Can’t get a date? It’s not them, it’s you

Case study 1
Outward behavior: Extreme pickiness
Underlying cause: Fear of being hurt — again
Dating is a process of selection, from scanning a room full of potentials in a crowded bar to deciding in the first few minutes of a first date whether the person sitting across from you is your type. Being selective in your choices is a necessary and healthy part of finding love. Being careful in your screening process can weed out certain types who might not be good for you, people who are dishonest or self-centered or who send up other red flags when you meet them and start to get to know them. Having a certain level of choosiness can protect you from getting involved in bad relationships. At the very least, having some set standards can help you narrow down your choices and increase your chances of succeeding at dating by understanding what traits — tangible and intangible — are important to you and which ones you’re willing to compromise on. But normal selectivity — or pickiness — isn’t what we’re talking about here. In the case of the Extremely Picky Dater, we’re talking about an almost pathological level of sensitivity: people who have a laundry list of requirements that someone has to have in order to be even considered as a potential date.

I’ve had clients who are kind of picky. They claim to prefer guys who are a certain height, or women who have a certain color eyes and like a certain kind of music or sport or cuisine. Within reason, these short lists of preferences help us narrow down our search for love and help us find a person who will be good company, someone we can go out and do things with, and who might become something more. And then I’ve had clients who are extremely picky. These clients walk in with a long list of requirements that go far beyond the normal and acceptable list of preferences we all have.

Most of the Extremely Picky Daters I’ve encountered are women, and they’re really something. They have long lists of required qualities, physical attributes, financial offerings, and sexual performance levels that they measure potential partners against.

Big house?

Check.

Fancy car?

Check.

Great legs, firm butt, and a full head of hair?

Check. Check. Check.

Willing to take Viagra?

Get over yourself!

Not only are these Extremely Picky Daters obnoxious, but they’re also annoying, since most of the time they’re looking for things they don’t offer themselves. Like a high-paying job or a great pension plan when they don’t even have a job. Or a hot bod when they could stand to lose a few.

Plenty of men are extremely picky, too — they want to meet twenty-year-old women when they’re pushing fifty, and they want those twenty-year-olds to have long blond hair when they themselves are bald.

These men clearly need to get over themselves, too.

Most of the time when I’ve dealt with clients like this, their lists haven’t helped them find love. In fact, their lists have usually hurt them.

Video Jan. 7: TODAY’s Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford talk to Whitney Casey, author of “The Man Plan,” about ways to seem irresistible to men. Today show

The first step in helping an Extremely Picky Dater is to make them understand that if they’re ever going to get over themselves and find love, they’re going to have to get rid of the list: throw it in a lake or destroy it in some sort of ceremonial way to mark the fact that they’re starting a whole new chapter of their dating life — a successful one because they are more flexible and accepting and less rigid and demanding.

Getting rid of the actual list is one thing, but getting rid of it in their head means figuring out why they’re so picky in the first place — why they’re ruling out almost every single person on the planet because these people don’t measure up and why they’re making it virtually impossible for themselves to find love.

Lots of picky daters have lots of issues. They’ve either been deeply disappointed in past relationships — getting involved with people who haven’t treated them special enough — or they’re still getting over the old wounds of a divorce or breakup. Both factors were the case with Cynthia, a client of mine in her late forties. Long divorced and having recently ended a two-year relationship with a guy because he “just wasn’t that into her,” Cynthia came to me with a four-page single-spaced typed list that she carried in her wallet like a form of identification — which it actually was, since anyone she tried to date ended up figuring out that she was the Picky One, with her Must be over 6′0″ but under 6′4″/Must love dogs and hate cats/Must eat only organic food demands. Cynthia was wary of getting involved again and had convinced herself that making a list of requirements for a future relationship would help her be more careful and make better choices when it came to dating.

Other picky daters are like another client, Elyse, who was pushing fifty and had never been married. Elyse didn’t have an actual written list when she came to see me, but she was so dismissive of potentials as being deficient in almost every way that she hadn’t had a real date — much less a real relationship — in more than a decade. The more we talked, the more I realized that the root of her pickiness was a troubled relationship with her father, who had always been extremely critical of her looks and almost always forgot her birthday.

Elyse’s extreme level of pickiness had become a big thick garage door that served as a protective shield: Reject others before they can reject you. Who in their right mind would want to get involved with a woman who had such a long list of demands?

You may not have an actual list written out or typed and single-spaced, but if you’re an Extremely Picky Dater you probably have that list in your head — a long list of unrealistic and ridiculous and impossible expectations — a list that you’ve unconsciously made in order to protect yourself from getting involved in relationships. No one could ever measure up to all the requirements and no one would want to even if they could. And you’ve probably done that to protect yourself because you were hurt and don’t want to be hurt again.

Get over yourself solution: Lose the list, whether it’s on paper or in your head; deal with your issues; and get over yourself so that you can finally find the love you want.

Case study 2
Outward behavior: Can’t flirt
Underlying cause: Insecurity and low self-esteem
Everybody knows a woman who can’t flirt. The one who’s either talking sports with the bartender or doing something annoying to the guy on the next bar stool, like picking a fight about politics or the latest reality show.

She’s the one who’s always a girl friend, never the girlfriend.

I haven’t just known this type. I was this type — the perpetual buddy — and that’s how I became a matchmaker: by fixing up my friends and giving them advice because I myself wasn’t dating. Which is why I have real empathy for my clients, especially for this particular type of dater.

Video   Tough love from a matchmaker Jan. 8: TODAY’s Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford talk to matchmaker Patti Novak about finding love. Today show

I’m always amazed when clients who can’t flirt have jobs that require them to be upbeat and positive — jobs in public relations or party planning or sales. They’re paid to be a people person at the office and are bubbly and vivacious on the job, but they’re the complete opposite in their personal lives. I’ve seen lots of women who can’t flirt and who are clueless when it comes to guys even though they’re in the game — going out with friends and hitting the bar scene and outwardly open to meeting guys. The problem is that they’re playing all wrong.

Women who can’t flirt have a few behaviors in common: they usually have a defensive attitude, an aggressive and sometimes even openly hostile manner, and a lack of softness. Just like Stephanie, a cute but too-tough twentysomething who was like a pit bull in pumps: ripping into any guy who made the mistake of trying to engage her in conversation when she was sitting at a bar with a sarcastically nasty comment, even though that’s why she was there — to meet and talk to guys!

Or like Beth, an attractive brunette with a great smile who just would not shut up about all the things she didn’t like about herself.

These flirtationally challenged women are like girls in elementary school who pull boys’ hair to get attention — just as annoying and just as immature.

Despite the fact that most of the time these women are cute and smart, they’re usually instant turnoffs to guys because none of their good qualities come out when they go out. There’s no eye contact, no hair-flipping, no occasional and gentle physical contact — none of the subtle things women do to be engaging or attractive to men with the purpose of drawing them into a conversation and possibly something more.

Women who can’t flirt display none of the charm or sweetness — or sexiness — of a woman trying to connect with a man. Just a lot of sarcasm and hard edges.

Sometimes the roots for this inability to flirt go deep. I’ve learned that some women are this way because they were never popular with boys unless they wanted to watch sports together or talk about the boys’ girlfriend problems. Being the kind of girl guys instantly see as “just a friend” instead of a possible romantic girlfriend does a number on a woman’s self-confidence, so it’s no wonder that women like this — perpetual buddies — often feel scarred. They’re so used to feeling unattractive and unfeminine and essentially invisible to the men they meet that they don’t have any dating skills.

Women who can’t flirt become so convinced over time that the men they meet are only interested in friendship that they don’t know how to act when they approach men — or how to react when men approach them.

Often women who can’t flirt need a little coaching — flirting lessons, if you will — to get them going and give them some of the fundamental dating skills they lack. Like being nice.

But just as important as mastering basic dating skills (or at least practicing them a few times) is getting this type of woman to face her lifelong insecurity and cripplingly low self-esteem — issues that have plagued her most of her life and have affected her ability to date. Because lots of times, when a woman isn’t nice to the men she’s trying to attract, she often isn’t nice to herself, which means that one of the least attractive aspects of this type of dater is that they engage in a lot of self-deprecating humor. It’s one thing to have a sense of humor about yourself, but when the butt of your jokes is always you and you constantly talk about yourself in the least flattering terms, men aren’t going to find you very appealing or attractive.

Which shouldn’t be that surprising. How can you expect someone to like you when you don’t like yourself?

Women who can’t flirt often have to be scared straight: they have to understand that if they don’t learn how to communicate properly with the opposite sex and how to stop picking on themselves, it’s going to take them a long, long time to find love.

Get Over Yourself Solution: If you’re one of those women who can’t flirt and is turning off the men you’re supposed to be turning on, stop criticizing and insulting yourself, and start being nice — to you and to the men you’re out with. This means working on your self-esteem so that the men you meet can see that you’re adorable and smart and a real catch.

MORE FROM TODAY BOOKS: RELATIONSHIPS

Is there a link between dogs and divorce?

Is there a link between dogs and divorce? Ex education: 10 signs you’re not ‘just friends’ ‘Superior Wife Syndrome’ aims to save couples RUEA? (That is, are you emotionally available?) Scorned lovers: Moving on is best ‘Revenge’ To snag a man, let him do the chasing What women can learn from bad pick-up lines New novel follows adventures of single women ‘Vixen Manual’ bares tricks to snare a man Boys 101: Writer offers teen girls a crash course   Add Today Books: Relationships headlines to your news reader: