It’s Just a Date: A Guide to a Sane Dating Life. Greg Behrendt
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always up for a solo adventure in the city and found that I often preferred being alone to having plans. How antisocial, right? Maybe or maybe not … The thing about having things that are important to you and that don’t depend on anyone else’s availability or interest is that you can fuel your life and happiness without others. That in my estimation is a very powerful thing to be able to do. I’m very in touch with what makes me feel good, less than good, powerful and pathetic. Filling my life with things, people, events, pastimes and hobbies of value made my life and my time valuable. It also made it something worth building on instead of scrapping every time I had a good date. Not only that, I didn’t need a man in my life to make my life great and found quite a few of them actually just complicated and detracted from it, which was definitely not a bonus to what I already had going on. My advice to anyone who is living a life that they don’t love is to change it! If you don’t like your job, find another one that you will like. If you don’t like your wardrobe, get creative and make it better (Project Runway anyone??). If you don’t like your friends, the color of your apartment, the stuff you put in your fridge, the way you go to work, whatever the hell it is—it’s up to you to improve it and mold it into something that you genuinely like. It’s only when you get a good life, have a good life and maintain a good life that you’ll find a man worth spending time away from it.
THOUGHTS FROM MAN CITY
I like the chase. I always have, the more challenging the course the more rewarding the catch. I don’t care if it’s an antiquated thought. And I believe it to be true for most men. When I’ve told women this they always respond with, “Well I don’t want to come off like a bitch who doesn’t have time for the guy I like.” You don’t have to be a bitch about it. There is a nice way of letting someone know your life matters to you. If I look back the great loves of my life they were always women who were self-possessed, confident and goal-oriented. They were women who challenged me. I remember I dated a painter who when she was working on a painting wouldn’t see me until it was done. Sometimes that would take weeks. Weeks! If I were lucky she’d let me visit her at her bar-tending gig where she would make out with me for 10 minutes in the utility closet before sending me home. That’s it. But I was fascinated with her. So why didn’t it work with any of the other women? Because usually I’d end up giving my life away or being okay with seeing someone for only ten minutes a week in a utility closet. See, for a relationship to really work it has to be the coming together of two great very valued lives that over a period of time merge while staying true to who they are. It’s great when we fall in love with you, but it’s even better when we fall in love with your life as well.
You are the architect of your own life, so build one that you love living in … and put in a pool and a walk-in closet while you’re at it.
WORST DATE EVER
Every year my girlfriends and I go to Las Vegas for our girls’ weekend. I know it sounds a little corny but I love blackjack and a good martini. I’m not a big partier, I’m a lab tech at a veterinary hospital and I’m studying to be a vet. So needless to say I really look forward to our girls’ getaway and last year was no exception, as my father had passed away and I really needed to do something fun. Well, about a week and a half before our big event I met Kurt when he brought his dog Cheech in for some x-rays. He was very handsome and talked to me like no man had spoken to me in some time. Since my divorce I’ve really spent the last few years working on myself and not really dating. Anyway I was pretty taken with him. He took my number and we talked on the phone every night. I even came into work late a few times because I’d only gotten off the phone hours before. He was all I could think about. He finally asked me out and I’ll bet you can guess for when. Exactly, Greg! The same weekend as our Vegas trip. I told him I was so conflicted. He even said we could do it when I got back. I called my girlfriends and they all said the same thing. “He’ll be here when you get back.” That’s why I’ll never understand why I did what I did next … I called him and told him I’d gladly break my plans to see him. Now that you know the deal you can only imagine how stupid I felt when he told me at dinner that he wanted to be clear that this was just a friend thing. A F@#%ING FRIEND THING! My girlfriend just now texts me that she’s sitting next to Britney at the Palms—and he wants to be friends? How much worse does it get Greg? Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson.
IT’S JUST A F*#KING ART MUSEUM
It’s all out there waiting for you, kid. Museums, gyms, friendships, charities, travel, etc. … all you have to do is put one foot in front of the other. These are the things that make you attractive, these are the things that give you stories to tell on dates and this is the life that awaits you. It is the life you must have in order to be in a successful relationship, so start taking some risks. You are not going to love everything you try, but do it anyway because you never know who else has signed up for that formula one racing class.
The Original World Famous Winner Dater’s Workbook
It’s time for you to get a life—and if you already have one, it’s time to make it an even fuller and more kickass one. We are put here on this planet to explore and enjoy it, so let’s get you out into it and doing things so that next time you get asked out you’ll have to check your schedule for real.
Make a list of things that you want to do and start scheduling them regularly so that you are getting the most out of your life while this time is still yours alone to use. We’ll give you a few ideas to start but it’s up to you to think of more, then go do them regularly.
List 5 things you’d like to do weekly
1 Take a yoga class
2 Do the Sunday Crossword puzzle
3 Take the dog on a walk
4
5
List 5 things you’d like to do every other week
1 See a movie
2 Wander around Primark for half an hour
3 Have dinner with a friend
4
5
List 5 things you’d like to do monthly
1 Get your car washed
2 Try a new restaurant
3 Take a tennis lesson
4
5
principle #3: pretty is as pretty does
What’s The Message You’re
Sending To The World?
So as it turns out, this world here that we’ve been living in happens to be a visual medium. How totally random is that? Not random at all, actually. The reason we have eyes is to see the world around us and the people in front of us. To give our brains images and information so that it has things to process so that we can form opinions and ideas about what and