How to Attract and Keep a Loser . . .

I’m thinking of a series because there's just too much to write. Here's the first few you need to do to turn him off (or on) depending what you are looking for. I've gathered these hints from 20 years of experiences with kvetching women, friends and my experience as a therapist/researcher.   

You have just connected in person, on the phone, via email, or text.

1) Believe everything you see and hear. If you have met online take his profile as gospel

2) Rather than discuss politics, news events, or neutral topics (Gee, that storm last night was terrible . . .), talk about yourself—a lot. Tell him how great you are, how many men you have put in your slush pile, how valuable you are as a partner, and make sure to reveal all your requirements in a potential mate, sprinkled through your conversation.

“Family is sooo important to me.”

Now that you’ve told him what he needs to do to jump your bones, make sure you tell him how your ex failed, so he can avoid doing those things.

“My ex was a terrible parent.”

3) Don’t ask him anything about himself, where he works, how long he’s worked there, where he was born . . . .Don’t ask the questions that might give you a hint that you’re sitting across from a psychopath, sex addict, liar, or loser.

4) Allow him to text, or email most of your early pseudo conversations, rather than meet in person.

5) Don’t check him out. Don’t run to Facebook, Google his name, go to his employers website, check out his address (where you might find a ramshackle mobile home, a wife, kids, or foreclosure notice on the front door).

6) Daydream. Create all kinds of positive scenarios, because you know he’s prefect.

7) Disregard everything your friends tell you. What do they know?

Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In and Listen

What Women REALLY Need . . .

Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In . . .misses some valid points.  It might be a good read for those of us who have social supports but not for the 50% who have only themselves to rely on.  Lean In and ask for more work, for a raise, for more responsibility?    

            Last night, my youngest of six, Matthew, saw me working on the computer.  "Mom," he said. "Can I make dinner for you?"  I smiled.  But I'm grinning wider now—he's part of a new generation of men and women who have taken on nontraditional roles without balking and squawking.  He's part of the solution, groomed by my desire to earn a PhD in Psychology and have a career.  Remember that old TV show, Queen For a Day?  For you younger ones, women would compete for the crown and the ermine cape.  One winner was woman whose house burned to the ground. She moved her entire family into the backyard shed, wove beds out of pine boughs, gathered dandelion greens, and fed them small game caught in a noose, fashioned out of an electrical cord.  She won a barbecue grill for her glorious of multitasking.  They took that show off the air, deeming it too indignant to women.  Well, they ought to bring it back because I deserve that title—and I'm not alone. I want Martha Stewart herself to crown me.

            As I wrote this and had a good laugh, my husband David poked his head out of my computer and said, "What we really need is King for a Day."  I looked at my king, the poor guy whose mother garnished his plate and needed to be reprogrammed by his wife-who-wanted- a-career, and knew there was a grain of truth in what he said.  There is our first quandary—we need men or partners just as much as we need to meet our aspirations.      

            Our second dilemma is what women want and need may not be the same thing.  While my oxytocin-wired brain summoned babies (I'm a mom to six), my intellectual side needed stimulation.  Perhaps if I were back some 10,000 years ago with my cave sisters I might have had some female company.  I might have been debating, inventing some new method of weaving rushes, or leaving my babes with a friend while I dug up some fresh roots.  Sadly in today's world, sisters, mothers, grannies or friends are not there to reinforce our social needs—which are different from men's.  We're wired for comradery and cooperation rather than competition and contest. 

            Our folly might be discarding  those needs and attempting to circumvent them.  We're also wired to worry.  It might have served our cave-sisters well but not us.  Thinking about raises and job opportunity when you have babies in daycare?  Ha!  It's made all the more terrible by the fact that we have little choice in the matter; we live in an economy where not working is some sort of shame.  Most of us come home to waiting laundry piles, and hungry men—not necessarily hungry for food.  To add insult to injury, we're expected to Martha-Stewart our lives in our spare time.  One year I carved twenty five tiny pumpkins to hold the Thanksgiving soup, and that was before I collected flora and fauna for the centerpieces.   No Betty-Croker-in-the-box for our generation.  Had Martha been born in the late sixties, we might have been embroidering our bras, not burning them.

            Have a laugh now because the rest of it is poignantly sad.  American women are among the most depressed and stressed in the world. "Role-strain" is what we call it—and we need to admit it before we try to tackle the problem.  In the 1990's, a PhD student, teaching for pennies, I was accused of breastfeeding my newborn in the classroom—by the male chairman of the Psychology Department!  It was untrue, but such sentiments have hardly gone away.  The pull to "mother" will not wane until the pull to "father" meets it with equal force.  With men earning at least 20% more than us, the tradeoffs are not in our favor.  While many European countries provide stipends to parents who need to parent, today's woman faces a quandary; leave and parent, or stay and hold on to one's position.  Yes, while that job might still be waiting, chances are you'll lose seniority, accumulated six time, raises, and respect.  Women who leave for more than a few weeks are castigated as the Benedict Arnolds of the workplace, their minds thought lost in the world of diapers, bottles and teddy bears.  I've had friends who've been on that cliff, holding onto their positions with their fingernails as their eggs rotted.  "I don't know when the right time is to get pregnant," said my thirty- nine- year old executive friend. 

            No wonder we take the crumbs we're offered, and don't lean in.  We're caught between thinking we don't deserve it or worrying that any added responsibilities to our pile might just Jenga that tower.  The male patriarchy (yes, it's alive) is not going to fess up to its complicity.  And it also means that most of our life-partners have to take on additional responsibilities.  Ours was a balancing act, dividing up the chores, yet reserving time for one another, no matter what.  This brings this conversation to a happy note.  When men take on that task, they raise children who understand those roles.  Those children will one day be executives, CEO's, and wield the power to shift our strain, equally.  

            I looked at my husband, the man who let that screaming baby suck on his nipple until it was purple while I was taking my doctoral qualifying exams.  I'm going to crown him King For a Day—tonight.    

Dawn Marlena Hopper, PhD 

What Do Men Want?

Today I met a friend for lunch with a copy of my book on men—a book jammed packed with their love stories.  For one hour we discussed my ideas.  The woman at the next table felt my very words were an insult to her ears.

She went militant on me.  I tried to calm her.  But when she called me a crazy religious zealot and an affront to all women who fought for women's rights I went "Gloria" on her.  I lived in a women's commune in the mid-seventies!  Burn my bra?  I cut a huge hole in the ass of my jeans and let my checks spill out.  I fought idiots at Planned Parenthood.  This wasn't the first time I got that reaction and it won't be the last.  I love men and because I love it doesn't negate the fact I love women.  SO I'm reposting Dr. Helen Fisher's blog that gets to the meat.

For centuries Americans and people just about everywhere else, have believed a lot of things about women that we now realize aren’t true.  Among them, the credos that a woman’s place is in the home and that aging single women—long called spinsters—are sad misfits.  Decades of marches, articles, books, law suits and national, regional and local discussions have finally uprooted these and many more wrong beliefs about women.  This national survey furthers that cause.   Indeed, it shows that women seek more independence in a partnership than men do.

But I have long wanted to bust myriad myths about the other half of the human race–men.  Single in America does it in spades.   This national survey clearly shows that men are just as eager to marry as women are; 33% of both sexes want to say “I do.”  Moreover, men in every age group are more eager than women to have children.  Even young men.  Among those between ages 21 and 34, 51% of men want kids, while 46% of women yearn for young.  Men are less picky too.  Fewer men say it is  important to find a partner of their own ethnic background (20% of men vs 29%  of women said this is a “must have” or “very important”); and fewer say they want someone of their own religion (17% of men vs 28% of women said this is a “must have” or “very important”).   Men are also more likely to have experienced love at first sight, as well as open to introducing a date to their parents sooner.

Perhaps most impressive:  In a committed relationship, men are less likely to say they need personal space (58% vs 77% of women); less likely to want nights out with friends (23% vs 35% of women); less eager to own their own bank account (47% vs 66% of women); and less likely to want to take a vacation on their own (8% vs 12%).  Remarkably, men under age 45 are also more willing  than older men and women to enter a committed relationship with someone who has everything they were looking for in a partner, but whom they do not find sexually attractive.  And just as many men under 35 believe you can stay married to the same person forever (84%). http://blog.match.com/2011/02/04/the-forgotten-sex-men/

Sorry, we are not from other planets.  Dr. Dawn Hopper

Dr. Dawn: On line dating rules and Boundaries

Boundaries.

Rule number one.  The most sacred rule of all: boundaries.  You need boundaries.  Without them you compromise yourself, values and worse you send out the signal of DESPERATION.

Women appear to have much more desperation when looking for love than men.  If there is any cue that can bite you, it's being desperate.  Nothing men like more than a desperate woman and a woman with low self-esteem.  It attracts the worst. There are blog sites that train men how to find a desperate woman out there. 

Desperation can bring out the worst.  It leads us to wear the too tight dress, revealing too much cleavage, coming off to sexual and nixing the chance to find that commitment switch.  Being the girl next-door is probably the most powerful tactic you can take in finding Mr. Right.  One of the biggest mistakes women make is in amping up their sexuability too soon.  Good men want wholesome women who will be fabulously sexual with them and only them. If you don't agree go into therapy or become an escort.   

Let me tell you about what my friend Tara did.  She is probably one of the most beautiful women I know.  She had one goal: to find love. For the next year I watched her fumble and bumble her quest with at least twenty different guys.  For the sake of parsimony I'll narrow them down—I want you to see how attachment style feeds off of desperation.  It you looked up that word in the dictionary her face would have been plastered to it. 

            At the time of her divorce I was a teaching at a small college and I introduced her to Rob, a clam handsome divorced father of two.  I knew him well, he came from a wonderful family and had strong values and was looking for exactly what she was; a loving partner to spend the rest of his life with.  He was secure, came from a close knit family and they hit it off.  She'd call me each day and tell me of their wonderful conversations and how quickly they found shared interests and that connection.  But a months into their connection I sensed something was wrong.  

            Driving some 60 miles each way to his house, she was there every day and had practically moved in. "Don't you think you're moving too fast," I asked her.  She thought nothing of it and waylaid my fears.  But soon after he called me to tell me that he had to cool it all off.  "She's a great woman, but she is too over powering.  I think she needs time to figure out what she wants," he said to me.   The next weeks were spent weeping into my pillows and accidentally texting him.

            Her next plan was on-line dating.  After hundreds of profiles she found Barry, he looked good, had a great job and relayed that he was seeking a long-term relationship.  Barry however was our dismissive type; he was already forty and had never been married. All his vibes told me he lived to fly solo and had little need for a real relationhip—one that required real interaction—because for the next weeks they texted compulsively, chatted on the phone all night and there was still no meeting.  I had no doubt he was a pretexter- my term for those people who form on-line attachments and never move beyond the surreal world of texting and sexting because it satisfies them.  Finally she wrangled a meeting out of him.  When she stopped over before her date I was shocked.  She stood in a revealing dress, too blond, too overdone and raged desperateness. So can you guess what happened?  His picture didn't say that his head was far too puny for his body, that he had a weak chin and small female-like hands.  Nor did it say I hate desperate women.  Before they even ordered the entrée he fled the scene.  We had another week of crying and self-loathing. 

            Even approaching that desperation thing was impossible.  Next was Mr. Preoccupied—Nate. The desperate meets the desperate.  Nate was handsome and giving and soon I named him Mr. Velcro.  That name—preoccupied—it means they are preoccupied with getting dumped. When you are afraid to lose in the game of love, you tend to do one thing; wind your way into that target's  life.  He whined and wined her—practically moving into her house. He had no career to speak of other than worshiping the various women he had loved, or professed to have love.  I listened to his syrupy sweet anthems each night, and watched her walks around my house like a deranged Fellini character, in a bra and thong. I wanted to vomit.  

       Way too fast is how these relationships work because desperation feeds off other desperation.  It took some shocking realities to lift the veil; he was an alcoholic, had a criminal record, was living off his mother's credit card, had no real job aspirations and the house he supposedly lived in?  At forty, he had 8 college aged roommates.  Her puppy dog turned into a monster. 

            Now that we've described it, my next blog will detail the signs.

In the meantime tell yourself you are worthy, he needs to prove himself- not the other way around.  Men need to compete, to woo and to work for our love.  THAT IS SCIENCE my dears.

Anything worth having is worth working for- the principle of effort justification.  Google that !     

Online Love

The Love Lost Generation: The Problem with On-line Dating and Choice.
Love-lost genration? Sadly we are more confused than ever. Our cave life made it all much simpler. A hundred possbile dates? Are you kidding?

GF Becca calls. Disgusted with on-line dating- too much time, too much work, too little results. Is she alone? Hardly. The industry calls it “one of the best tools,” but unfortunately our cave brains see it as a massive stimulus overload. You just have too many choices! It might seem great to have hundreds of potential matches but then again our mind plays some tricks with all that information.

First, it gives us a false sense of confidence that we are in more control than we are. Then we make the next mistake, thinking we have control we maximize our pay-off. So when Becca saw Tom, a heart surgeon who took a liking to her pic, she chose him—Not for nothing but Becca is a cocktail waitress and wouldn’t know an artery from an arterial.

What she doesn’t know is that our brains get irritated when we are faced with too much choice. Oh how we hate to be wrong, indecisive and leave tings to chance. So she makes her contact. Now her brain decides to screw her over again—she becomes convinced they are destined. She goes back to his profile and works over all the reasons they are a couple. We call it post-decision dissonance and without all the science gab, it’s a way that we make ourselves feel better after we make a choice. We feelmore confident. Those dating sites know this. They know you might do all the things that Becca did and that’s why they give you certain information and then smack it with a percentage. He was 97% her match. For the next day she read, reread and presumed that they had everything in common.

Now effort- justification kicks in. What’s that? It’s when we amp up our confidence that our efforts are well-justified. After all, she spent two solid days filling our questionnaires and another weekend responding to questions and queries. Our minds don’t like to think our efforts are worthless and Becca was absolutely convinced that there was a pay-off in there for her. Of course her mind filled in all the gaping pot-holes in her path—after all with hundreds of choices and a 97% match, what could go wrong? Plenty.

The date was a disaster. He, like 67% of men use on-line dating as a hook-up tool. After plying her with gin he proceeded to tell her about his other vein—She bolted from the restaurant.
But even if that last scenario didn’t happen all that choice lends us to experience some big disappointment. So what can you do? First you just learned something about how thinking can undermine our efforts. However in the next weeks I’ll set out some great rules that can help in maximizing on-line dating efforts.

For more information: Online Dating: A Critical Analysis From the Perspective of Psychological Science, by Eli J. Finkel, Paul W. Eastwick, Benjamin R. Karney, Harry T. Reis, and Susan Sprecher

Match.com: Plenty of Fish in the Sea

It seems all my friends are trawling these days on dating sites and I have a lot of chum to chew about.  I’ve vowed that if I ever have a single life, I will never go out to sea.  Take Bob, by far the best fisherman out there and my gf’s ex.  She left, he wasn’t ready, and with a broken heart, a heavy dose of sexual rejection,  he did exactly what men do to heal—they fish the sea of women.  He’s not into the catch and release program and he’s floundered the last month with at least a dozen fish,  some still on ice, in his walk-in-cooler.  I know he’s not exaggerating; my cousin, an experienced fisherman has told me many times the lure can be a phone call, a cheap dinner and a bottle of wine.  “Dawn,” he said, “there are so many women out there!”

So when Bob showed me his line and hook, and made his cast, I had no doubt they’d feast on his bait.   He listed his income in the 99% that most of us 1%er’s despise yet covet and then characterized himself as loving, generous and out for a long term relationship with a woman who could travel the world with him and visit exotic places.  They swarmed.

Bob responded, and with a heavy heart telling them he was still in love with his scornful wife and terribly lonely.  Men, he cast the perfect line.  This wounded guppy created the perfect feeding ground for bottom dwellers.  Woman #1 responds.  He tells me she is self-made, a professional gambler,  living with her aged parents, who she lovingly tends to and runs an internet business on EBay. I’m sitting right there when she sends him a picture of her at that moment in her panties. A Black lace piece of dental floss.  I look down at my crotch imagining what my husband might think if I sent him my shot, right at that moment—jockey microfiber granny panties.  I tuck away the idea of doing something fun for David and  went back to Bob’s plight.  Hi mind was wound in the Black lace but my logical prefrontal cortex was screaming.  So I translate: Compulsive gambler, lost so much money she has to live her parents basement and sell her garage sale finds to fill her gas tank.  I add that she might be selling her used underwear.” 

“But she doesn’t drink,” he retorts.

“Oh,”  I say, “she’s a recovering alcoholic too.” 

A week later he tells me I was right. His revelation came after he found himself eating alone in the casino dining room and after she swiped the tip off the table for “just one more game.”  The evening was topped off with wild sex after she beat him at strip poker and out of a couple hundred dollars.  “How did that happen?” I asked.

“Every time I lost a piece of clothing I had to pay her fifty dollars.”

By now he’s got a new one on the line.  “She’s really down to earth,” he tells me. He describes her life:  She doesn’t care about money— which was a revelation after her near-death experience, after the bus hit her, and after the state took her four kids when she woke from the three month coma, couldn’t recall her own name but had to start again by working in a soup kitchen and living in a studio.

“How old is she?” I ask.

He responded but all I processed was “still fertile.”

“Did you use a condom?” I asked. 

“Oh my God,” he said. “I never thought about that.”

Somehow my mind conjured up the predatory image.  Nothing more juicy than a fat wallet and a desperate man. 

“Bob, it’s like the food chain.  You think your landing plenty of fish but they have to feed too.”

As the weeks went by  Bob got tired of his expedition. “It’s like a full time job,” he told me. “Depressing as hell.”  

He turned the iPod towards me so I could read it. 

All the right words were there; Attractive, divorced, financially secure, wanted honest long term relationship, loved to travel to exotic places. . . .”

He scrolled up to the photo.  It was his ex.

eHarmon-erffic! Some Truths about eHarmony and Why it Works

My girlfriend joined a few weeks ago.  I sat by her side and watched the process.  Because I’ve been asked many times about what I think about dating sites, I thought I’d spare the humor and give you a professional opinion.  No, I’m not being paid to say this.  It works because it is based in some rather sound scientific principles.  For those who do not know, eHarmony begins with a series of questions examining your values, beliefs, emotional health and life skills.  It takes hours and in the end, after paying a fee, you are shown some pictures and given limited information about your matches. You have three stages to follow before you get a chance to contact that person.  You cannot lie, you cannot be married nor can you be separated.  They have a way to check you out but that is another blog.  It works for several reasons. 

First, they force you to spend the entire day filling out questionnaires.  If you were not in touch with your feelings, it’s like having five serious therapy sessions—in the end you know a hell-of-a lot about yourself and what you can with or cannot live without.  As a side note, there are scales of mental fitness- it might be worth the effort and money to weed out some wakadoodles.    

Second, this is a fantastic exercise for anyone, especially men, many of whom have little idea what they really want out side of the best looking woman they can attract.  Men tend to go for the looks first and while women weigh attractiveness they tend to balance it out.    

“I want to go out with this one,” my cousin said to me while he was on Plenty of Fish. 

I looked at her picture, in a bikini, at least 20 years his junior.  

“But she says she will not date smokers and you smoke.”

“I’ll quit,” He tells me. 

Third and related to the second, you are not bombarded by hundreds of people.  My poor cousin could not sift the chafe from the wheat; he was stuck on young skinny women, twenty years his junior, that were into rock concerts—he wears a hearing aid.  The more balanced matches faded into the page.  eHarmony whittles the selection process down as the process reminds you what dating is all about.  It’s the time we get to know someone else—and not just physically.  

Fourth, once you hone in on someone it mimics courting.  You’ve see the face, you’ve read the bio, you have some facts and now you get the chance to tell your philosophy of live,  There are three stages of guided communication before you can email them.  The questions are deep and require thought:  What are five things you cannot live without, or what have you learned from your past relationships, or who has influenced you the most in life and why. These questions reveal a lot about a person. When my girlfriend read that her match could not live without cleanliness, organization, good hygiene and nice teeth, she went on to the next person.  Imagine how long it might have taken her to find out he was such a neat freak?    

Fifth, it requires effort.  Anything worth having is worth waiting for.  It’s called effort justification and the more we work at something the more valuable we think it is.  This principle applies the moment you sit in front of the computer and face hours of questions with a meter telling you how far you are in the process.  There were a few times I got frustrated when my girlfriend was answering the mounds of questions.  “But I’m 60% done,” she exclaimed.  The same idea applies when you’ve spent weeks harmonizing with another person.  Now she’s  going on her first date with the man she’s written to for several weeks. I can almost imagine it; awkwardness is set aside. Already they have discussed literature, their careers,  their relationships and he’s already aware that she isn’t ready for the bedroom.

Sixth, the name says it all—harmony—as in in-sync.  As a student of one of the most brilliant minds in the relationship arena (Dr. Donn Byrne) similarity is one of the most potent foundations of liking.  Opposites don’t attract!  We like people who share our views, it tell us we might be right about things.  It also gives us a feeling of control.  I remember some thirty years back when I went on a blind date.  He hated to read, loved heavy metal, chain restaurants and felt no one should leave the county until they had visited every state of the union.  Then there was his life of camping . . . It was a wash out.

Seventh,  familiarity breeds liking.  We like people we are more familiar with the more you talk, the more feel comfortable.  Have you ever had a person grow on you?  It’s the feeling you get when you realize they suddenly look more attractive.

Eight, it’s the timing thing.  You have to ready to love and to commit and anyone who takes the time to do eHarmony is in that place. 

Ninth, no man who is out for a hump and jump, hook-up, pump and run, or whatever you call it these days is going to pay over two hundred dollars, spend the entire day on the questionnaire, then have to wait another few weeks for some woman to respond to questions that he himself hasn’t written but are supplied by some psycho-computer somewhere.  He’ll be on another site. Your pool is virtually full of likeminded people who want to be in with someone.  Finally the most important one of all.

Tenth, You can openly discuss your sexual comfort level via the questionnaire and more important, that fling is going to take a while.  You’ve got weeks of a program ahead of you.

Despite our sexual freedoms, nothing can ruin a relationship more than hooking-up.  It clouds who they are and sex too soon is the kiss of death in many relationships. If it’s great sex, you might not notice the fact that they drink too much.  If the sex is bad, you might have gotten to know them enough to work on making it good.  And for your information, casual sex is virtually always poor for women.  It takes time to work it out, and when you do, when there is more caring, your partner is more interested in making it work.  The second problem is that once in the sack you can never go back.  Once sex enters the picture everything changes.  At least when you are on the site, your chances of that hook-up are decreased and all the effort put into hunting that person down might translate into a little wait.   

if you’re looking for a meaningful relationship and willing to put in the time, this is the site.  If you’re looking for quick and easy access join another site. 

Oh no! It’s Grandma and Grandpa Gone Wild!

I wrote this blog half a year ago.  Now I want to capture my generations attention. 

               There are two words that we don’t like to hear in one sentence— “grandparents” and “sex.”  I remember quite clearly when my grandmother and I watched an episode of Dr. Ruth and she told me she wished someone had told her about orgasms. I was mortified, by both the fact that she had no clue and that the word came out of her mouth—with a Yiddish accent, too.    
            Well, it’s not your grandparents’ world anymore.  The University of Chicago's National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), presented in the New England Journal of Medicine, tells a different story about grandma and grandpa; they are sexually active, engaging in intercourse, oral sex and masturbation—well into their 70s and 80s. The boomer generation is having record sex; enjoying sex as much or more than when they were younger, and to prove it they are acquiring sexually transmitted diseases in record numbers.

          Sex may decline only slightly between ages 50 to 70 and those between 70 to 85 seem to be affected only by health problems or the availability of a partner, not desire. Boomers and seniors biggest complaint about sex is that they lack information; about sexually transmitted diseases, performance issues such as erectile dysfunction, vaginal dryness or lubrication.  

“I have no one to ask about these things,” said Marion S. at the Boomer Health Fair in Albany, New York.  “My doctor rushes me out and other than the internet I suppose I’m alone on this.”

            Marion is not alone.  According to the NSHAP study, nearly one in seven men or 14% interviewed, reported taking medication to improve sexual function, and 38% reported they discussed sex with their doctor.  Much fewer women, 22%, reported discussing sex with a physician after age 50.  The researchers concluded that physicians have reasons and opportunities to open up dialogue with men because of the availability of drugs on the market to treat male sexual issues. But that appears to be changing; women are demanding treatments for libido loss, vaginal dryness and appear to coax their husbands to medical offices so they can find solutions to his problems.  Of course not everyone wants their husband amped up on testosterone or drugs that might restore his erection, but a lot more women than we might think do. The truth is we are living longer and healthier lives and we still want to be sexually active.  

Texting a Relationship

Texting a Relationship- Pretext

                There once was a time when we tried out relationships by face to face meeting.  Of course there was the obligatory phone call, but eventually we met that someone face to face.  I met my husband by dialing a wrong number.  I suppose if we zipped a few years in the future it could have been a wrong text.  But I thank fate it wasn’t.  I have no less than five friends who are dating in textland.  I call it pretext.  Instead of fingering body parts, they finger keys.  Instead of gazing into another face, they gaze at a Fb pic or a thumbnail.  Instead of actually seeing the nuances that will be deal makers or deal breakers, they are weighing the significance of tweets, tidbits and jargon. “Oh look,”  my friend says , “he’s texting me recipes!”  I look at the screen and see a recipe for Lovers Delight which involves a banana dipped in caramel, sprouting a dollop of whipped cream and then placed between two lady fingers.  “Are you kidding,” I said, never expecting to be answered.  Then I ask her for a review of this relationship which apparently her good friend, had been completely unaware of for the past year.  “Oh it’s been going on a while,” she says.  And then I learned that in the past year, around her other dating experiences, smashed in between the hours at school functions and her job, she’s had a whopping two dates which involved some dry humping on his couch and a lunch at a greasy diner while he waited for them to change his oil in his car.  “What happened to dating?”  She sighs and tells me “It’s complicated, he’s got all kinds of responsibilities.  He’s going through a divorce and we live an hour apart. We can only see each other when my job sends me to his region and that will not be for another week.  Then we only have the afternoon because he has his twin girls half the week, a second job to pay his attorney, and then band  practice.”

The Power of our Words

The single largest predictor of happiness in a relationship comes down to the number of positive acts, affirmations compared to the number of negative actions.  In other words, actions and words can hurt.  The quickest way to rid yourself of a partner is to forget this rule.  So for today try this exercise a practice I live on a daily basis.  Tell the people you love something nice about themselves.  Maybe it is something you appreciate; a quality, a small act they might have done for you....

Why am I telling you this? I've been doing this for almost 2o years.  It came to me one day when I stood at the base of the staircase screaming at the kids and my husband. As my voice echoed up the landing and around the corner a reality hit me: I sounded exactly like the kind of person I did not like.  I sounded like my own mother!  (Sorry mom, I love you  but you really were a huge complainer!)

On that day I tried a new tactic.  Polite asking, calmness and reminding myself to tell my family and those I love something that affirms my feelings.  So often we say nicer things to strangers than the people we love.  We take advantage of the fact that their love is always there - despite what we do.  Unconditional love needs to be rewarded!

I have spent the last three weeks flat on my back from a surgical procedure and while I have had a headache,  been unable to write, have a mental fog,  and I have been depressed.  I cannot take care of any of them.  I can't even bathe.  My kids and husband have rallied around me and when I began crying about how terrible and confused I feel my husband looked at me and said, " We all love you so much and have no problem taking care of you for a while."  Then they made me dinner and after my husband helped me shampoo my hair and painted my toenails.

I lay on the bed laughing while he made polka dots on my nails.  "You are the best husband," I told him.  He smiled back and cuddled up next to me and said, "I know you think so and I hope I can always be that great-man-on-the-pedestal that you put me on."  And he is and was.

Today, for me, tell someone you love something nice.

To The Moms out There....Sex and Children!

Sex and Children

     Without sex, no children; with children, no sex.  It’s a common reality; romance seems to fade out of the picture. Your once lofty bed, that place of heated passionate interludes, is now home to diapers, wipes, and baby accessories.  What’s that long thing with the rubber tip you feel under your thigh?  A bottle. 

      Most marriages decline after the birth of a child.  Both partners report less sex, romance, communication, and worse—stress.  We all know this, yet we’re so tired, feeling yucky and stressed that something has to give.  Sex can sneak right out the door if you don’t watch it, which is a recipe for disaster.  Want to know how to get rid of a man?  Stop having sex with him.   

      Nature didn’t intend it to be this way.  Did you know that a little gift following pregnancy is an ability to twitch out an orgasm quite efficiently?  While your body was creating all sorts of vascular hook-ups to nourish your baby, it sent some to the organs that control blood flow to your genitalia.           Have you ever seen a pregnant woman’s genitals?  What a shock!  Instead of that pink tulip you might be sporting the lips of an elephant -wearing lipstick. Our gorilla male cousins liked this sort of thing.  In fact, when they mate they rely on those red bulging labia as a signal that the female is in heat.       Although you might look like you came out of Animal Kingdom those swellings might make caveman a little more excited.  And unlike your animal cousin who doesn’t have sex after her egg swallowed the sperm, you have the ability to knock out dozens of orgasms.

      After pregnancy that vascular system finds itself more efficient.  Those blood vessels have been stretched out like a pair of pantyhose and they will fill up quite nicely.  If you were a cavewoman you’d have another great benefit.  You’d be breast feeding.  Quickly your belly would disappear and although you would have less time to engage in sex with your hands full, you’d have more time since you would not be menstruating.  Did you know, fully breastfeeding women usually do not menstruate or produce eggs?  Your body realizes you are raising young; best of all, your brain is dripping neurotransmitters to keep you cool, calm and collected—the three C’s.  Your sex motor runs best under CCC.   But cavemother had a lot less to do.  Yes, I say less because their social system was a lot different.  She had other women to rely on, including cavemom and cave sisters.  She did not have ready herself every morning and drive 30 miles to a job, drop off baby on the way and cook and plan a meal after her day was done.  And when caveman came home she had no shame in leaving baby next to her sleeping while she adored caveman.  You’re shocked?  Nanook did not build two igloos.  Our ancestors slept with their children and mated with their children in close proximity. 

       So there you are with an ear turned towards the baby monitor trying to be amouous after working, cleaning, cooking and taking care of everyone.  Nothing like the scream of an infant to snap back those swollen labia. So what’s a mother to do?

       Some say you should schedule sex.  I was the mother of 5 (now making babies of their own) and I never resorted to a datebook, but whatever works….

       I can suggest this.  My mantra was always marriage comes first.  My younger brain anticipated the sight of sleeping children.  It meant opportunity.  Put the mop in the corner.  Despite, dishes in the sink, washloads, or children’s activities, sex or romance topped the list.  I say romance, because romance is the lube of sex—at least for women.  The best part is that it can be banked, like money, and it grows interest.  A candle lit dinner, sharing a bottle of wine or simply watching a great flick can turn on the mood: we all know what that vibe leads to. 
Dr. Dawn Marlena Hopper

Worth the Wait- miniblog

A tiny tip- (miniblog)
Playing hard to get works, for both men and women. "Easy" implies a lot: you are not discreet, not choosy, got one thing on your mind, you do not require work, you do not require anyone puts effort into your needs. . . It takes weeks to get the most beautiful flowers in my garden to grow, but the weeds shoot up in 24 hours; the more effort we put into something, the more we tend to value it- it's called effort justification (a psychological principle).  We want what we can't have (the forbidden toy), another principle.  Last, the double standard will always exist; men don't look for wives in strip clubs. Make a "so many date" rule. 

Dr. Dawn Marlena Hopper

Looking for Men in Love- Are you There?

No, I am not crazy.  Men love more than women think.   I am looking for men who would write their love stories.  Yes, men!  So if you know a  man who has a love story, ending good or bad, long or short, pleasure or pain,   I’d like to hear from him!   Length is unimportant.  Love, livid, lurid, longing, life-changing, lachrymose, lascivious, lustful, lasting, laudable, lubricous, low-bred, luminous, lush, or lucid  -  I want them!  Lesson learned, hearts tormented, love that sustains It is all good.  Email the longest to dawnmhopper@gmail.com   -  I am collecting them.  Yesterday an 87-year-old man wrote me a 6 page single spaced story… WOW!  It was great.  I might publish it in a series, so wait….Thanks!

Controlling Relationships...The Noose of Love

12/4
            Girlfriend’s phone is ringing again. 
            “It’s him again.”  She answers.
            I listen to her reply.  “I’m doing the same thing I told you I was doing five minutes ago.”
            It was the tenth phone call in three hours. 
            Yes it’s flattering for about a week or so. Then the cord of attachment becomes a noose. Have you been there? Has lover called several times when they know you are working on a project.  Do they tell you to cut the friendship with someone you’ve known since you were 5?  Do they go through your phone log,  scan your Fb with questions ?  Are you spending much of your time proving to this person that you are not doing anything.  Do you find yourself trying to convince them all the while thinking that once you demonstrate your faithfulness it will end.  Is it a rough spot in the road of love or a huge boulder? 
             There is a dynamic in new passionate relationships.  Lovers want to be with their love object.  You dwell on them.  At the same time the fear of love lost pops up in your mind.  It’s not jealousy per se but a nagging little fear that you could be burned.  In a health union trust builds and we relax.  Real issues of control only get worse because the controller lacks the ability to trust.  What is control?

What is your love style?

What’s your love style?  While we have mapped the brain and found evidence of passion on our minds we’ve also found powerful neurochemicals that allow us to enjoy those warm and fuzzy moments with one another.  Driven by Oxytocin in women and vasopressin in men these connections ignite the moment we are born and comforted by our caregivers.  Yes, this time you can blame it all on your parents. Attachment is hallmarked by our ability to form trusting bonds and realistic expectations of those in our love circle.  Test yourself -   

The Costs of Hooking up-

     Imagine that an attractive person of the opposite sex walks up to you on a college campus and says “Hi, I’ve been noticing you around town lately and I find you very attractive. Would you go to bed with me? How would you respond?  (Buss 1994)

     This was an actual experiment. If you are a female you would immediately become shocked and say no.  Your brain may take it as a threat of possible assault and you may become alarmed.  If you are male you might be one of the 75% who are quite flattered and would say yes.

     Now let’s play with this a little more.  

     Imagine that an attractive person of the opposite sex walks up to you on a college campus and says “Hi, I’ve been noticing you around town lately and I find you very attractive. I am looking for a serious relationship and how would you like to go out with me?  How would you respond?