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My close female friends frequently bemoan the absence of decent single men. They often whine to me that they keep meeting losers when they go on dates or they end up with the wrong types. I don’t recall these discussions happening so much with my male mates. We don’t seem to look at the world the same way in this regard.
Having said that I did go through a period where I just met mad women with self-esteem, lack of confidence or “all men are dicks” type issues. In fact “Tidy Up on Your Way out” is littered with such stories
I suppose we ought to clear up what they mean by a loser first. Any number of attributes can render a guy a loser in their eyes. It could be poor dress sense, bad breath, excessive prudence with their finances, a failure to move on from previous relationships, too keen to move the discussion onto sex, still seeing other women or, as one of my friends told me “so boring that I actually fell asleep on the date”.
None of these things sound particularly remarkable or unusual. But it does get stranger when it seems to be the same reason, or handful of reasons, EVERY TIME.
So once I have established my friends precise definition of a loser I try to move the discussion on to what they actually do want. This is a typical answer. “Well I just want a man that doesn’t go out with his mates all the time, is not chasing other women and doesn’t look like they have been dragged through a hedge. In other words they can tell me exactly what they don’t want.
What you think about is what becomes your reality. Unsurprisingly I have never been pregnant but I am reliably informed that all pregnant women see, wherever they go, is other pregnant women. You notice them because it is on your mind. In a similar but less paternal analogy I once bought a Black Mini Cooper with a silver Union Jack on the roof. It was strikingly different from anything I had seen so you can imagine how pissed off I was when I saw two identical models on the five mile drive home.
Now unfortunately our neurology has not kept up with the development of language and there is a curious little twist to this tale. We do not process negatives this way. So if you focus on what you don’t want in a partner you actually attract it (try this simple experiment. Do not think of your boss naked . See?)
In my case I didn’t want a basket case girlfriend but being a coach means I pay close attention to what people say. As a result I was quick at picking up when things were not right. I actually started to attract women with problems.
So why not start paying attention and giving some focus to what it is you WANT instead of what you DON’T WANT? You will be surprised how different people look when you do this.
Born to a working class family in Essex, Dave endured a boringly happy childhood. His educational potential was largely squandered by his desire to spend his days pissing about. As a result his clerical career started at sixteen with the civil service and then the NHS. He sustained a lifestyle that saw him just about earning enough to keep himself in beer and fags until his ‘career’ hit a seam of good luck.
He applied for a job, two grades bigger than his current role, and was successful. This was due in no small part to the urgent need for someone and the lack of any other applicants. This break put him into a profession from which his career advanced at reasonable speed. More importantly it allowed him to move into the private sector.
Never confident with women he failed to ask out pretty much every woman he fancied and ended up with an impressive catalogue of female friends, until he finally plucked up the courage to ask his, soon to be fiancé, out. The relationship was to last five years. They never married (there was some confusion between the parties about what being engaged meant in relation to marriage timescales).
His life became one of happy mediocrity with a well paid job and an attractive but underappreciated fiancé. Excitement was provided by a brief flirtation with motorbikes. Then he confronted mortality. At age 28 his mother died and, whilst on the surface he coped well with the grieving process, his life turned 360 degrees.
His coping strategy was to take a job with lots of international travel (his fiancé abandoned him shortly after) and to engage in every adrenalin sport known to man. This wild ride lasted three years before he met, fell in love with, and within a year, married his wife.
He took to marriage like a snake takes to rollers skates. His attempts to surrender to domestic routine, over adventure and unpredictability, were largely unsuccessful and led to an expanding waistline, a penchant for Austin Reed clothes and finally, eight years in, his wife leaving.
Adapting to single life pretty well, all things considered, he embarked on a journey of understanding, and then indulging, his mid life crisis. Snowboarding, sailing, flash cars and clothes, dating any woman that showed even the remotest spark of interest and partying hard (well as hard as his social circle and limited looks allowed).
His career was the one area where success continued to seem assured, so inevitably three years after his divorce he went to work dismantling that. He engineered redundancy from a six figure salary + bonus + benefits and headed into the world with no idea what to do next.
After six months of having fun he trained, and set out as a self employed Business Coach, a role he has stayed with, to date. Through coaching he began to access new ideas and ways of looking at the world and finally finds himself content, happy and living life the way its meant to be lived…in the moment.
Throughout his life only three things have been constant…the support of his family and closest friends, his love of nature and Gary Numan.
