figure.) It (the faux age selection) was also because your correspondent didn't want to rule out the possibility of meeting someone promising during the time frame of this experiment, and 7 years seemed about the outer limit of age difference that would attract the kind of men she might be interested in meeting. If that makes sense.
The results
So far, it appears that a 7-year age difference does, indeed, affect response rate somewhat. If we assume that the data from this week will be multiplied by approximately 4 over the course of the 30-day experiment, it would mean almost twice as many match.com emails, four times as many potential dates and flirts, and 16% more total views than the previous 30 days.
However, given that the bulk of views and emails typically occurs during the first week a new profile is online, it's unlikely that we'll see these kinds of results.
Stay tuned!
Meanwhile, the most dramatic result from the numbers is not from the age difference, but rather from how many more replies your correspondent gets on AFF than on match.com – almost 8 times as many.
Which seems to lend strength to the truism that men are very sexually-driven creatures, and are thus more likely to respond to an artful black and white photo of the unclothed female form than to a face pic, no matter how charming.
At least your correspondent likes to think this is the case, because the alternative (that your correspondent's face pic is just not very attractive) is too painful to think about.
And in any case, the quality of responses in no way matches the quantity. Out of 6 contacts on match.com (5 direct emails, and 1 wink to which your correspondent replied with an email, to which the winker in turn responded), 33% were from men who might possibly be worthy of a meeting. Not bad, really. On the other hand, only 0.026% of aff.com emails were from guys who might possibly be worthy of a meeting.
That's a lot of email to sort through. (And much of it with pics your correspondent really had no desire to see.)
Important data to keep in mind, ladies, should you be considering posting a profile on aff.com. (Which, in fact, your correspondent does actually recommend, even to prototypical Good Girls such as herself – watch for a future blog post on this topic – but not necessarily for the express purposes of finding a life partner. Um, duh.)
The other notable data point (which is not collected in the graph below), is that your correspondent is well within the age range of every match.com member who emailed this week. Age ranges ranged from 28-44 to 35-55.
Which in itself would seem to discredit the hypothesis that your correspondent's lower response rate is due to her increasing age. It could be that fewer men were searching the match.com database in the previous 30 days. Or it could be that even the men who claim to be looking for women 25-45 are actually running searches for a younger-skewed subset.
Honestly, who the hell knows.
Mostly, it's just fun to run the experiment.
Which still has another 23 days to go. Watch for another report in about a week.
| Results (Age posted on profile) Time period of data collection |
match.com (43) 30 days |
match.com (36) 1 week |
aff.com (43) 1 week |
| emails received | 8-10(?) | 5 (plus 1 more from a winker you was then sent a "thanks for the wink" email) |
39 |
| emails from guys who might possibly be worthy of a meeting | 2 (One of which was from a guy who'd gone out with your correspondent a few years ago) |
2 | 1** **(Your correspondent did receive 2 additional emails that warranted replies for the sole purpose of lively, intellectual conversation. Seriously.) |
| winks/flirts received | 8-10(?) | 8 | 46 |
| favorited/hotlisted | unknown | 6 | 53 |
| views | 418 | 122 | 1,475 (13,850 total views since 7/29/2008, though the profile has only been active less than 6 months during that time) |
*Let it be stated for the record, because your correspondent is the prototypical Good Girl and would hate to think that you might get the wrong impression of her, that your correspondent originally put a profile up on AFF on a lark, and was never actually interested in "meeting real sex partners tonight," and made this abundantly clear in her profile text. Let it also be stated, for the record, that the majority of men who responded to your correspondent's very clearly-written AFF profile clearly never took the time to read it. (The latest iteration: an email from an admirer and hopeful with a detailed description of his... behavior... inspired by your correspondent's photo, complete with an attached photo of the... evidence... in front of the writer's computer screen with said photo (of your correspondent) displayed. 'Nuff said.)
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Online Dating and the Age Question
Have you ever posted a profile online and lied about your age?
When I first tried out online dating, I was in my early 30s, and age didn't seem to be an issue. But as I approached the big four-oh things seemed to change.
Sure, my profile went through multiple variations, and photos came and went, but I was blessed with young-looking genes, and underneath it all I was the same person.
Yet each time I'd get back online during a single spell my response rate dramatically declined.
At first, there was the ticking biological clock. It's an unpleasant feeling knowing that you're being assessed primarily as a breeder, only secondarily as a partner. I've been on that date more than once.
Now, however, I'm no longer interested in breeding, and I'm of an age where most of the men in my cohort have either already done their procreating, or they've made the decision to keep the family jewels in check (sometimes surgically – which is, I must confess, always a bonus!)
Of course there are plenty of men out there in their 40s and 50s who still want to see their oats sprout, whether wildly or not, but it's not hard finding guys in this age range who don't want kids.
So why the dramatic decline in interest?
I was left to wonder if was mostly due to my age. It's possible that I wrote less compelling profile bios over time, but that seems unlikely.
From what I could tell, the only things that really changed were 1) my expressed desire not to have kids, and 2) the number attached to my age.
For years I fantasized about performing an experiment: put up two profiles, identical but for my stated age. Would it make a difference, I wondered?
The problem was, I'm a pathologically honest person.
(Well, not quite true, though I had to write it because the idea of being pathologically honest just cracks me up. I confess I've told my share of "white lies." And one time I talked myself out of a ticket with a darn good acting job. And then there was the time when I was six, and I did god-knows-what that really pissed off my mom, and as punishment she forbade me from watching The Brady Bunch, and in a precocious attempt at reverse psychology I tried to convince her that I actually hated The Brady Bunch, and the worst punishment she could give me would be to make me watch the show.
It didn't work.)
With 57 dates in 2 1/2 years, and dozens more during single spells in previous years, I've encountered my share of men who lied about their age, and it always bugged me. Even if they disclosed their true age in their bio. I understood why they did it – to show up in searches, of course – but it still bugged me.
A relationship needs to be built on honesty. Period.
No, I didn't automatically reject the age-fudgers, but let's just say it left a bad taste in my mouth.
And the idea of lying myself? Cringe. Wince.
If I met a guy I was really interested in, our relationship would have started with a lie, and that really bugged me.
Some people lie about their age, then disclose the truth within the profile bio, and I thought about doing that. The problem was it would defeat the purpose of the experiment; if my age were really the turn-off, sharing it in my bio would send them away just as surely as sharing it in elsewhere.
So alas, my hypothesis remained untested.
Until now.
That's right, a few days ago I had a paradigm shift. It suddenly occurred to me that, now that I have a blog, I could approach the experiment as a journalist, with the larger purpose of gathering info for my readers (not that there are many, but there are a few of you out there).
Somehow this simple change in perspective allowed me to feel okay about lying. After all, I'm doing it in the service of Science. Instead of just confessing that I'd lied about my age, which is, if you think about it, pretty much the same as confessing to be a narcissist, I'd have an external reason. And a potential conversation-starter at that.
I'm running an experiment. I'm a journalist.
Of course, it could still turn men off. And the fact that I've got a dating blog might scare some away.
But thankfully, I'm in a rare state of non-urgency around dating. (It helps that I've already got some men in my orbit, a la The Four Man Plan.) If the guys who email me during the duration of this experiment get turned off, c'est la vie.
So. Let's talk data.
My pre-age-deception-experiment profile was up on match for one month. In the past 30 days I received 418 views (or possibly 207; match.com has multiple places that show this data, and they are frustratingly inconsistent). Unfortunately, I deleted some emails and winks long before I decided to run this experiment, so I don't have an exact count, but my best guess is 8-10 emails and about the same number of winks.
So far, less than 24 hours into the experiment, I've received one email. (Ironically enough, from a 47-year old whose preferred age range is 25-45, which I'm well within.) I'll send him a reply momentarily.
Stay tuned. Over the next 30 days, the answer to The Age Question may be revealed once and for all.
Have you ever lied about your age?
Did it get you the result you wanted?
Did you feel weird about it?
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Self-Growth from a Sex Site-Who Knew? (Part 2)
In which your correspondent ponders the relative safety of being a woman on a sex site.
--
It's said that a man's biggest fear is that a woman will laugh at him, and a woman's biggest fear is that a man will kill her.
If the first part of this statement is true (gentlemen? anyone want to chime in?), it does make one wonder what their thought process is when posting a pee-pee pic on their profile and (even more to the point) sending initial emails with graphic, "rough sex" scenarios they'd like to do to you.
Yes, on Adult Friendfinder this happened to your correspondent more times than she cares to count.
Needless to say, these men never received a response.
If they only knew how much your correspondent and her girlfriends laughed at them (and yes, it was definitely at them, not with them), would they alter their behavior?
And if more men were savvy to the second part of the above statement, surely they'd be more sensitive about how they approach a woman.
(I hate to admit this, but years ago when I broke it off with a guy I'd been seeing, he asked to come over one last time to talk, and part of my brain actually formed the thought "Oh, my god, maybe he's coming over with a gun."
Now, this was a really good guy, one who has probably never had a violent moment in his life. The fact that my thoughts jumped there had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the terror that we women walk around with at the back of our minds.
Guys just don't get it.
Another time I got a call out of the blue from a guy who'd found my profile on Yahoo personals (which uses real first names, rather than made-up "user IDs"), Google searched my first name and a word from my profile that described something I did... and voilá, up popped my website.
Which had my phone number on it.
It's incredibly easy to stalk someone these days.
Needless to say, I immediately changed my Yahoo personals profile name.
Now, again, this guy turned out to be a really nice person who wasn't out to hurt me. But it's scary out there, and how the hell could I possibly know that from an out-of-the-blue phone call from someone who'd just cyber-stalked me?!)
Before even considering responding to a man, the reptilian part of a woman's brain is pondering:
- is he likely to try to kill me?
- is he likely to try to cause me bodily harm?
- is he likely to be in some other way psycho and/or try to mind fuck me?
If the answers to all of the above are "no," THEN she can get down to the business of deciding if the dang fool is good enough, smart enough, and cute enough to warrant a reply.
Granted, the reptilian processing is more than likely happening on a purely unconscious level (reptiles not being big on raised consciousness, naturally), but believe me, it's there.
Without a basic sense of safety, it ain't happening dude.
Of course, the entire premise of a site like Adult Friendfinder is completely different from your "legit" online dating site. Sure, there are women out there who really are looking for a hookup (a girlfriend of yr. correspondent's used it, with great success, when she decided it was high time she went through a "promiscuous phase", though the many men yr. correspondent corresponded with were more likely to find escorts and scams than "real women" just looking to get laid).
But even so, a girl's got to have a reasonable expectation that she's not going to end up dead at the end of a date.
Now, this is a bit extreme, granted. But still. Putting oneself out there on Adult Friendfinder does take an extra bit of courage that's not required on a site like match.com.
Your correspondent's mother would be horrified if she knew...
to be continued...
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Self-Growth from a Sex Site – Who Knew? (Part 1)
It started rather inauspiciously. For research purposes (and okay, an admitted dose of curiosity), your correspondent posted a profile on Adult Friend Finder, a dating site better known for hook-ups than for marriage proposals.
Two friends had done it, with surprising results (one swore that the men she met were much more interesting than those she found on match.com), and your correspondent had been privy to some of the emails received. Suffice it to say, much hilarity ensued. Surely the entertainment value alone would make the experiment worth the effort. Plus, of course, there was simple curiosity: what kind of response would result?
(Much greater than from "legit" dating sites, as it happens. Apparently your correspondent's unclothed rear view is more appealing to more men than is her charming face.)
Yes, nude photos (tasteful art pics in black and white, shot by an award-winning professional photographer known to yr. corresp., as a birthday gift to herself) were part of the profile, cropped to make them anonymous. The profile itself, however, made it clear that this particular woman was looking for lifelong love, not a one-night stand.
Definitely not your average hook-up site profile, but composing it proved to be quite empowering and liberating – a highly recommended exercise in itself!
Let it be noted that your correspondent did not expect to actually meet any of the men from this site. Especially given the preponderance of cock shots. (If you ever find yourself wishing there were only a place where you could view thousands of tiny pictures of that most famous part of the mail anatomy in all its various shapes, colors and sizes, I've got just the site for you.) In fact, the mere presence of a cock shot, either in the profile itself or in the introductory email, was grounds for instant rejection. As a male friend put it, "Any guy who posts a photo of his dick is probably, well, a dick."
(Guys, if you're reading, trust me on this: no doubt there are exceptions, particularly if someone is really just looking for a roll in the hay, but most women who are out for more than that really don't want to become acquainted with your shlong until some time after they've gotten to know you. Yes, it's important, and yes, size does matter [though not necessarily in the way you think; it's really a Goldilocks and the Three Bears, "just right" kind of thing], but can we please have a conversation first? Ladies? Do you agree?)
Girls, if you're looking for a shallow ego boost, putting a profile up on a sex site has much to recommend it. Within minutes of posting the profile, the responses started flooding in.
to be continued...
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
How Dating Helped Me Learn to Set Boundaries (and Five Steps for Establishing Yours)
A few weeks into The Four Man Plan I went on a lunch date with a guy I had no attraction to. Okay, I'll be honest – I was kind of physically repulsed by him. Yet after lunch, when he asked if he could kiss me, I didn't have a clear enough compass to tell him "no." I let him kiss me (ew), all the time thinking "Ew, I really don't want to be doing this," but still I didn't stop him. Then, after he'd pulled away, to my horror he stepped in again for another kiss (double-ew!), asking cursory permission, which, I'm embarrassed to say, I granted again, even though I seriously did not want those lips anywhere near mine. Ew, ew, ewwww!
When I finally got in my car and drove away I was thoroughly disgusted with myself! How did I let that happen? Clearly I needed to work on my boundaries! Because I let this guy kiss me the first time, he presumed he had permission for a second time, and now saying "no" became that much more of an ordeal. Much better to say no at the start! Oh, I had some work to do!
I'm grateful to Mr. Repulsive for helping me realize that I needed boundary-setting help, but my biggest problem, more than actually learning to say no, was figuring out what I wanted. It may sound ridiculous,
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Calling All Single Girls! Become a Dating Queen!
Are you single and looking?
Does the idea of dating fill you with dread? Or make you exhausted just thinking about it?
Would you like a rejuvenated outlook?
Are you ready to HAVE FUN, learn more about yourself and grow as a person, en route to finding the love of your life?
If you answered YES to any of the above questions, you're the ideal candidate to become a Dating Queen!
Shine up your tiara, girlfriend, and come on in!
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Who is the Dating Queen?
In the Dating Queen Shop
Dating Queen Music
Dating Queen Art
