It’s the lonely girl’s lament: if I’m such a catch, then why am I still single? You could be making yourself unavailable without even realizing it. Read this and find out what you may inadvertently be doing – and how you can meet your mate.
It’s happening all around you. Your friends are either tying the knot or happily involved with the men of their dreams – but you, it seems, only has a man in your thoughts. (Don’t worry, male readers, you too can glean a bit of wisdom from this article.) When you don’t want to be single, single is the worst thing to be. Flying solo can leave you feeling lonely and hopeless, adrift in a seemingly endless ocean of solitary unhappiness. But wait! That ocean is teeming with possibility; haven’t you ever heard the expression “there are lots of fish in the sea?” Whether it’s going to take changing your bait, scouting different fishing holes, or switching from a pole to a net (or catching one with your hands grizzly bear-style, darn it!), it’s time to snag yourself a romance.
So what am I doing wrong?
That question itself may be your problem. You may not be feeling very self-assured in your ability to attract and keep, a mate. That brings us to our first topic.
Confidence
Ask almost anyone, and they’ll unanimously agree: confidence is sexy. (Confidence, not cockiness or arrogance, there is a difference.) If you aren’t confident, you may come across as needy, insecure and even (gasp!) desperate – a surefire recipe to attract the wrong kind of person. And if you don’t change that about yourself, you’ll repeatedly fall into the same patterns, dating the same schmuck in a different package.
There are many things you shouldn’t fake (we won’t go into details here, but I presume you know at least one of them) but confidence is one thing that, if you feel you’re lacking, is okay to fudge. In fact, pretending that you’re confident can help you get confidence. Think about it: if you keep your cool outwardly, nobody can know that on the inside, you’re shaking like a leaf. Start out with baby steps, flash someone a friendly smile or a wave. Keep your chin held high and your posture straight. You don’t have to charge into a room yelling, “The party is here! … Ralphieeee, good to see ya, Baby!” to appear self-assured.
Changing your physical appearance can do a lot to boost your self-confidence. We’ve all seen that miraculous makeover shows where the ugly duckling gets turned into a swan and cries about how much her life has changed for the better. But there’s only so much you can do to improve your outside. According to Relationship Expert and Life Coach Shari Mindlen, M.B.A., “Rather than buying new clothes, getting a facial, a new haircut or a new car to change your image, do some ‘self’ work on the inside to make some permanent and effective changes. Fixing the outside is just putting a Band-Aid on your problems. ‘Self’ work creates real solutions and real change in yourself and your behavior. ‘Self’ work means doing some things to increase your self-esteem, improve your self-confidence, give you more self-respect, and have more self-assurance. You need more of these to attract emotionally available and emotionally healthy partners and to have a successful, healthy relationship.” Instead of beating themselves up and constantly asking, “What am I doing wrong?” confident people ask themselves what they need to change to get what they want. And that is the perfect segue into our next topic.
Attitude
It goes hand-in-hand with confidence; together, they pack a one-two punch that can either win you the title or knock out your chances. So stop the pity party – stop it right now! It’s not doing you any good, is it? Repeat after me, and make this your mantra: a negative attitude produces negative results. An adverse reaction is a habit you’ve gotten into, and it’s going to take a little bit of effort to break it. Once you do, I guarantee that new dating doors you will open.
To change your attitude, you have to give up your emotional baggage. If you’re still bitter over a traumatic breakup or divorce, you can forget about attracting anyone into your life. Even if you do manage to, you’ll shortly run them off with your tendency to unfairly take out your frustrations from past relationships on them. In her article, “An Attitude of Gratitude,” author Margot Carmichael Lester says, “If you keep looking at your past from a perspective of regret and wanting – of feeling like you never got your due – you’re not taking responsibility for your role in the outcome. Taking the victim position on your past or otherwise disconnecting yourself from your experience of it gets you nothing but more bad results. As they say, ‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.'”
Turn that bitterness around! Instead of harboring resentments about your old relationships, examine them to see what you’ve learned. Then – here’s a switch – be grateful that you had the relationship, and that you got burned. The trauma you’ve experienced has most likely taught you a valuable lesson, whatever that might be. It’s up to you to recognize what it is. Once you do, you can consider yourself lucky that because of that lesson, you’re not doomed to re-live it with the following relationship. Whatever it was that sabotaged your previous relationship, now you can avoid it and move ahead instead of dwelling on it – picking at an old wound. That’s one hurdle cleared!
Next, try as hard as you can to clear your mind of negative thoughts about dating. Ditch the things you’ve been saying to yourself about how there’s no one out there for you, that you’ve run the dating gamut, that you’re doomed to be an old maid. That kind of negative self-talk only serves to make you desperate, and potential mates tend to run – not walk – to steer clear of desperate people. So replace those thoughts with, “There is someone out there who is perfect for me! I could very well meet that person today!” Even if you don’t necessarily believe it, keep saying it – eventually, it will start to sound more and more accurate to you.
Self-Esteem
This one is an important aspect when it comes to finding a mate. The bottom line: in a relationship, you get what you feel you deserve only. If you don’t feel worthy of love, respect, and admiration, you won’t garner any from your partner. It’s hard to love someone who doesn’t love themselves; if you’re down on yourself, then why shouldn’t your mate be down on you as well? And then you’re unhappy because you aren’t getting any respect, and so you figure it must be because you aren’t worthy of it, and your self-esteem goes down the toilet. See the vicious cycle here? It is why it’s crucial to be okay with yourself – so you’ll attract a man who loves you as much as you do.
To start building your self-esteem, first, you must forgive yourself for being single. You’ve probably been perceiving it for a long time as some self-inflicted curse, a situation you’ve put yourself in due to your sheer undesirability. It is absolutely, one hundred percent not true! Being single is not something that has happened to you because you’re too (fill in the blanks: boring, unattractive, fat, pimply, etc.), nor is it a calamity – it’s a circumstance, and a temporary one at that, just like having a cold. It may last longer than you want it to, but it’s not going to last forever; our circumstances change all the time.
Forgive yourself for what you do, but never, ever forgive yourself for being who you are. Be proud of the person you have become over the years. There is a lot about you to love. If you have a hard time believing it, then prove it to yourself by asking your family and friends what they love in you. You may be surprised – and flattered – by what they have to say. Then, compile a list of the things everyone has said, and read it often. Work on developing those characteristics even further. If there’s an attribute that you feel is missing from the list, see it as an opportunity to build that characteristic or trait rather than just another thing you’re lacking.
There’s another self-esteem-boosting list you can make. Each night before you go to bed, make a list of things you’ve done right during the day. You can comprise it of things as simple as resisting a second helping of dessert, or as significant as getting a promotion at work. In the morning, look over the previous night’s list. That way, you’ll start every day out with positive affirmations about yourself.
You have to be happy with who you are to be satisfied with anyone else – and to be able to give someone your best.
A few common dating mistakes …
- Being an Alpha female. If you’re successful in business, you’re probably using the same tactics to attract guys that made you a success in the workplace. The characteristics that work for you in your career won’t necessarily work for you in a relationship. It isn’t to say that you should pretend you don’t have those characteristics; indeed, you should be proud of them, because they make you the strong woman that you are. But perhaps in the realm of dating and relationships, it’s time to push your other, less dominant characteristics to the forefront.
- Expecting too much, too soon. Blame the Cinderella stories, the romance novels, and the sappy movies – sometimes we think we’ve found “The One” after just a couple of dates. Unfortunately, this rarely happens in real life and is often due to a rush of new-relationship infatuation. If, after a cappuccino and a movie, you’re calling your mom to say that you have a new boyfriend, you should probably re-examine your ideas about how relationships work. It isn’t necessary to define a relationship (the sticky question of “are we or aren’t we a couple”) so quickly. Just enjoy being together and learning new things about each other. If the feelings are mutual, you’ll both slip easily into a committed relationship over time. Wait until those initial feelings of euphoria have died down before deciding that you can’t live without him.
- Being commitment-phobic- It may be that things are progressing too quickly in the relationship, and the inertia scares you. Or, you’re just not sure that there isn’t a better deal out there. Whatever the reason, you have to ask yourself why you’re in a serious relationship, to begin with when you’re so obviously not ready. Is it due to pressure put on you by family and friends? Is it because you’re afraid of being hurt? When you get to the root of the problem, it’s much easier to solve.
- Hitting the sack immediately- You can call it hooking up, shacking up, or bedding down – but if you jump into the horizontal mambo too quickly, the only call you’ll be getting is a booty call. If you’re the kind of person that’s into casual sex (and if you are, you’d better be protecting yourself!), then skip this section. But if you’re looking for a potentially serious relationship, give it some time before you slip between the sheets with your new fling. Sleeping with someone right away emphasizes the physical attraction and downplays the emotional appeal. You’re not going to make someone love you by having sex with them; that’s not the way things work. Remember, great sex doesn’t make for a great relationship.
- Pursuing the unattainable- Perhaps there’s someone you’d love to date, but who has demonstrated time and time again that he doesn’t feel the same way about you that you do about him. Pushing your way into his life isn’t going to help you win him over – in fact, it will probably do quite the opposite (can you say “restraining order?”). If you’ve expressed your feelings to someone, and those feelings aren’t mutual, don’t waste all your time hoping he’ll come around. Move on in search of better prospects. You don’t want someone whose feelings for you are merely lukewarm, anyway!
- Having vastly different life goals- Opposites may attract, and that’s fine – if “opposite” means that you prefer chocolate while he prefers vanilla or other such mundane things. But it’s important that you find out your mate’s biggest goals and dreams, and measure them against yours. Could you handle living in his dream condo in the heart of the city, when all you’ve ever wanted was a few acres and some chickens? Does it matter if he wants to raise his kids Jewish, even if you’re a devout Catholic? In the early stages of a relationship, we’re so in looooove (read: infatuated) that we tend to overlook important issues like this, taking the starry-eyed view that our love can overcome anything. (Or just the “we’ll-cross-that-bridge-when-we-come-to-it” approach.) But you don’t want to find yourself in a committed relationship and suddenly realizing that neither of you is willing to change your goals for the other.
- Trying to find Mr. Perfect. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying you shouldn’t have high standards when it comes to choosing your guy. But set your sights too high, and you’re bound to do some overlooking severe. Have a bright idea of what you want in a mate, but be flexible: does he have to be six foot two, brown-haired, blue-eyed, with a job in sales, his own house, and open to having three or more cats? If you can’t seem to find the right guy, you may be looking too hard. Keep your standards, but try not to be overly picky: be realistic about what you want.
- Settling for less- At the other end of the spectrum, there are those of us who settle into a less-than-ideal relationship just because it’s secure. We have the attitude of, “Well, he’s not exactly my soul mate, but at least I’m not single.” Don’t sell yourself short! You’re only cheating yourself and your partner out of a great relationship by staying together “just because.” Is it easier than dating? And if it is, is it worth being unhappy?
Ways to find that special someone … or at least a good date!
Last time I checked, men didn’t come door-to-door looking for dates. It’s a pretty safe bet that a relationship isn’t just going to fall into your lap, so it’s time to be proactive and do a little searching of your own!
-
Advertise. Think about it: what better way to find a person that fits your idea of a perfect match? By placing a personal ad, either in a newspaper personals column or online, you can outline what you’re exactly looking for – and get responses from people who fit that description. It’s exciting (and empowering!) to get responses and know that people want to get to know you better, and hope you’ll choose them.
- Try online dating. The ‘Net is full of online dating sites, all competing with one another to get their clients the best results possible. So they’re going to do whatever they can to match you up with someone you’re super-compatible. You can create a profile for yourself, getting specific, and find someone who shares your goals, values, and preferences. Most sites charge a nominal fee, but it’s a small price to pay if you’re aching for a relationship.
- Look outside your normal scope. So maybe he isn’t the type you usually go for, but don’t overlook the guy you just met because he isn’t rich, or blond, or older than you. Even if you don’t initially find a guy particularly attractive, you shouldn’t discount him right away; often once we get to know someone’s personality, they will start to become more attractive to us. If you tend to have a “type,” you should think about giving other types a chance. Try something new for a change!
- Volunteer. There’s something about volunteering that makes you feel so good – and you’d feel even better about it if you found a great guy in the process. Offer up your services at charity events, church, homeless shelters, anywhere that a helping hand is much appreciated. You might just be paired up with a fellow do-gooder who happens to be cute and available. You may not get paid for volunteering, but you might get a payoff by finding an altruistic guy. Score!
- Take lessons. Enroll in some class – ballroom dancing, cooking, photography, any coed course. It’s a win-win situation; you’ll be doing something that interests you, getting good at it, gaining marketable skills, and might even meet a special someone in the process. And if you do meet someone in one of these classes, you’ll already have a common bond – makes for great dinner conversation, if nothing else!
- Join a gym or health club. It’s the same principle as taking lessons: you’re doing something good for yourself (and as an added perk, you’ll look and feel fantastic, too) and at the same time, giving yourself the chance to meet new people.
In the meantime …
Until you find your exciting new romance, it’s essential that you don’t feel your life is lacking. Pick out the good parts about being single, and learn to enjoy those, rather than whimpering about how much being single sucks. If there were nothing fun about being single, married people wouldn’t long for those carefree days – but many of them do. Some even try to recapture their separate days; why do you think adultery (and consequently, divorce) is so commonplace? Enjoy your right to choose. Enjoy your ability to be selfish, to do what you please without having to take anyone else’s needs into account. Fill your life with activities that might not be possible if you were spending all your time with a significant other. If you’re happy with your life, and yourself, then you’re one step closer to being happy with someone else.