The Weird Benefit of The “Never Date Again” Strategy

January 7th, 2011

The what?!? I mean, let’s be honest, this isn’t a strategy for people who want to be in a relationship, is it? Well, not for the most part, no. But when the idea came up on the most recent episode of Parenthood, I couldn’t help but see some dating optimism in one character’s funny anti-dating message. (Check out my other Parenthood post, too, Why You Must Put Yourself Out There.)

Julia and Sarah Braverman, who hang out for girl's night. (Image: NBC.com)

The scene: Sarah (Lauren Graham) walked into her lawyer sister Julia (Erika Christensen)’s office and announced she had a new plan. This is what Sarah said:

“I made a New Year’s resolution, one I can really keep. I have decided, I am never going to date anyone. ever. again. Right? Because I want to have fun this year, and my relationships are not fun. Ergo, to wit, don’t have any. (I’m using a little legal jargon there for your comfort.) I’m gonna do fun things. I’m gonna go to museums and, uh, you know, read more. I’m gonna have a girl’s night out with my sister.”

The girl’s night out ended up being a funny wine-fest in (followed by a morning in the kitchen that made me laugh out loud when Sarah said “We’re flavored-coffee-drinking losers!”). And Sarah didn’t change her feelings about dating during the episode. So what did I like about it?

I liked the wise idea to take the focus off of dating for a minute. The way I see it, your path toward love isn’t about the guy or girl you want in it; it’s about you. Don’t just find three people who will go out with you and schedule some quick dates for next week; instead, make sure you’re in a place where you are mad happy with who you are and excited about the prospect of sharing your awesome life with someone before you go on those three dates!

Sarah was just burned by love and may not be able to come at dating with an open mind just yet. But she has a great idea here. If you’re not wildly in love with your life yet—if you’re not giddy about the person you are and certain that the right guy or girl will be lucky as hell to be with you—then find a way to fall in love with your life. Do fun things. Go to a museum. Read more. Knit. Box. Mountain climb. Dance. Learn Italian. Volunteer. Go out with your friends to places you’re not likely to meet someone (uh, senior citizens Bingo night, anyone?) so you don’t feel the pressure to work it.

Find a way to feel damn great about who you are and what’s coming down the pike in love and you’ll attract your half-orange faster, and be ready as ever for them when you meet.

Right? Is there anything you can think of that you could do this week that would make you feel happier with your life? What would make you feel so proud of you, you couldn’t wait to date a great person to tell them all about it?

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Big love,

Tags: dating, fun-loving girl, half-orange, Love, optimist, relaxing, self-doubting, single
Posted in It's on TV, Optimisms

Follow Her Half-Orange Journey

January 4th, 2011

God, I love blogs. Especially personal ones where I can follow someone’s journey through life or love or dating. And this new one tops my list for obvious reasons: “The Search for My Half-Orange” was created by a Meeting Your Half-Orange reader who has taken one of the most important tenets of dating optimism seriously: You have to make your message clear and shout it wide. She’s doing just that. Kudos!

As I wrote about in the very recent post “How Not To Make a New Year’s Love Resolution,” the most important part of your search for love is being open to it. Love isn’t about sniffing along the ground to pick up the scent of a person you want to date, right? It’s about standing tall and proud in your own life, looking up and outward and sending the message that you’re open and ready for love. Only then can it come a-knocking.

So check out Tanita’s site, as she makes some great points about being exposed to way too much negative relationship stuff, and she’s really working on embracing happiness in life and love in 2011. I wish the same for you. Happy New Year!

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Big love,

Posted in Optimisms

New Year’s Eve: You Never Know

December 31st, 2010

My friend Amy just posted this on Facebook and I wanted to pass it to you. Because it fits into a mantra I write about in Meeting Your Half-Orange: Why you should give yourself the YNK Speech: You Never Know. Here’s the story Amy told:

Seventeen years ago, I ventured out to the city with friends on New Year’s Eve and waited on line in the freezing cold for an over-sold nightclub, only to meet the love of my life inside. Here is to cold nights and warm hearts.

Cheers to a New Year in Love!

(Image: PartySupplies123.com)

You never know what can happen on New Year’s Eve, when people’s joy is out there and their hearts are open, and we all enjoy meeting new people to celebrate good times. And even if you don’t meet the love of your life inside some warm place tonight, you never know how who you meet tonight will affect your life tomorrow. You never know how one conversation, or one toast, or one smile, or one laugh with friends will change how you see your life, how you feel about love or what will come in your future.

So tonight: Open your eyes. Open your heart. Open the walls that might keep new people and new ideas out on other nights of the year. And ask the universe to get you one step closer to your true love in whatever way it can. Because you never know how one small step tonight will lead you to the biggest joy of your life: meeting your half-orange.

Big love and Happy New Year!

Posted in Optimisms

OPTIMISM WORKSHOP: How NOT to Make a New Year’s “Love” Resolution

December 29th, 2010

Oh boy, right? It’s that time again.

After slurping down those cocktails...what about those resolutions? (Image: Amy Spencer, Samoa)

The time of year we start making super big plans and overly big promises so that come, oh, January 20th when we feel like we’ve been putting in all this effort and nothing’s come to fruition, we may as well eat a whole pizza on a duvet on the couch in front of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and cry our unaccomplished, unloved, hopeless selves to sleep.

Well not this year! Why? Because you’re going to make the right resolutions—at least when it comes to love. Let’s look at some of the possible ways you’ve resolved to find love before and how you’ll change it this year for the good. Follow this OPTIMISM WORKSHOP to alter your romantic resolutions for the better.

Here’s How Not to Make Your New Year’s Love Resolutions:

Don’t RESOLUTION #1: Resolve to “Find love this year.” Love isn’t the extra set of keys you placed behind the food processor and forgot about. It’s not something to be “found.” And setting off on a “search” won’t get you there.

Do: Resolve to be open for love this year. As a dating optimist, I believe that we don’t find love, love finds us. But it can only find us when we’re sending the signal that we’re open and ready for it.

Your Jan. 1st First Step: Instead of thinking inward about who’s done you wrong and what you want that’s right, focus your eyes upward and outward. Look at all the people out there on the street, in the stores, at parties or driving past you. The world is big and anything can happen! This year, keep your gaze set up and out so others can see how open you are to what might.

Don’t RESOLUTION #2: Resolve you will get them to like you, whatever it takes. Hey, I’ve been there, too. So certain that the guy I liked was a great match for me, and if I could just get him to see the same perfect picture in my imagination, we’d live happily ever after. The problem? You can’t make someone like you. And trying to in a grabby, beggy way will only push them further away.

Do: Resolve you will attract the right person for you. And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but if that person you like isn’t calling and texting and trying to get you into his or her life, then they’re not—right now, at least—the right person for you.

Your Jan. 1st First Step: Delete the phone number of that guy or girl who keeps blowing you off. Yes, delete. If you are still using energy thinking about how to make it happen with them, you’re distracting yourself from what’s going on right outside your own front door! Stop obsessing about the right-this-second person and start thinking about how you want to feel long term with the right-lifetime person.

That open boat? That open water? That's how open YOU can be for love. (Image: Amy Spencer, Samoa)

Don’t RESOLUTION #3: Resolve that “Enough is enough. Argh, this is the freaking year for love, dammit.” As I write about in Meeting Your Half-Orange, your intentions aren’t all that matters. What also counts is the tone of your voice and energy when you set your intentions. So if you’re coming at a relationship from a place of fed-up frustration, neediness or hopelessness, you’re not going to attract what you’re really looking for.

Do: Resolve that you’ll accept love when the time is right. Patience isn’t easy. I know this. I’ve watched pots boil and stared at phones waiting for them to ring and screamed at the sky asking why the thing I want so badly hasn’t come. But if trust that love will land on your doorstep when you and your future partner are ready for it—and ready for each other—you will be happier and more attractive for it.

Your Jan. 1st First Step: Write this on a Post-It: “We’ll meet when we’re both ready.” This will remind you that it’s not just you that’s waiting for your other half—your half-orange is also out there wondering what’s taking so long for you to arrive. Get ready by being your happiest, very best self so they’ll recognize you when they see you.

Those are my three biggest resolution fixes to help get you started this year. With this, I wish you the happiest, healthiest, love-iest New Year!

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Big love,

Posted in OPTIMISM WORKSHOP, Optimisms

Use Your Bad Dates For Good!

December 20th, 2010

‘Tis the season of giving instead of taking, of thinking more about others than ourselves, right? And I don’t know about you, but I can use all the reminders about that I can get. Which is why I remembered a great blog someone recommended to me on Twitter. It’s called Single For Good: Each Bad Date Deserves a Good Deed. From the title alone, I think we could all take a lesson from it.

The author of the blog, Bianca, told Single Edition that she began it one Valentine’s Day (which she hilariously calls “Single Awareness Day”) when she realized if she was going to be single, she may as well be single for good.” Here’s what got her started:

“I thought about how much I could do for the community,” said Bianca, “if I simply tore myself away from the temporary discontent of the bad date (though my best friends Ben & Jerry are still on speed-dial) and channeled my dating frustrations into performing acts of service for life and Earth. I whole-heartedly believe singles can change the world for the better, one bad date at a time. Volunteering is the Nyquil to my all-the-time, sniffling, whining, heart-aching, bad date illness.”

What a great idea. She now blogs about her experiences in dating along with the volunteer activity she’s doing in honor of it—or perhaps to try to forget it as quickly as possible! In her most recent post, for example, she served up breakfast and played Bingo while volunteering for the Senior Breakfast Club. “It’s all about your outlook…” she wrote in her post “and a positive mindset is the way to go.”

It’s healthy for us sometimes to put our lives in perspective like this. Yes, bad dates, bad days and generally sucky weeks of life stink. But so does loneliness to a senior in a nursing home or a dog at a shelter. So does illiteracy to a high-schooler or an adult immigrant. So I propose we all take Bianca’s blog to heart, whether we’re dating or not. If we have a bad date or an awful work meeting, instead of turning inward to gripe about our own lives, let’s reach outward and use our energy to make someone else’s life better. Even if we don’t volunteer for big organizations or planned events, doing small acts of kindness can help.

Here are some ideas for today: Instead of being bummed about that guy who didn’t call you back, help a guy with a walker carry his basket in CVS. Instead of getting angry in mind-numbing traffic, let someone cut in front of you with a wave and a smile. Instead of being frustrated that the date with your girl friend didn’t cross over into romance, help a mother and her child cross a busy street. As they sang in Wicked, “Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? But because I knew you, I have been changed for good.” For all we know, the people we meet along the way in our lives—especially when you’re single and meeting more new people than ever—will change us for the good, too.

By the way, if you don’t already follow me on Twitter, you can check out my regular Tweets at Twitter.com/datingoptimist.)

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