Baggage Reclaim » The Single Life

Why People Don’t See Their Qualities & Contributions to Relationships Accurately – Part 3

NML — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:40:44 +0000

Over the past couple of posts (part 1 and 2), I’ve been explaining how our view of ourselves and our contributions to relationships is often inaccurate because when we have a pattern of being involved in dubious relationships, we’ll tend to see ourselves in a way that makes it easier to continue on as we are and avoid change, depicting ourselves in a way that places the onus on the other party in the relationship to change.

To recap, on the key points:

The inaccuracy connects a disconnect between you both because you’re more focused on your vision of things than attempting to see things from the other person’s perspective or meeting their needs.

Be careful of believing your own hype and have an honest conversation with yourself because whilst it is great to champion yourself, it shouldn’t be to the exclusion of recognising when you may be engaging in behaviours that are counterproductive to having a healthy relationship.

Neither sex responds well to being repeatedly told that they are not meeting someone’s needs.

We often decide what people need based, not on what they actually need, but on what we believe we have the ability to give, or what we’d like to get back ourselves.

Do not disregard what people tell and show you about themselves and assume you know better. There’s seeing the good in people and there’s projecting and hoping way too much. People always show and tell you who they are – you just need to be listening and watching.

There comes a point when you either have to accept the person as they are and stop complaining, or get out of the relationship, or deal with change you can influence by adapting your own behaviours.

We often overestimate what we bring to the relationship table and have ‘inadvertent’ superiority complexes choosing what we perceive as unworthy companions and hoping they’ll be grateful.

If you choose a limited man, who can only give you a limited relationship, your contribution can only be limited, which means your contribution really isn’t all that much.

Look at the flipside of the qualities and characteristics that you use to describe yourself – does your relationship and contribution look different?

Several years ago, I knew a man who suffered with Those Who Doth Protest Too Much syndrome – in fact I’ve known many men and women with it. Every time I saw him he’d say ‘I love my wife’ several times in this big declaration and ‘I’m a nice guy’, like he needed to make some sort of point. As I suspected, he was cheating.

The likes of online dating has taught a lot of people that we must be able to almost do a drill off our qualities and characteristics, which feeds into people having misguided ideas about compatibility, type, and common interests, and valuing the wrong things.

The reality is, how people learn about you isn’t through what you say, but through the actions that demonstrate who you are, that are hopefully in line with what you say about yourself.

There are a lot of ‘nice’ guys out there but as I have said many a time before, nice people who really are that nice don’t keep telling you about it. You have to ask yourself who they’re trying to convince – you…or them.

Personal security lets you have enough self-esteem and confidence that you can be comfortable in your own skin and let things be. You will want to show who you are through consistent action rather than declaring who you are because you can trust yourself to be around people who are likeminded, and will recognise and value you. The people who don’t value you, you’ll tell them to bounce. You’ll also be highly uncomfortable deviating from your core, authentic self to morph to suit someone’s agenda while losing yourself in the process.

And so it’s important to evaluate what you’ve been saying about yourself, which may even have become your ‘script’ as you may have illusions about who you are and your relationship contributions.

That’s not taking on blame for other people’s behaviour; it’s about being accountable, because no matter what we tell ourselves, we are 100% accountable for where we are and we are always making choices even when we don’t think we are.

Don’t just look at things through your eyes (generally the most comfortable view) and consider the other meaning of your actions. Remember, communication is only as good as how it is received at the other end so it’s important to recognise whether what you intended to be communicated is actually what was understood.

Ask yourself: what am I seeing that he doesn’t see? What is he seeing that I’m not seeing?

If you want to get wise, imagine the other ‘possible interpretations’ of your qualities and relationship contributions or put yourself in their shoes.

I did everything for him. Even though we didn’t live together, I made sure his dinners were always made, washed his clothes, cleaned his home, and even took care of his kids. I don’t think I was expecting too much when I wanted him to be more solid about where we were headed/propose/move in/buy a home together. – Unless his ‘criteria’ for choosing a woman is having someone who is anticipating his every waking need and being a cook, cleaner, babysitter, nursemaid etc, this type of overgiving is misplaced, not least because you’re doing all of these things with an expectation. Women that overgive often do so because they don’t believe that they have ‘enough’ to hold someone’s interest. If he told you to do this stuff, it’s one thing, but if he didn’t, you were likely expending energy on the wrong things. You may even have found yourself expecting him to be grateful and reflect it back in love, plus many women use this type of overgiving to cloud out other less desirable behaviours in the relationship – no matter how much you cook and clean, if you are emotionally demanding or controlling, for instance, it’s not likely to be blocked out by a big dinner. You also can’t do the ‘I’m indispensable, you should change for me’ routine.

I gave him everything I had and loved him unconditionally – You may think you showed how much you loved him and how reliable and dependable you are, but the flipside is that you showed him how little you loved and respected yourself by having no boundaries, showed him you were a soft touch, and that he could depend on you to be there even if he was never there for you.

I stuck by him through thick and thin even though he cheated/lied/never actually said we were in a relationship – That’s a big ‘contribution’ but you may have again shown that there was no limit to how badly he could treat you or abuse the relationship. He also demonstrated that he didn’t have to give much to get ‘full’ commitment from you. These types of situation are based on illusion and denial so you are using loyalty to cloud the fact that you’re unable to keep it real.

I waited X years for him when I could have moved on with someone else. Or, he promised me he’d leave and then he moved onto someone else. – It’s very emotionally depleting to be involved with someone who is attached but it’s one of the most ‘limited’ type of relationships you can get. If an affair goes on for a lengthy period of time, they don’t think you’re loyal – they think you’re a mug. Your patience and loyalty is more about being trapped in indecision and avoiding a full relationship where you have to be fully committed.

People don’t see what you see about yourself and your contributions, either because they see a totally different version of events, they don’t value it, or you may be under illusions.

You cannot make people see what they don’t see or what they have no interest in seeing, so if you’re not on the same page in how things that each of you do are being communicated, you’ll have a conflict of interest.

With seeing your contribution differently, the examples above go to show the flipside of what seems like admirable relationship behaviour. Whilst there is such a thing as a miscommunication, it’s not really a miscommunication when you do X and the other party decides that it’s Y and takes advantage of the flipside of your intentions, and you continue to do X.

People who do things on their terms, always find ways to turn a situation and your behaviour to their advantage, but likewise, by continuing in the behaviour despite the fact that it only yields a negative result, it shows how you’re engaging in relationship insanity – doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results because you’d rather they changed.

You can’t force someone to value what they don’t value because what you value is tied to your value system.

For those of you who choose dubious partners to try to have ‘great’ relationships with, it’s important to remember this:

Much like when you say that you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep, if you get involved with dubious partners, by the very act of you being with them and continuing to, despite them showing you (and possibly telling you) who they really are, they deduce that your value is far less than what you think.

Illusions have no place in relationships and if you live in denial and cling to illusions, you cannot and will not see your own actions clearly or accurately, never mind theirs.

It also means that you’re not really ‘in’ the relationship because really, it’s all going on in your head with a special pair of goggles that let’s you see things in the way that you want.

Like I spoke about in part one and also in my posts about knowing when to work at your relationship, and actually in many posts, you need to be prepared to be very honest with yourself and bring about real change in yourself. It’s important to be authentic which allows you to have more authentic relationships.

Really, the big lesson to be learned from understanding why you may not see your qualities and contributions more accurately is to get out of your comfort zone, be different/adapt, and stop expecting people to change or for the planets to align, or for a man to fall out of the sky so that you get to stay as you are. Challenge yourself to look at you differently so that you can empower yourself to make different and better choices for relationships. You can keep saying and doing the same things, but not much is going to change – the choice is yours.

Your thoughts?

My ebook The No Contact Rule is now available to buy and provides a dedicated guide to getting over someone by cutting contact and injecting some boundaries into your life so that you can move on to a happier you. For a no holds barred guide to emotionally unavailable men, including separated guys that flip flap in indecision, and the women that love them, you can also get Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl. For personal advice or analysis of your relationship/situation, check out my consultation service.

Getting Out of Stuck: What are you doing to help bring love into your life?

NML — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:00:23 +0000

I read a lot of emails, comments, posting on the forum etc and one of the things that becomes clear is that until we ‘get’ it, we’re excuses driven people, prone to self-blame, dramatisation, and lamenting why things haven’t gone our way. When we have our own personal epiphany and connect the dots about our mentality, with what we say, and then what we do, we ‘get’ it, and start seeing the excuses, blame, drama, and lamenting for what they are:

denial

reasons/excuses to avoid change

The problem is that you’ll stay stuck instead of adapting your position to generate different results.

We are human and creatures of habit. I know some people who feel like their world is breaking down by giving up their habit of buying a coffee first thing in the morning – breaking love habits as you can imagine is much harder. It feels damn scary choosing a different route because particularly when it comes to relationships, we prefer the familiar uncomfortable to the unfamiliar comfortable of the unknown that we would have to navigate if we decided to take charge and make changes.

I gave up smoking nearly nine years ago. It was an uncomfortable admission to make at the time, but I wasn’t really even enjoying smoking the last couple of years that I smoked. Unsurprisingly, that aspect of doing things out of habit and not acknowledging how I felt about things filtered its way through other areas. Staying in relationships even though I didn’t even like the guy any longer (or never really had). Continuing to date someone even though I really wasn’t enjoying it as it was the familiar uncomfortable so I sort of knew what came next. Doing a couple of jobs that made my stomach churn and the list goes on.

One of the things that can be difficult, especially when you have a dubious relationship pattern, is owning how you feel.

Some of you may not be used to being allowed to express how you feel, and others may only know how to express how they feel in extremes – this will mean you’ll feel really uncomfortable when there isn’t any drama going on and life feels ‘normal’.

For some of you, you’ve spent so long pretending to be something that you’re not in the hope that you will be loved, liked, and accepted, that you may not know who you are or what you feel – sometimes you’ll draw a blank or you’ll think that what you feel is something that it’s not, possibly because you know no different. Just as much as you’ll be afraid to admit that you’re angry or hurt, you may equally be unwilling to acknowledge that you are sometimes doing things that stand in the way of you actually getting somewhere. When you think about taking charge and being and doing different, you come up with lots of ifs, buts, and maybes, and excuses why it’s easier to stay as you are.

It takes a lot more energy to fight something than it does to acknowledge and deal with it. Equally it takes a lot more energy to pretend on an ongoing basis than it does to be yourself.

This is not about saying, ‘OK, I feel miserable so I will be miserable forever and ever’ but it is about saying ‘You know what? I’m p*ssed off but I’m going to deal with it because I don’t want to keep returning to this feeling’ and when you’re ready, getting up and bit by bit, taking charge of your life and doing whatever it takes to change the record.

It’s challenging what you think about your efforts and differentiating between something genuine and uncontrollable that throws a monkey wrench in the works, and something that seems easier to blame and cling to that is actually controllable.

It’s hard, but you have ask yourself ‘Am I doing whatever it takes?

If I really want that relationship, what am I doing to make it happen?

Am I chasing the same guy(s) and expecting different results?

Am I still acting with a lack of self-love and covering it up with bravado and pretence?

Have my fundamental beliefs about myself, love, and relationships actually adjusted to reflect the fact that I really do want love and a relationship? If they haven’t, what am I going to do to address these?’

They say ‘I think, therefore I am’. Actually that’s true. You can talk a good game but if your mentality says that life is a load of sh*t where you’re not good enough, love’s not going to happen for you, people let you down, abandon you, don’t value you etc, you will often unknowingly reflect this in your actions.

A reader emailed me recently. After planning an overhaul of her very routine life where she wasn’t meeting anyone and insisting that she’d had enough, there were more excuses than you can shake a stick at. The bar staff were a bit weird, she didn’t like the location of another restaurant, she was in pain after the gym, and she felt uncomfortable at the class she attended and there were no ‘hot guys’. The date she went on, the guy was too boring and on another, she didn’t like his choice of drink. She insisted on trying online dating, but was only interested in the most unsuitable candidates. It sounded like she had given up and she seemed very accepting of this apparent ‘defeat’ when really, the only defeats were her own mentality. I suggested that she was afraid of actually putting herself out there and was finding a litany of faults to make it easier to slip back into her old pattern. At first she was indignant and then she admitted that she was.

‘You’ve given up after barely a month but you’ve spent the best part of twenty five years doing the same thing chasing assclowns and Mr Unavailable’s. Is it fair to say that you haven’t really given this a shot?’

She’s not being honest for my benefit; she’s being honest for her own. At least when you’re honest, you can be aware of any inadvertent sabotaging behaviour and any limitations to your potential relationship success…that you’re imposing.

Just like when another reader professed her exasperation about a guy that wouldn’t ‘let’ her go that was ruining her life – trust me, the guy’s a using assclown, but she knows this and willingly goes back, so she’s actually ruining her own life. Tough to hear but true.

He can’t take advantage of something that isn’t on offer.

For those of you who truly want love, ask yourself:

Recently, what have I truly done to help bring love into my life?

For instance, let’s say that you have a routine, a relationship pattern, ask yourself:

What have I changed about my life routine and my relationship pattern to help me be in a position to find a partner?

If you’ve done the usual thing of going to work, hanging out online, the gym, groceries, and spent some mental energy wondering what’s going on with your ex or whoever or whatever is taking your mental space, what is so different that you expect to generate a different result?

If you literally do the same thing day in day out, week in, week out, aren’t you leaving it all a bit to chance? Like POOF, a man will fall out the sky and be waiting on the dairy aisle at the supermarket.

If your life is fairly routine and even dare I say it, predictable, what new things have you done?

Think about the past month, how much of that time have you spent thinking about:

a) how you’re never going to find love or any other negative thoughts you have about yourself, love, and relationships; or

b) an ex or an elusive object of your affections?

If you have gone and put yourself ‘out there’ but found yourself with same guy, different package, have you asked yourself what is it about your love habits that has you gravitate to the same guy?

Sometimes we find that because we’re not being honest with ourselves we don’t realise how we may be replicating behaviour but just in another way that we don’t recognise – e.g. chasing illusions online with guys and then switching to chasing illusions in the ‘real’ world and thinking it’s different.

How much of your activity has revolved around catering to a dysfunctional dynamic with an ex or an object of your affections?

Your life will not move on whilst you’re nurturing a dysfunctional dynamic from your past.

Which old habits and relationship pattern have you engaged in recently?

For instance, if you have a habit of meeting dodgy men online, have you continued to try and pursue men online instead of going into the real world?

Whilst there is something to be said for faking it till you feel it, are you spending a lot of time pretending? If you are pretending, what are you pretending about?

If you pretend, illusions gather at a fast pace.

Are you being realistic about your expectations? For instance, are you expecting instant results? Are you hypercritical about potential partners writing them off because they don’t like reading the same books as you, when you’ve held onto men who don’t like being in the same relationship as you?

It’s not about giving yourself a hard time in a negative way – it’s about saying that sometimes, we can’t see the potential reward from adapting our habits; we see obstacles, what seems like too much effort on our part, and an easiness to slip back into the familiar. But remember, just like when we can become trapped by our feelings, we can be trapped by our own negative messaging which means it’s important to work on changing the script and take ownership and control.

Your thoughts?

My new ebook The No Contact Rule is now available to buy and provides a dedicated guide to getting over someone by cutting contact and injecting some boundaries into your life so that you can move on to a happier you. For a no holds barred guide to emotionally unavailable men and the women that love them, you can also get Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl. For personal advice or analysis of your relationship/situation, check out my consultation service

12 Empowering Thoughts for Valentine’s Day

NML — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 22:22:59 +0000

It’s Valentine’s Day and whilst some of you are enjoying yourselves, either in your own company, hanging with friends and family, or maybe with a new ‘significant other’, some of you will be in slushy mushy hearts hell, reminiscing about V-Day’s gone by where you were with the object of your thoughts (even if it wasn’t all that great) and wonder why you’re not part of a duo on Noah’s relationship ark. Long time readers will know that single or not, I’ve never been big on V-Day (on my personal blog today, I wrote about when I got engaged and considered climbing out of the restaurant window a few minutes later – yes really!) and so are here 10 quick thoughts to empower you to get things in perspective:

1) Better to have loved (possibly foolishly) and lost, than to have held on tight to a poor relationship to the ends of time.

2) Valentine’s Day comes but once a year but the hangover from a dodgy move may last a lot longer. Be careful of being a reactive, short-term thinker without regard to the consequences – this is the very type of thing that we find annoying when we’re on the receiving end of it in dubious relationships. (Read my post on how Mr Unavailable is only thinking about right now.)

3) Valentine’s Day is about celebrating love and there’s no iron clad clause that says that you have to be in a couple. Love is love – that’s self-love and love from friends and family. Yes it’s nice to be in a relationship with someone that cares about and loves you, but it’s not so nice to be in a relationship where it is absent. In fact, you won’t have much of a relationship…

4) If loving someone else means that you can’t love you, always choose to love you. Nothing good will come of selling yourself down the river. It’s like making a pact with the devil and at some point you will realise that you’re emotionally bankrupt and as the person is used to getting what they have from you, they’re unwilling to compromise and give you back any respect. (Read my post on what is love and a good relationship)

5) Remember the ‘good times’ but add some perspective by looking at the whole picture. This will ensure that you don’t fall into the trap of using ‘nostalgia’ to make a call, text, turn up on his doorstep in a fur coat and no knickers. And remember, if you’ve done the whole getting back together thing before, ask yourself what will be different this time before you go and throw yourself under the proverbial bus. Remember, relationship insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results – ask yourself why you believe that the fact that it’s V-Day should make a difference.

6) Be careful of isolating yourself by being trapped by your feelings. If you’re totally consumed by another person, especially someone who hasn’t treated you that well, you won’t be able to have any perspective. On a day like today, you may think it’s better to be alone and obsessing than it is to be out with other people, even though it may not be in a romantic capacity. All you’re doing is stalling the process and instead you need to work your way through your feelings and deal with any loss or pain that you feel. (Also read my posts on becoming isolated in relationships)

7) Sometimes it’s better to let things be. V-Day is one of those times where if you have a tendency to be laden with expectation, it’ll go up a notch or two. This turns the whole thing into a contrived affair and you communicate the wrong things about yourself. Try not to impose your ideas about the day – you may be pleasantly surprised. Obviously if they consistently don’t treat you well and don’t show you love, care, trust, and respect, then I’d make sure that your expectations are in line with this – don’t expect much, if anything at all. Also, don’t make assumptions like ‘Well if they really loved me, they’d have done X or bought Y’ because nobody is a mindreader.

Be careful of how you use V-Day to benchmark your relationship or your value. In fact, don’t benchmark your relationship based around the effort of just this one day. Be contextual because I’d rather someone consistently treated me well all year round than rolled out the relationship showtunes for one day. Not everyone places the same value on Hallmark days and you might write off someone who actually goes out of their way to show you that they care on many other days.

9) If you’ve already fallen off the saddle today and contacted/met up with/shagged an ex, chalk it up to experience when the glow has warn off. Don’t let it derail you. Sometimes you’ve got to ‘suck it and see’, i.e – you could spend a lot of braintime pondering the coulda/woulda/shoulda’s or you can put your hand in the fire, discover that it burns, and move on. If you haven’t read it already, read my ebook, The No Contact Rule or for a full on education on dodgy men, read my other ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.

10) Don’t look at being single as that annoying time that passes between assclowns relationships. Yeah you’re not in a relationship but at least you’re not in an illusionary one with someone dodgy. Get on with life and enjoy living because being personally secure and not losing your mind over your relationship status will prevent you from operating out of a negative place. Don’t write yourself off – have faith that there is better out there for you and that in the meantime, you’re going to treat you as you want to be treated. In the meantime, tomorrow is a new day, and don’t disregard your feelings. If you want to cry, cry, and then get back up. You’re human, you love, and you want to be loved, but make sure you don’t have a desperate urge to be loved – it attracts ‘desperate’ types of people that exploit your own lack of self-love.

11) Be real. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it is a duck. Hanging some lovehearts, a card, a dinner, a gift, some sex, or whatever it is off someone who is unworthy of your time doesn’t change the fact that they’re unworthy of your time. If someone doesn’t value you, it’s a sign that you need to move on. Know your value irrespective of who you’re with – it’ll ensure that you don’t keep yourself in bad company and you’ll keep your feet firmly in reality.

12) Tempting as it is to get lost in illusions, you will not get a real relationship with someone who is real if you persist. This is why it is important to be authentic so you can have authentic relationships. If you pretend, it’s a disrespect to yourself and potentially also to them. If you’re not treating yourself with love, care, trust and respect and wondering why someone can’t love you for you, look a bit closer to home and make sure you are being you.

Happy Valentine’s day everybody! xx

Your thoughts?

Image via SXC

I’m Successful! Why Am I Still Single?

NML — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:03:34 +0000

Being successful is something that most of us strive for in some, way, shape or form. Success means different things to different people and sometimes, it’s driven by an indefinable reason that you just can’t put your finger on. You just know that you value something, it’s important, and you won’t feel ‘successful’ or content until you attain that specific measurement of your success. You have an idea of how you’ll feel, what you’ll be doing, and thinking about it may evoke a yearning sensation…or one of frustration and disappointment that you internalise and give yourself a hard time about it. It can throw a cloud over everything else to the point where you’re no longer enjoying life because your ‘failure’ is holding you back. Particularly when you feel like you’re being successful at other things which you thought would make it easier for you to meet a partner, it can be incredibly bewildering.

This is why, right now, there are millions of men and women who in spite of the fact that they are successful in terms of other areas of their lives like friends, family, professional achievements, they feel unsuccessful because they are not ‘successful’ in the one area that truly counts to them – relationships.

Here’s the thing: Being ‘smart’ in other areas of your life and it enabling you to be successful at those areas is not the same as being relationship smart.

I don’t doubt that many Baggage Reclaim readers are very intelligent, but being good at maths, closing business deals, managing people, being a marketing or PR whizz, taking calculated risks, or being a great teacher, doesn’t translate directly to relationships, especially when the heart and libido are involved.

I was contacted by a woman who for all intents and purposes was an extremely successful woman. Well educated, great career, own business making millions of pounds, big home, kids, family around her, friends etc. OK, she was divorced and that’s obviously not that easy to deal with, but here’s the kicker – she was dating a completely bonkers narcissist who was bouncing between her and his ‘ex’ wife. When she was dating him, she was dating other dodgy guys. Let’s just say that her taste in men was not in line with other areas of her life…

A lot of women in particular complain about the fact that they’re success is hampering their chances of meeting someone. I also know there are a lot of guys who in spite of their success, because they are not perceived to look the right way and may even be written off as ‘nice’, struggle to meet women, or the type of women they’d like to be with.

There are a lot of very unhappy successful people.

The fact that they are successful doesn’t change the fact that they are personally unhappy within and being personally unhappy can and will hamper your ‘success’ at relationships. Much like when we’re unhappy and end relationships only to discover that we’re still unhappy on our own and our problems seem to be following us, many people assume that if they have symbols of success, a magic lightbulb will go off and a relationship will follow.

Many people are driven to be successful because they are unhappy.

Many people are also successful because they totally immerse themselves in, for example, their work, so that they can avoid dealing with other aspects of their lives.

Sometimes we are driven to succeed in an effort to try to prove something to others, potentially seeking validation that we are different to what they thought we would be.

Sometimes we get so consumed by trying to achieve, that we end up defining ourselves based off things that don’t necessarily contribute to how successful we’ll be at a relationship.

I’ve talked about this before when I wrote about overestimating yourself: the consequence of change vs inertia in dating and relationships.

Many men and women overestimate the value of superficial qualities that they possess and undervalue other qualities and values that are far more important to their relationships. This means it’s a lot easier to say ‘I’m really successful and I can’t get a relationship’ than it is to recognise that there may be other things going on within you that may be holding you back from forging healthy relationships with a possibility of going the distance.

The fact that you are successful at work is great, but if you are conflicted within and don’t like yourself, are secretly uncommitted and carrying unhealthy attitudes about love and relationships, it doesn’t matter whether you can click your fingers and have a team of people jump to your beat, can afford to drop a few thousand on a shopping trip, are beautiful looking, or have great friends, especially when in spite of these successes, it’s relationship success that you actually want and value.

I hate to break it to you, but it’s not like you reach the holy grail of success and a relationship falls out of the sky into your lap. It’s not like we’re entitled to be in a relationship because we earn good money or got that promotion that we wanted at work; does that mean that someone who is poorer that didn’t get the promotion shouldn’t be in a relationship?

To give yourself a strong chance at relationships, you need a decent level of self-esteem, healthy ideas about yourself, love, and relationships, boundaries, values, an awareness about red flags and other inappropriate behaviours, and a recognition of real love, trust, care, and respect.

If you have poor taste in partners, place too much emphasis on electricity, fireworks, passion, drama, excitement, interests, appearance, money, and other superficial qualities, plus are catering to a ‘type’, and seeking compatibility based on the wrong things, you will struggle to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear.

You’re not single because you’re successful. You’re not going to be in a relationship and happy unless tied in with whatever measurements of success you have, you have healthy love habits. You may be single though because you place too much emphasis on your ‘success’, using it to define yourself and are not dealing with other behaviours that could be impacting on your chances because you don’t recognise the importance.

The likelihood is that if you’ve been making some sort of correlation between being successful and your desirability for a relationship, you are not seeing the wood for the trees.

If you place a value on these successes, it’s likely to be mirrored in your relationships where you may place too much value on the wrong things whilst either ignoring great things that you don’t value, or ignoring bad things because it doesn’t suit your agenda.

It is very easy to take your success and spread it across everything as if things that you need to be dealt with no longer need to be. However if you want someone to like you for you and value you, treating you with love, care, trust, and respect, you need to see the wood for the trees and recognise that you are not the sum of the successes you profess to have.

Mentality is behaviour. This is why going out and doing things to be successful doesn’t cancel out the wrong mindset.

If you’re saying variations of ‘I’m successful, why am I still single?’, I’d stop looking at your ‘successes’ and start looking a little bit closer to home to make sure that your beliefs and attitude are in line with what you profess to want. I talk to people about their desires for a relationship, and almost always, there are conflicts that they don’t recognise as conflicts.

If being in a relationship is how you are going to define how successful you are, you need to examine that desire and make sure that you are doing everything that you need to be doing to make it happen. Make sure that you’re also being realistic about your perception of what you expect that success to do or feel like. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a committed relationship, but if you define success as meeting someone who makes you feel like and be, something that you are incapable of feeling and being for yourself, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment.

I know a lot of people define their lack of success by their relationships. The expectation is that when they meet that person, they will feel good about themselves – they’ll be completed. But we can still be a complete person before we get the relationship. If we don’t like or love ourselves, even if we do meet someone, we won’t make a success of it because we won’t believe that we deserve it. We may sabotage it, or be drawn to people that confirm the negative things that we believe, keeping us further away from that success.

You also have to ask yourself, is this your only measure of success? It’s good to have a dream but it’s also good to be able to keep things in perspective and appreciate, embrace, and enjoy the other areas of your life, otherwise it’s a bit like putting your life on hold and tingeing the rest of your life in sadness. Addressing your perspective on yourself, love, and relationships means that instead of working harder at all those things that you think already make you successful, you’re making sure that you are relationship smart and relationship ready so that you don’t end up inadvertently sabotaging your own chances at success.
Your thoughts? How important is a relationship to you? Do you let being successful define you?

Your thoughts?

Image source: SXC

Resisting the Temptation of Making Contact With An Ex at Christmas

NML — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:22:44 +0000

Right now with it being the festive season – you know the one of goodwill and forgiveness – if you’ve cut contact with an ex or are still reeling from a break up, you’ll be tempted to make contact because at the moment that you do it, you’re convinced that you feel much better if you do so, that he’ll respond with pleasure at hearing from you and be a changed person, and that you’ll fast forward and make Christmas plans. Maybe you think he’ll be remorseful, eager to talk, keen to explain, keen to agree to do whatever it takes.

So you send a text… ‘Just wanted to say Happy Christmas. Hope you’re OK. Chat soon?’

You’ve probably spent days agonising over keying in a smattering of words. You’ll probably spend even more time agonising if you don’t hear back, or you do, but it’s not what you wanted to hear

Maybe you’ll call. It might be his voicemail which secretly you feel a little relieved by.

‘Hey…it’s me…just thought I’d check in. You know…we haven’t talked for a while. Hope you’re enjoying your Christmas/holidays…I…I…miss you…’ No doubt you’ll try to sound upbeat but that misery will probably break through your voice. You’ll probably spend the next hours or even days wondering about what you said, how you said it, what he thought when you called, and fantasising over what might happen.

Maybe you get through.

‘Oh..er…hey! Yeah…I’m good…well…you know…I’m OK…What? You’re going away/Got back with your ex/Hanging with the guys…oh…er…’

Maybe you’ll doll yourself up to the nines and turn up at the bar where you know that he’s likely to be and pretend to accidentally on purpose bump into him and there’ll either be a scene if he’s with someone else, you’ll leave upset, or you’ll get it together for old times sake and then find yourself back to square one in the morning.

Whatever happens, these are just some broad examples of how you might find yourself throwing caution to the wind and using Christmas as an excuse to make contact. Tempting as it may be, making contact is loaded with expectations that more often than not get disappointed. Maybe not this minute, maybe not this hour, maybe not even today…but soon.

Christmas only lasts for a few days or a few weeks if you take into account the festivities, but the repercussions from making contact are likely to last a lot longer.

This will impact on your sense of self and no doubt sour your memories of a time of year that is really for spending around people who actually give a damn about you and are not just out to get what they want whilst detracting from you.

If you make contact, it’s because you’re being reactive and getting caught up in the illusions of what you think will happen if you get in touch.

You might think it seems mean not to be speaking at Christmas - The reality is that it’s not mean not to be engaging with someone who doesn’t have your interests at heart.

You might think that because it’s Christmas, it’ll bring out a kinder side in him and he will suddenly see you and the relationship in a different light – I know we like to think Christmas is about miracles but I think you’re pushing your luck and expecting too much. Your perception of what Christmas means and does is different to what his perception is.

If someone didn’t act with due love, care, respect, and trust in the relationship, why do you expect them to suddenly act like this not only when they’re out of the relationship, but when it’s Christmas?

This is a tricky time of year and particularly if you’ve been focused on your guy and built a lot of things around him, you may feel like you can’t function without him or may even feel isolated from those around you as they won’t understand or you think they’ve lost patience with you, or you may have just distanced yourself inadvertently through your involvement.

The very source of your misery will seem like a beacon of light that appears to be your only source of joy because you’re validating yourself off him and deriving all of your happiness from him. I.e winning his attention and hopefully winning him over is the only way you see yourself happy.

But always when you think about going back, ask yourself if you can truly say that you have a reason to think that things would be different. Or are just hoping they’ll be different without any real basis?

Be careful of ‘reacting’ to your fears and the short term pain because it’s one thing chasing them up because you think you love them but have you considered the fact that they may not feel the same way (if it’s ended up at no contact it’s likely that they don’t)?

You deserve someone who wants to put both of his feet in that you don’t have to drag like a horse to water to force him to drink. Yes, it would be nice to be with someone, but right now it’s actually better to be with you and stand by your decision to step back and cut contact.

Remember that the fact that you are in pain shouldn’t be mistaken for correlating with the amount of love you feel for him.

The likelihood is that if you’re contemplating making contact with your ex, you’ve become nostalgic about the relationship, created illusions and become distanced from the reality of why you broke up/cut contact and what your relationship (or lack of it) was actually like.

You’ll end up convincing yourself that you’re OK with what’s on offer and then find yourself going through the horrors as you realise that not only are you not ok with it, but that you feel like you’ve gone back to square one.

Remember when I’ve spoken about relationship insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? Going back to your ex is the same thing. You can’t just will it and want it to be different – there needs to be genuine reasons on both sides to go back – not just one of you trying to make a pigs ear into a silk purse.

If they don’t understand why it ended then they can’t understand what caused the problems or your pain which means that the potential still exists for you to end up in the same situation again.

If you’ve broken up with someone, particularly via the route of ‘no contact’ and you’re finding yourself tempted to make contact, it suggests that whilst you’re not ‘physically’ making contact, mentally you’re still very much embroiled in what you think you both had and you’re still focusing on him rather than on you.

We can only learn from experience – you can do what I call Suck It and See, and go ahead and make contact, if you’re prepared to be real and realise should things not meet your expectations that you now have all the evidence you need to focus on you and move on. That said, there’s also something to be said for already having plenty of evidence to indicate what is likely to happen.

You may feel you have history with an ex that gives you reason to keep going back, but this doesn’t mean you should repeat history and the quality of the history goes a long way. Use the history of the relationship to draw strength from the fact that you tried, you’ve made a decision and stand by you and be confident in your decision.

There will be pain ahead, particularly if you feel drawn like a moth to a flame, but with time and a refocus on you and the other people in your life, comes freedom. Better to give yourself the gift of freedom this Christmas rather than the gift of a pain in the bum…

Your thoughts?

My ebook, Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is my guide to understanding the dynamic between emotionally unavailable men and the women that love them and is available to buy and download.

For personal advice or analysis of your relationship/situation, check out my consultation service. Don’t forget, you can now use the forum and social network to chat with other readers. Follow Baggage Reclaim on Twitter too.

Guest Post: If you have to wonder if your man is going to spend Christmas with you…run!

NML — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:00:13 +0000

As the festive season kicks into high gear, I have several posts planned and a couple of surprises to help readers cope with a time of year that can really throw a glaring, ugly light over the reality of your ‘partners’. Many of you may be feeling alone, wondering what you’re doing, wondering whether you should break No Contact, or reminiscing about the coulda, woulda, shoulda’s. Trish is recovering from the effect of a flip flapping Mr Unavailable on her Christmases (and sense of self) and and has shared her story with some healing words…

I am sure there have been many posts regarding the battle of being single over the holiday season or some of you may be wishing you were. I thought I would spread some holiday cheer by sharing my thoughts on Christmas.

Dec 1st 2009 I sit here at my desk staring at 2 push pins neatly placed on my cork board – One red, one green, one sore reminder that Christmas is near. I did muddle through my first Thanksgiving holiday alone, followed by his 43rd Birthday a day later. I did keep “No Contact” so hurray for me, although I am not really sure why that is still a challenge after our 4 year relationship ended last February. But who really cares.

Christmas used to be my favorite holiday – Volunteering around town, all the joy, the music, the foods, the gatherings amongst friends. The season of giving. All of that changed two Christmases ago for me after a fun filled day of shopping, coffee shops, and special time spent with my EUM.

I was very excited when he asked me if I wanted to hang out and go Christmas shopping. The year before we spent Christmas with our own families as we were a pretty new couple.

I had every reason in the world to be excited as this would be our first Christmas together after a year and a half into the relationship. We shopped all day, had lunch, a coffee, and hit the grocery store to decide on what we were going to cook on Christmas Day. “Should we have Broccoli”? He said. “I think we should cook a Ham, what do you think we should cook”? He stated. He spoke of games we could play and bought wine for us to drink. My head was spinning, it was really going to happen we were going to spend Christmas together with the kids and cook a lovely meal with togetherness and everything. “Ham, lets have Ham” I urged.

He dropped me off with a kiss on the forehead and a promise to call later that evening. I ran into the house excited to tell the kids we were going to his house for Christmas Day. We ran right out to Target to buy gifts for his girls. A pair of designer earrings, adorable socks, nail polish, and perfumes. We also purchased two pies, a pumpkin and a cherry, his favorite. Neatly my young girls prepared the gifts in bags all done up with bows.

The next day was Christmas Eve, the day that Don told me his ex wife and her family were coming to his house for Christmas. He acted like he had no idea I was under the impression I was coming. Nor did he show any responsibility on how I came to that conclusion. He also invited his ex girlfriend as he didnâ€™t want her to be alone for the holidays. She had been close to his girls and he just knew I would understand his position.

I had no choice but to race out and purchase the holiday meal to salvage Christmas for my girls. It was too late to travel to my parents to be with family. As the three of us spent a quiet Christmas day together my heart broke inside with the thoughts of him enjoying the wine, the food, and the games WE decided on together…without ME?? Not so much as a call from him that day – he said he values his time with his girls and I needed to understand that. When he did call the next day, he brazenly asked if I had a fun Christmas.

If your all wondering whether I stayed in this relationship after this, of course I did – that’s why I am here. Over the next two Christmases that followed, I would patiently wait while he and his ex decided their plans with his girls and quietly wonder whether I was going to get to go or not.

Turns out that all his plans fell through and he came to my house for Christmas. I should have went to my parents and let him hang.

A few comments I want to share for the Christmas Season of 2009

Ladies if you ever have to wonder if your man is going to spend Christmas with youâ€¦. Please run, run as far as you can run – Don’t look back. We should never have to wonder if our man wants to spend a holiday with us. EVER

I will say that this year – I may be feeling sad, I maybe feeling a little bit lonely as I see the couples out and about enjoying each other during this time. As I think about him at his home playing games, drinking wine, cooking foodâ€¦. Well, I don’t have to wonder where I stand this year. I don’t have to worry about whether I am deemed good enough by him to come to his home that he isolated me from.

Ladies – I am in the refining fires and I do believe I got the BEST Christmas gift ever – the removal of him and my self respect back.

May God Bless You All and Merry Christmas

Thanks to Trish for sharing!

Your thoughts?

My ebook, Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is my guide to understanding the dynamic between emotionally unavailable men and the women that love them and is available to buy and download.

Stop fearing being single and the power of the magnetic smile

Hot Alpha Female — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:28:14 +0000

Hot Alpha Female writes

Being single – It’s great! I love it and you should too. Why is it that we are so scared to be alone anyway? Are we ever really alone?

I know heaps of my girlfriends that seem to be jumping from one relationship to the other and it makes me wonder when do you really get to spend some time just getting to know yourself? How do you really know who you are if you are always with someone else?

You know, its OK to be alone and it’s OK to be alone and enjoy it. Who knows, maybe I’m dealing with some of my own issues, but I just don’t see the point in getting into a relationship just for the sake of it. If you get into a relationship because you feel like you NEED to, I can assure you that there is going to be some form of emotional or physical abuse in it because you are more scared to be alone than you are of being abused. You are willing to sacrifice some of your own values because of your own FEARS.

Let me tell you one thing about fear girls: Firstly what does it stand for? “False Evidence Appearing Real” That’s the nice term … I prefer ” F*** Everything And Run”. The scariest part is thinking about the fear.

How many times has there been something that we have been scared of doing? For e.g breaking up with someone or telling them the complete truth when you have done something wrong where the thought has just been terrifying.

But knowing who you are and having that self worth is about being able to acknowledge that fear and stepping forward in spite of the fact that you might be scared. Once you’ve reached past that barrier, not only does that fear dissipate, it is gone forever. It loses its power and you are then able to replace that with greater self-confidence and empowering thoughts.

It’s time to stand up for yourself. It’s time to discover who you really are. And the more that you discover who you really are, then the more attractive you are to men and to the world.

If you ladies are complaining that there are not enough quality men out there, I would say that you are not looking through the right telescope. You see what it is that you expect.

If you expect to date alcoholics and womanisers that’s all you will see and all you will date. If you expect to date nice and respectful men, then more nice and respectful men will be attracted to you. Simple as that.

Let me give you an example of how magnetic you can make your personality by simply building on your own self-confidence.

Last week I wrote a post called “Why Smiling Will Keep Them Dialling”. Basically I explained that if you smile more you will be able to attract more guys on every level. As part of my social experiment I decided to do that for a week or two. Results have been amazing!! Simply by making a shift in my mind, when I walked past guys I was turning heads. I had about 6-7 people ask me for my number and not only were guys more friendly and approaching me more, but so was everybody else!

I’m telling you girls, if you change what goes on in your head first, it reflects in your actions and that reflects on the energy that you give off. You know how some people just walk into a room and you can just feel their energy?

Well that’s what being a Hot Alpha Female is all about. Having a magnetic personality, built on esteem, self-confidence and respect, so that you are able to attract high quality and equally respectful men.

So its time to awaken the Hot Alpha Female within each and every one of you =)

Love ya guys – Let me know your thoughts

Hot Alpha Female is a new weekly contributor to Baggage Reclaim. She’s a vibrant twenty-something that loves talking about dating and relationships, as well as skiing and laughing uncontrollably.

Sex â€“ When Sex is Just Sex: It is what it is but how about the guys speak up!

NML — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:25:00 +0000

A few days ago I wrote about The Justifying Zone, that slippery slope that women can find themselves on when they stick with a guy so that they can justify their emotional or sexual investment, even if they recognise that that the relationship is doomed. A couple of male commenters raised the point that sometimes a guy just wants sex, which of course made me want to revisit this subject.

Ladies, we like to see shades of grey, read between the lines, and see gold (or even platinum) where there is in fact copper, but sometimes sex, really is just that; SEX. Itâ€™s not the beginning of a grand love affair, itâ€™s not an indicator of greater things to come, and itâ€™s not a great idea to base a relationship solely off how good a guys strokes areâ€¦

The trouble is, are guys honest enough to say that sex is just sex?

Guys, we are not frickin’ mind readers. We donâ€™t find out things by osmosis and there are many men out there that do not own a pair of brass balls to be upfront and honest about their intentions, or should I say, sexual intentions. Instead, because they donâ€™t want to be perceived as a total bastard and of course they donâ€™t actually want to endanger the possibility of actually getting laid, they bring on all the hearts, flowers, charm, and hints of more to come, only to have to backtrack and make a rapid disappearance afterwards.

This is all a double edged penis sword. Yes we should both be adult enough to screw like rabbits and walk away but we are humans. Casual sex is rarely just ‘casual’ and it’s only casual sex if BOTH parties know that they’re having casual sex in the first place!

As far as Iâ€™m concerned, it is just sex if:

One or both of you actually say it is
You meet and screw in the same night (one night stand)
The only thing that exists between you both irrespective of how long you have known each other is sex

Anything else is open to misinterpretation and it is alarming how many women will still see it as more even if it is one of the above situations.

â€œYeah but we talk a lotâ€ one woman said to me recently. Moaning, groaning, asking when you can meet up, and making small talk to facilitate you both having sex and appearing polite is NOT talking a lot!

Whilst I do think that we can be guilty of building sandcastles in the sky on occasion, I have to say here that much of the ambiguity that surrounds sex and women feeling the need to justify the fact that they slept with the guy by investing themselves further is caused by ambiguous, hard to read men who blow hot and cold and leave everything â€˜literallyâ€™ wide open to interpretation. So guys, if itâ€™s just sex, maybe you should start by saying it is, or avoid going for women who clearly want more than youâ€™re actually able to give!

But…ladies, ladies, ladies, heed the signs. If it walks like duck, quacks like a duck, and flaps its pretty little wings like a duck, it’s a duck. Pause for a moment the next time you’re in this situation and strip away all of the rationalising, reasoning, and justifying, and ask yourself if you have anything left besides a walking, talking…penis.
My new ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more.

Happy Valentine’s Day…boo….

NML — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:59:27 +0000

If you’ve been reading this blog for long enough, you’ll know I’m not a big fan of this Hallmark day. Too much expectation and drama and not enough emphasis on the basic idea behind the day in the first place – celebrating your love. And that doesn’t have to be just for your significant other, that should be for yourself. However, love yourself and show yourself due care and concern 365 days a year, and don’t just wait for a commercially appointed day to dictate the ‘romance’ in your relationship.

But obviously, if you are celebrating, enjoy! In the meantime, here’s a few love links in honour of the day…

How to tell if you’re boyfriend’s a psycho – This video of tips for sussing out your boyfriends psycho meter is hilarious. Just be careful because if he really is a psycho, you may get waaaay more than you bargained for… [Howcast]

But just in case you think you have any psycho tendencies…there’s a video for the ladies too [Howcast]

Check out my 10 Tips for Surviving Valentine’s Day Whether You’re Single or Attached [Ask Dan and Jennifer]

Valentine’s Day…Yawn

10 Naughty Things To Do On Valentine’s Day When You’re Single

10 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Let Valentine’s Day Stress You

Are you really lonely for a boyfriend?

NML — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 10:09:18 +0000

“Loneliness is an emotional state in which a person experiences a powerful feeling of emptiness and isolation. Loneliness is more than just the feeling of wanting company or wanting to do something with another person. Loneliness is a feeling of being cut off, disconnected and alienated from other people. The lonely person may find it difficult or even impossible to have any form of meaningful human contact. Lonely people often experience a subjective sense of inner emptiness or hollowness, with feelings of separation or isolation from the world.” Source Wikipedia

Recently I wrote about not looking for happiness with a man. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t have happiness with a them; it’s more that you shouldn’t see men as the sole source of joyous happiness. Being single shouldn’t be regarded as that miserable time that you pass in between relationships, as you’re likely to end up miserable with a man, which sort of defeats the purpose…. A recurrent theme in the comments though was accentuated with the question ” How do we deal with the loneliness?”

It’s not down to me to invalidate how someone feels, but it is down to you to check out the validity of your statements and beliefs because if you don’t, you not only cling to incorrect assumptions and beliefs, but you make poor decisions as a result of them. ‘Loneliness’ is a very big word and if you are fortunate enough to have people who love you in your life and whom you love, even if they’re not a boyfriend, it shouldn’t be taken for granted. There is nothing wrong with desiring a boyfriend/life partner or whatever you want to call him but being ‘lonely’ for one can give off a desperate vibe to men that isn’t attractive.

When you claim to feel ‘lonely’ for a man this could only have quite strong behaviours and attitudes attached to it. You’re hardly going to feel this way and approach things softly-softly. Instead you’re likely to assume that every guy could be ‘it’ which will put the rose tinted glasses on you and have you blinkered to who they really are. You’ll place all of your hopes, fears, expectations and then some on them. You’ll probably charge in like a bull in a china shop.

Feeling ‘lonely’ for a man makes them the centre of your universe. You’re operating from a negative place that is likely to draw in men that will actually exasperate the sense of loneliness…not cure it. Claiming to feel like this is like opening the door to every waif and stray that struggles with commitment and showing any emotion. Next thing you know, you have a ‘boyfriend’ but you don’t know when he’s going to call or when you’ll see him next. Or maybe you’ll cure it by taking up the understudy role of The Other Woman because getting a slice of time is better than not having someone’s time at all. Of course if any of this happens to you, the people who really love you like your family and friends will get neglected which will enhance that isolated feeling….

So I ask, are you really that lonely for a boyfriend or do you just want one because you don’t feel right about yourself or your place in life if you don’t have that special someone? Or do you just want one because you want one?
My new eBook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more

Don’t look for happiness with a man

NML — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:38:42 +0000

The search for a dream relationship where you find a soulmate who is exactly as you dreamed he would be and you think, act and want the same things may start out innocently, but depending on how attached you become to the search, can actually turn you commitment-phobic. After all, itâ€™s difficult for any man to live up to the elusive criteria that you have in your head, create the special feelings that you think youâ€™re going to feel, and sustain them too.

If you ever did meet someone who came close to your version of ‘soulmate’, youâ€™d no doubt end up disappointed or frustrated at some point because they canâ€™t say, do, and make you feel everything you want all of the time. What are you going to do when they have an off hour, day, week, month, several months or even a year?

Placing the responsibility of your happiness into someone elseâ€™s hands, often someone who doesnâ€™t even exist yet, in the hope that they will complete you and set your world to rights is a dangerous, foolhardly act. You make your own happiness and placing the reliance of it in someone elseâ€™s hands means that you are 100% reliant on them for the feel good factor in your life. Cue constant validation, reassurance and emotional soothing. If you canâ€™t make your own happiness, how do you expect them to make yours?

People that get happy within themselves connect with other likewise people who have happiness. Misery loves company so itâ€™s no wonder that you end up with someone as dysfunctional as Mr Unavailable.

I am in no way suggesting that you shouldn’t be with a man that makes you happy, but you should have the power to be happy independently of him. Failure to address this will result in you constantly being caught in the Yo-Yo effect, and pandering to a guy blowing hot and cold. Because they appear to be your source of happiness…and more so your misery, you will keep fluttering back to him because that’s what you think will make things alright. Trust me when I say that you wouldn’t do this if you were able to do some of your own validation, reassurance, and emotional soothing.

Happiness is not something you seek out in the form of a dysfunctional relationship. It’s something that you can create with or without someone in tow. If you can start to be happy independently of a man, it is very difficult for them to have the power to dictate every positive and negative emotion that you feel. In fact…dysfunctional men won’t even get a look in…
My new eBook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more

National Singles Week

NML — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:04:45 +0000

If you’re single and living in the US, from today and for the next week it’s time to revel in being single. According to the SunHerald “The week provides an opportunity for the unmarried to celebrate their spouse-free lifestyles and denounce the stigmas surrounding single people – the spinster, lives-with-his-parents and aging bachelor stereotypes.”

The US Census Bureau counts 100 million single and unmarried Americans, a massive number that really should be acknowledged and a force to be reckoned with. However….embrace being single all year around, not just for one week. Don’t treat being single as that pain in the backside time that you pass between finding someone to have a relationship with. Happy, well adjusted singles who enjoy their lives tend to make part of happier couples – It means that you don’t forge relationships from a negative place based on your fears and insecurities about being single. Enjoy!

via Girl Dates LondonÂ

Heâ€™s Just Not That Into Booty Calls?

NML — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:13:56 +0000

“It’s hard to have casual sex without getting emotionally involved,”

Normally I would attribute these words to a woman, but on this occasion, it is to Ben, someone who claims to be amongst a growing number of men who just arenâ€™t into booty calls. Say what?

â€œHe’s Just Not That Into Itâ€ in Details Magazine examines this sudden change in the wind as men decide that they donâ€™t just get hard and have actually got more emotional capacity than a stone when it comes to indulging in casual sex.

Whilst I do believe that casual sex floats everyoneâ€™s boat, it is still spearheaded by men. Millions of women have found themselves being unsuspecting one night stands or booty calls because many men donâ€™t have balls big enough to admit that itâ€™s all that they want. Instead, they let these women get sucked into the illusion that they are embarking on the beginning of something beautiful, when in fact, it will meet a very sharp end the moment that they roll off them.

â€œIsaac says he won’t have sex with someone he’s not emotionally attached to. He once walked away from a no-brainerâ€”when a “gorgeous” former student â€˜told me she sucks really good dickâ€™â€”because he felt he couldn’t be giving, as he was emerging from a bad break-up.â€

Well itâ€™s nice to know that there are examples of men turning down sexual opportunities that are handed to them on a silver platter, after all, Isaac could easily have had some â€˜medicineâ€™ to make himself feel betterâ€¦ I have no doubt that he felt very uncomfortable about slipping her the mickey, but this situation also represents something else â€“ when itâ€™s the woman thatâ€™s effectively in control or being blatant about her sexuality or desire for casual sex, itâ€™s just not that exciting.

For many men that habitually engage in casual sex, they like to think that the woman has brought into the idea of being with them and may even be falling in love. I have had many a woman complain of being mistreated by guys because they have been upfront about the fact that they just want the guy for sex. The men on the receiving end of their candidness wasted no time in trying to take chunks out of their character or even trying to reel them in emotionally just so that they could prove a point.

I donâ€™t think itâ€™s fair for women to assume that all guys want sex but unfortunately the type of man that we have often been confronted with out in the dating world isnâ€™t doing very much to dispel this generalisation. These men may be declaring themselves off booty calls but I donâ€™t think they represent the great majority.

The article goes on to discuss women believing that all guys want is sex and one man tells of how his sexuality was challenged and how he was badgered for sex all night by one persistent woman; the type of behaviour that if a guy was doing it would have him being called a â€œmonsterâ€. Weâ€™re accused of having further double standards when â€œGuys can be made to feel like dicks for withholding theirsâ€ and that women take sexual rejection very personally.

What we have here is years of misguided social conditioning rearing its ugly head. There are years of repeated behavior coming back to bite men in the ass. By constantly helping to reinforce the idea that women should be up for casual shagging, many women have effectively jumped onto the bandwagon. The words â€˜Be careful what you wish forâ€™ have never been more apt!

Now that some women want it just as much as men, itâ€™s just not that much fun anymore. In fact, these men are realising just how damn crass it can be. This is one of those situations where we are damned if we do, and damned if we donâ€™t. When we are more resistant to casual sex, weâ€™re seen as uptight, needy, or even frigid, but when weâ€™re up for it, and even demanding it, itâ€™s suddenly a case of men going â€˜Itâ€™s my ball and I donâ€™t want to play anymore.â€™

No does mean no regardless of whether it is a man or a woman thatâ€™s saying it and the inability to recognise when the chips are effectively down represents a disrespect of that persons wishes. It is wrong that a woman would choose to challenge a guys sexuality and badger him for sex when heâ€™s declined the invitation â€“ In trying to compete in what we think is a manâ€™s world, some women try to think and act â€˜like menâ€™ and in this case, itâ€™s not a good actâ€¦

Men have been socially conditioned to believe that they are supposed to run out there and sow their wild oats and on the flipside, many women believe that confronted with an easy sex opportunity, no guy will turn it down. Itâ€™s a vicious circle. The guys in this article are in tune enough with themselves to recognise the soulless life of constant meaningless sex but unfortunately the women who find themselves in these situations misguidedly think that sex equals intimacy and that the ability to get a man to sleep with you validates them as a person. Hence â€˜He doesnâ€™t want to screw meâ€™ now equals â€˜There is something wrong with meâ€™ because after all, every guy wants sex donâ€™t they?

To be fair to these guys, I believe them when they say that they really arenâ€™t interested in casual sex or dialling a screw, but I donâ€™t think that weâ€™re about to have a sexual revolution here. I mean really: Wouldnâ€™t all of our Christmasâ€™ come together in one go if there werenâ€™t so many emotionally unavailable men who were just after one thing and they suddenly started seeking committed relationships? Wouldnâ€™t it be great to say goodbye to those annoying guys in our lives that only surface when itâ€™s dark and call us late at night for a shag? Wouldnâ€™t it be great to not have to hang our sexuality out there like a mascot in an effort to fit in with what we think society demands of us out there in the dating world? Wouldnâ€™t it justâ€¦but I donâ€™t think weâ€™re about to experience the death of the booty call or casual sex in general. Instead, rub your hands together in glee that there are a few more men in the available pool that actually want a committed relationship. Now, nowâ€¦no fighting ladies!

Read all about these guys over at Details Magazine

NML is the editor of Baggage Reclaim.

TV DOCUMENTARY

NML — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:32:30 +0000

Single? Looking for Mr Right?

Are you a single woman whoâ€™d love to get married but are yet to find Mr Right? Weâ€™re looking for woman who are focused and positive in their search and have already made inroads into plans for their big day.

If thatâ€™s you or someone you know TV documentary company would like to hear from you!

Please call Lauren on 020 7272 4000 or email: hello@vgoodfilms.com for a quick chat.

10 Tips On How to Survive the Wedding Season

NML — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:28:22 +0000

Weddings are hard work to greater and lesser extents for all people involved, but when youâ€™re single, it takes a special type of resilience to not end up being a bit po-facedâ€¦

Donâ€™t have high expectations about there being any totty. I am yet to attend a wedding where there has been any good looking, totty awaiting the attentions of the single women. There do tend to be a lot of couples at weddings so rather than going there and thinking youâ€™re going to meet a hot guy and become the next great romance, expect the worst and hope for the best. You may end up being pleasantly surprisedâ€¦

Get over any insecurityâ€™s you have about being single before the wedding season starts. Embrace your single status rather than wallowing in misery, otherwise your patience will wear very thin, very quickly, when you have people making stupid comments about catching the bouquet, always being a bridesmaid, never the bride, and pondering aloud why youâ€™re still single.

Donâ€™t rock up to the wedding a hard-faced, jaded, cynical, single as it does radiate from you and you wonâ€™t exactly have a welcoming demeanour for any potential single guys that are there. Plus you wonâ€™t look good in photosâ€¦

Get drunk if you can handle itâ€¦but donâ€™t overdo it if youâ€™re the type that starts weeping into her glass of wine singing â€œAll by myselfâ€¦â€ by the end of the evening.

If you have the option to bring someone, bring a female friend. Rather than raiding every bar in town looking for a guy thatâ€™s suitable enough to bring with you, or bringing your booty call, or the male friend that you secretly fancy, bring a good female friend. Do you really want to spend an uncomfortable day with someone you barely know that you may already regret choosing in haste? Do you really want to bring your booty call when you may end up wanting more than a no frills arrangement that youâ€™re unlikely to get? Do you want to end up trying it on with your male friend only to end up making a fool out of yourself?

Donâ€™t shag or snog someone elseâ€™s boyfriend/husband. Trust me, itâ€™s never a good idea to do this but even less so at a wedding. Plus if you get caught, your reputation will take quite a knocking and youâ€™ll definitely regret it.

Look hot to trotâ€¦but donâ€™t upstage the bride. When you look good, you feel good, so get your hair done, slip on a lovely outfit and put on a pair of heels that make your legs look amazing but that you can hopefully still walk in by the time the dancing starts.

Lie or have some killer lines at the ready. I know youâ€™re single but if the questions get really tedious, tell them about your (non existent) hot boyfriend that couldnâ€™t make it because heâ€™s on business. If you do humour, wit, or sarcasm well, you could always give trite answers to their questionsâ€¦.

Be social. Weddings are great for meeting people whether you end up making friends, networking, or being introduced to someone for a blind date/set up at a later date.

Enjoy yourself! Weddings are happy occasions so eat, drink, be merry and dance your arse off!

Baggage Reclaim » The Single Life

Why People Don’t See Their Qualities & Contributions to Relationships Accurately – Part 3

Related Posts

Getting Out of Stuck: What are you doing to help bring love into your life?

Related Posts

12 Empowering Thoughts for Valentine’s Day

Related Posts

I’m Successful! Why Am I Still Single?

Related Posts

Resisting the Temptation of Making Contact With An Ex at Christmas

Related Posts

Guest Post: If you have to wonder if your man is going to spend Christmas with you…run!

Related Posts

Stop fearing being single and the power of the magnetic smile

Related Posts

Sex â€“ When Sex is Just Sex: It is what it is but how about the guys speak up!

Related Posts

Happy Valentine’s Day…boo….

Related Posts

Are you really lonely for a boyfriend?

Related Posts

Don’t look for happiness with a man

Related Posts

National Singles Week

Related Posts

Heâ€™s Just Not That Into Booty Calls?

Related Posts

TV DOCUMENTARY

Related Posts

10 Tips On How to Survive the Wedding Season

Related Posts