Part 12 (2/2)

Flip the Script: Changing His Perception of Commitment.

Often you'll date a guy for a few weeks, and then the awkward moment arises when he calls you-or, if he's more courageous than most of us, asks to see you-to deliver the news that he's not really looking for anything serious. Who knows why he's saying this. Maybe he's just been through a bad breakup, or maybe he's just scared. The reasons don't matter. The only thing that matters is how you respond to the situation.

I was this guy, not long ago. I had just crawled out of a painful relations.h.i.+p. I felt exhausted and raw. I told myself I wasn't going to get serious with anyone again for a long time. There was not a guy in the known world who wanted a relations.h.i.+p less than I did. Then, unexpectedly, I met someone new who I really liked. We went on some dates. We really connected, things were going well, and I realized that we were beginning to get close. I freaked out. I started to panic.

I didn't want a relations.h.i.+p. As much as I genuinely liked this woman, relations.h.i.+ps spelled responsibility, pain, drama, emotional exhaustion-all the things I was desperate to avoid. I kept telling myself that I had to put a stop to this.

One day, after another great date, I drove her back to her place, parked, switched off the ignition, slowly turned to her, and said, ”Listen . . .” I had broken into a sweat. I couldn't believe I was about to dump the old cliche into the lap of someone I liked so much: ”I don't want anything serious right now. I mean, I'm not looking for a relations.h.i.+p.”

I braced myself for her response. I expected rage, tears, or at least annoyance. Maybe some sharp sarcasm. I expected her to tell me that if that was the case she never wanted to see me again. But she did none of those things.

”Okay,” she said, and then playfully added, ”I'm not asking you to marry me, you know.”

I was taken aback. All I could say was, ”Okay. Cool.”

”Cool,” she said. She gave me an extremely s.e.xy kiss, smiled, went in the house, and that was that.

But for me, that wasn't that.

As I was driving home I started feeling like an idiot. Why did I say that? I thought. Why did I bother bringing that up? Why did I get so dramatic all of a sudden? Now I felt like the one who was taking s.h.i.+t too seriously. She didn't seem effected by my proclamation one way or the other. Because she didn't take it seriously and reacted unemotionally, it defused all my seriousness. We were, indeed, cool.

I wanted to see her again. A few days later I asked her to come over on Friday for dinner. She didn't mention our conversation, just said, ”I'm out with friends on Friday, maybe Sunday afternoon?”

”That's fine,” I said. But it wasn't fine. Now she was dictating things on her terms. When Sunday arrived I expected her to be a bit frosty or withholding, but she was as fun and s.e.xy as ever; she was incredible, and we had an amazing time. But then she left. I thought, Man, I have so much fun with this girl. So I tried to see her again two days later. She said, ”I've got a lot of work this week, how about Sat.u.r.day?” And I thought, That's five days away, I want to see her now! Why do I have to wait this long?

After a couple of weeks I brought up the commitment conversation again. This time, I wanted to make sure I got it right. ”Listen,” I said, ”about what I said before. I don't know why I said all that stuff. I was being stupid. I really do want a relations.h.i.+p with you.”

She smiled and said, ”Okay, great. Are you sure?”

”Yes!” I said. ”Of course I'm sure.”

And I was.

Let's look at how she flipped the script on me: 1. When I said I didn't want commitment, she accepted it calmly.

Had she yelled or cried, I would have been able to say to myself, ”Look how crazy she's acting, no wonder I don't want a relations.h.i.+p with her.” Instead, I was left alone with my actions.

When I was growing up, my brothers and I were always well behaved. We didn't disobey our parents or take drugs or run away, or do any of those rebellious things most kids do. I said to my dad some years later, ”You had three teenage boys and not one of us turned out to be a loose cannon. Why do you think that was?” He gave a nonchalant shrug and said, ”I never gave you anything to rebel against.” That's what this woman did. She may have been upset, but in keeping it to herself she deprived me of something to rebel against. Most guys are like kids; when they test the boundaries and see that nothing happens, they feel no need to aggressively a.s.sert their independence. As I said before, some guys just need time to sell themselves on the idea. Sometimes a guy will say he doesn't want commitment simply because that's his default setting. Rather than getting angry or otherwise reacting strongly, show that it's not a big deal to you (this is why it's so important to have a lifestyle that makes you feel like you have the ability to create options; instead of faking being in demand, you have to actually be in demand).

2. The moment I said I wasn't interested in a relations.h.i.+p, she placed me at the bottom of her list of priorities.

Even though she liked me, once I told her I didn't want anything serious, she made me less of a priority. She showed me that she was fine being casual, but that she was then going to treat things a bit more casually. She was only giving me what I was willing to invest. So instead of giving me the benefits of a relations.h.i.+p, now I was made (with good reason) less important than all her other commitments-friends, family, work, hobbies, her free time.

3. She still brought her best self to the table.

Even though I had been relegated to a lower place on her priority list, she still brought her best self every time I saw her. Even though I said I'd wanted to be casual, she was just as much fun as she'd ever been. She was still s.e.xy and flirty, we still were affectionate and intimate. Everything was as wonderful as it had been before, but I got less of it, because I got less of her.

Even though I was the one who'd told her I wasn't interested in a serious relations.h.i.+p, she was going to do things on her terms. I told her I wanted to be casual and she accepted my wishes. But she wasn't about to give me the benefits of being in a relations.h.i.+p with her. She showed me in no uncertain terms that her train wasn't going to stop moving and wait for me to get on it. Instead, she used her actions to let me sell me on the idea of commitment, which I couldn't do quickly enough.

22.

Love for Life.

During the course of writing this book, I received a call from Cosmopolitan UK, asking me to speak at a bridal seminar they were sponsoring at a fancy hotel in London. I was thrilled to be invited. Even though my reputation has been built on getting the guy, it seemed that the people at Cosmo thought I could share some wisdom with a group of brides-to-be. I welcomed the opportunity, especially because it confirmed my feeling that what I teach is relevant to all stages of relations.h.i.+ps, from first conversation to fiftieth wedding anniversary. In contrast to the audience at most of my seminars, women who consider themselves unlucky in love (and whose att.i.tudes aren't always easy to turn toward optimism), these Cosmo readers would be on top of the world. Now that they had found love, surely they would be open, willing, and eager to pick up some tips about how to make the most of their marriage.

Ten minutes into my talk, I realized I couldn't have been more wrong. In fact, this crowd was going to be the most challenging one ever. What could I possibly tell them that they didn't already know? These women were giddy with success, flush with the certainty that their lifelong dream of finding their guy had been fulfilled. My advice was valuable only for those other women who, poor souls, can't find their rightful mates. Save it for the singles, they seemed to say.

And who could blame them? What could be better than the moment when a couple makes ritual vows to each other for life? The rest is easy. Right?

I congratulated them on their upcoming nuptials, but did my best to send them away with some useful advice.

Marriage is the beginning of something beautiful. But to keep it beautiful, the courts.h.i.+p must never end. Though that courts.h.i.+p will change as long-term familiarity and depth of love grow from shared experience, the tenets of maintaining high standards and holding tight to your high-value qualities will always apply. Sticking to these deeply held beliefs will have everything to do with the success of the marriage.

”If you take anything away with you from this talk today,” I told my impatient listeners, ”please let it be this: don't let complacency creep between you and your husband and threaten the foundation you built together. And, whatever you do . . . never, ever, ever stop having s.e.x with him.”

They laughed at that last line, but I hoped that months or years or decades down the line, what I was saying would ring true. Getting the guy to marry you is just the beginning.

Of the many women I've coached throughout the years, while some are twenty-one-year-olds on their own for the first time searching for Mr. Right, just as many come from a spectrum of experiences. I've helped women in their thirties who have enjoyed dating for years and who now want to get serious. There are women in their forties who've been married and divorced, and are ready to try again. And there are women in their fifties and sixties, stunned to find themselves widows, who still hope to find again someone with whom to share their lives. As I said in the beginning of this book, one of the amazing things about love is that regardless what happens to us in life, most of us yearn to try again.

One of the most often asked questions at events or seminars, or even in conversation, is ”Will this work for someone my age?” I tell them what I've learned to be true: ”You're never too old to be youthful.”

Whenever I hear someone trot out that old adage ”Youth is wasted on the young,” I tell them, ”Actually, youth is wasted on everybody.”

I don't possess the wisdom of old age, but I'm smart enough to have listened to and learned from people that do. Youthfulness has no age limit. Our concept of age is relative. I know people in their nineties who have more spirit and fervor than a lot of people in their twenties. People in their forties are nostalgic for their youthful thirties, and people in their seventies think they were young in their fifties. You think you're young? You'll soon be old. And if you think you're old, you'll soon be older.

There will come a day, perhaps not far in the future, when you will look at pictures of yourself at the age you are now, and you'll be shocked at how young and beautiful you were. Perhaps you will be amazed that you spent any time at all focusing on your perceived flaws and failings instead of pursuing the things you wanted. You will see a person who had all of her life ahead of her, a woman with so many possibilities, so many opportunities and choices. Take advantage of them now.

My oldest client was a woman who followed my online program at home. She e-mailed me to say, ”I want you to pa.s.s on a message to everyone you coach. I'm 83 years old and I'm retired. Through your coaching I've met the man of my dreams. We're spending our days right now building a boat, and when it's done, we're going to sail away in it together. If it can happen to me at my age, with everything I've been through in my life, it can happen to anyone.”

Love is one of the greatest sources of happiness in the world. If you follow the lessons set out in this book you'll get your guy. But life isn't just about love, and regardless of how your own story plays out, there will never be a time when what I've posited here won't serve you. All the lessons here may be directed at getting the guy, but they are, at bottom, about getting a life that matters to you.

Learning and practicing the art of creating rather than waiting; throwing the net wide in order to meet a lot of people, men and women alike, who will enrich your life; operating from a mindset of abundance, not scarcity; developing and adhering to the attributes of a woman of high value; upholding your own standards; understanding that you are in control of your own choices-these skills strengthen your sense of self-worth and will improve all areas of your life. It's the project of a lifetime. Your love life will get better, but so will your mood and att.i.tude, your performance on the job, your friends.h.i.+ps, and your ability to set and achieve personal goals.

If I could distill the wisdom set forth here into a simple message, it would be this: believe in your own value and every good thing in life will follow.

GO FORTH AND FIND LOVE.

I'm not willing to let you go yet. Join me for a proper send-off.

Go to /congratulations.

Access code: gtgbook.

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