Does a happy marriage seem light-years away because of the impossible challenges of dating?
Have you found dating a painful, sometimes frightening, endlessly puzzling pursuit?
Would you like to cut down on the hassle, seriously reduce the confusion, and move efficiently and smoothly through the process?
Let me tell you how I think this book can help:
First, I’ll help you analyze dating for exactly what it is. Sure, it’s a frustrating, bewildering process for most people, but you can clear away all the haze and move into the dating arena with more self-assurance than ever before. We will look squarely at the three fundamental challenges of dating—and we’ll simplify, clarify, and make it 100 percent more manageable. You’ll learn to steer clear of all the quagmires and traps. You will encounter easy-to-apply guidelines that will move you like a rocket toward that person with whom you can be happy for the rest of your life.
Second, we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty, practical aspects of dating. I’ll show you exactly how to take charge of the critical, early phases of a relationship—how to make a quick and accurate decision about whether or not to invest more time, effort, and energy in another person. This will bolster your confidence and maximize your ability to handle every challenge dating brings.
For instance, if a member of the opposite sex asks you out, you will know early on if he or she is “in the ballpark” for what you want in a lifetime companion. By the end of the second date, you will know precisely if you want to devote additional time and emotion to this person.
If you don’t want to, you will have the confidence to end the relationship kindly and efficiently, treating the individual with dignity, but getting on with your effort to find the “right” person. If you conclude, somewhere between the first five minutes of the first encounter and the end of the second date, that this person has real promise for you, your decision will be bold and obvious…because it will be built on time-proven principles and a carefully honed methodology.
How Do You Know if Someone Is “Right” For You?
It is absolutely critical that you get your thinking straight about the type of person you want to marry. Sometimes singles fail to think strategically about potential mates simply because they don’t have a wide range of candidates to choose from. They don’t believe they’ll ever be fortunate enough to evaluate—and eventually select from—a number of possible partners.
As one twenty-nine-year-old, never-married woman told me recently, “Let’s be honest, the phone isn’t ringing off the hook with persistent suitors, so I’m not exactly in a position to be selective or choosy.”
Like this woman, many singles wrongly assume that if there is only one choice, they don’t need to make a determination—much less make an early-on decision. Since there is no need for efficiency, they falsely infer that they can just bide their time, go with the flow, and see where the relationship ends up. But with this kind of thinking, you’ll end up without a well-defined image of your ideal mate…and you may end up stuck in an unhappy, unsatisfying marriage for the rest of your life.
We’ll discuss all of this in detail later, but for now, let me lead you in what I believe to be a significant direction. In an effort to get your thinking straightened out, I want you to imagine that your list of candidates is long. Suppose that your calendar is filled with upcoming dates, singles events, and parties where you’ll become acquainted with several eligible people. What’s more, assume you already have two or three relationships that could develop into something serious. I suspect you like this exercise!
Now your challenge is simple: You need to be able to make an accurate and rapid-fire decision about the best person for you to marry, someone with whom you could be happy for a lifetime. When you’re able to do this, you will be on your way to mastering the entire dating process.
I was sitting at a baseball game the other night with my friend Steve, who has never been married. He has all kinds of attractive qualities, and he is genuinely liked and pursued by members of the opposite sex. We were chatting about the excitement and the perils of dating. I eventually posed an imaginary dilemma for him that I’ve been pondering and researching for months. It went like this:
“Steve, assume that I found ten women in your age category who are all single and willing to date you. They are equally good-looking, equally intelligent, and they have equally attractive personalities. But let’s say that I have determined ahead of time that marriage to five of these persons will prove to be disastrous. They perhaps are emotionally unhealthy or in some other way incapable of a long-term, unselfish, and committed relationship. The other five of these persons are unusually healthy, and marriage to any one of them would have great potential for success.
