Are You Too Busy to Find Love? Think Again.

As a dating coach for smart, strong, successful women, I have heard every variation of “I’m so busy” that you can possibly imagine.

I don’t doubt that my readers and clients are as busy as they say. If you’re a single mother with a full-time job, your schedule seems to be booked solid. Hell, my wife is a stay-at-home mom who gets occasional babysitting help and even she doesn’t have a spare second, often folding laundry and answering emails long after I’ve gone to bed.

Enter Laura Vanderkam, married mother of four, author, and speaker. She had a sneaking suspicion that although she was, in fact, juggling many responsibilities, her schedule wasn’t as tightly packed as she made it out to be. So Vanderkam logged on a spreadsheet in half-hour blocks every one of the 8,784 hours that make up year. And while she didn’t discover a way to add an extra hour to every day, she “did learn that the stories I told myself about where my time went weren’t always true. The hour-by-hour rhythm of my life was not quite as hectic as I’d thought.”

Vanderkam isn’t just a mom with an agenda. She actually writes about time management for professionals and the innocent lies we tell ourselves. As she says in her article, “I know that professionals tend to overestimate work hours; we remember our busiest weeks as typical. This is partly because negative experiences stand out in the mind more than positive ones, and partly because we all like to see ourselves as hard-working. One study from the June 2011 Monthly Labor Review found that people estimating 75-plus hour workweeks were off, on average, by about 25 hours.”

Do you have 7 hours that you’re using for reading or television that can be reallocated to your love life? If so, then you can find the relationship you deserve.

The author is not immune to exaggeration herself, and after logging her time meticulously, she discovered, “If I worked 37.40 and slept 51.81, this left 78.79 hours for other things. This is a lot of space. Even if I felt I was constantly packing lunches, I spent a mere 9.09 hours weekly on housework and errands. There was some driving around — 7.84 hours a week — but there was also time for singing karaoke twice, picking strawberries, peaches and apples and even two solo beach days for me: one on the Atlantic, one on the Pacific. My life wasn’t just train-car-bathroom pumping.”

She continues, “I am not the only one for whom time tracking has led to a sense of abundance. I have found that for women especially, it is the best antidote to the pernicious narrative that professional success requires harsh sacrifices at home….By showing us that we do, in fact, have the privilege of free time, time tracking also nudges us to make wiser choices about how we spend it.”

How does this apply to you and dating? Well, let’s take a step back and try to reverse engineer a successful love life, like I do for my Love U clients.

Imagine you got to go on one date per week.

Not three blind coffee dates, but one-prescreened Saturday night drinks date with a guy you’ve been flirting with during the week via email/text/phone.

How much time would it take to make this happen? By my experience and calculations, if you put in a half-hour a day to online dating, juggle short conversations with 7-10 men on Match that lead to phone calls, you can get yourself one date per week. That’s 52 dates per year. That’s a LOT of chances to find love. But it does mean allocating about 4 hours/week to online dating, 1 hour/week to phone calls, and one night a week for a date.

Do you have 7 hours that you’re using for reading or television that can be reallocated to your love life? If so, then you can find the relationship you deserve.

Your thoughts, below, are greatly appreciated.

The post Are You Too Busy to Find Love? Think Again. appeared first on Dating Coach - Evan Marc Katz | Understand Men. Find Love..

Related posts:

1. Am I Too Busy And Unavailable to Find Love?
2. I’m Too Busy To Date. How Do I Meet Quality People If I Have No Free Time?
3. Where Can I Find a Good Man If I’m a Busy Single Woman?

     

 

 

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Beyonce, Lemonade, Cheating and Infidelity

Beyonce’s latest album was a confession that she was a powerful woman staying in a relationship with a cheating man. So why do men cheat? Why do women stay with them? How rampant is cheating in marriage, anyway? Tune in to the Love Podcast and I’ll break it all down for you.

The post Beyonce, Lemonade, Cheating and Infidelity appeared first on Dating Coach - Evan Marc Katz | Understand Men. Find Love..

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What’s The Best Way to Keep the Interest of a Married Man Who Plans to Divorce?

I have reconnected with a college friend (never dated) since a reunion 5 years ago. He is smart, funny, and successful. We have spent time with mutual friends over the years, since he comes to town for work every three months. He is very attentive to me, and my friends think he is still harboring a college crush. On our last get-together, he confided to me that he is not happy in his marriage – they have slept in separate bedrooms for three years and no longer have sex. Our other friends have mentioned many times that he is very unhappy in his marriage. He has twin children who will be leaving for college in about two years, and he said that he believes he will initiate a divorce if things don’t change.

What I haven’t told you is that I have had deep feelings for this guy for over three years, but I have kept my distance because he is married. Now that I have this information, I can’t stop thinking of him.
How can I keep him interested without crossing a line? I don’t want to be the “other woman”, and I will not make out with him or have sex with him (unless he is separated and has filed for divorce). I would have to be confident that his marriage is really beyond saving, because I don’t want to interfere. I am also not altering my dating life, since I know that there is no guarantee that things will work out for us – waiting around for 2 years seems foolish, and a little crazy.

What is your best advice for what can I do now to have the best chance with him later? I really like him, and I think we could be very happy together, when the time is right.

Thanks,
Tami

Dear Tami,

Let me start by ripping off the Band-Aid: you’re making a big mistake.

One of the core tenets of my coaching is that no man is “real” until he’s your boyfriend.

What that means is that, until you’re actually a committed couple – one that talks every day, sees each other 3-4 times a week, leaves weekends open for each other, makes plans in advance, talks about a future, and still gets along famously, you really don’t have anything except:

Hope. Fantasy. Projection. Potential.

No man is “real” until he’s your boyfriend.

Your college friend is all of these personified.

Let me count the ways that he’s not real – and certainly no one you should build your life around.

1. He’s married.

2. He lives in another town, maybe another state.

3. You’ve never gone on a date with him in all the years you’ve known him.

4. He will not be available to go on a date for at least two years – and that is presuming that he does, in fact, separate from his wife, and immediately wants to start dating you – instead of taking a break from women or going on his local Tinder to see who’s out there.

5. Even if he does have these equal feelings for you, you will then be dating a separated (not divorced) man who lives somewhere else, thereby setting you up for a long-distance relationship. Not just an LDR, mind you, but one with a man who will be in no rush to get married, and would probably ask you to move to be with him (since he’s successful and likely rooted at his job.)

6. It’s not until THEN – a good 3+ years from now – that you’ll finally face the same long odds that every couple with an initial crush faces – will we actually be COMPATIBLE for 40 years? (Statistically speaking, the answer is no. Most crushes don’t result in marriage).

Keeping this barely flickering dream alive would be the WORST thing you could possibly do.

So, Tami, how does that sound? Not too good from this dating coach’s standpoint.

Which is why I apologize for not answering your original question about how to keep him interested in you for the next three years. Personally, I think keeping this barely flickering dream alive would be the WORST thing you could possibly do, and I wouldn’t want to enable such a choice. Sorry.

Try finding a local, unmarried man and you can actually be MARRIED in three years instead of first starting to date.

The post What’s The Best Way to Keep the Interest of a Married Man Who Plans to Divorce? appeared first on Dating Coach - Evan Marc Katz | Understand Men. Find Love..

Related posts:

1. The Divorce Rate in the United States is Declining
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Tucker Max, Neil Strauss and the Evolution of Frat-Lit

I’ve read The Game by Neil Strauss. I’ve read some of Tucker Max’s short stories. I found both to be equally misogynist, funny, and entertaining – written as if only to show how deeply depraved men can be in the pursuit of sex. Both are objectively intelligent and charming guys who used their gifts for evil and made a boatload bragging about it.

Not surprisingly, both have grown up and written their own respective books about how they’ve matured into respectful relationship partners. I’ve read neither of their books, but Amber A’lee Frost does a great job reviewing both of them with a good measure of objectivity.

I particularly like her conclusion about what these books represent about our society – that if even men like these are evolving, perhaps men on the whole are, too.

It’s clear that Frost doesn’t want to like either of these men or their attempts at monetizing their personal growth. Yet, she finds redeeming value in both of them.

On Strauss’s new book she writes, “In no way would I defend The Truth as either a piece of journalism or a memoir. However, as he gradually approaches his appointed life lesson, Strauss develops as a person. He’s pleasantly vulnerable, as honest as a wallowing neurotic man can be, fairly bald in describing his own shortcomings, and—at times—even a bit endearing. There is nothing worth hating about Strauss. A bit sleazy? Yes. Mommy issues, sure, but nothing too far outside the realm of day-to-day gender anxieties. His foray into the world of pick-up artistry did not leave him a misogynist, or even particularly sexist—he’s mostly just anxious about women. In the end, he manages (spoiler alert!) to reunite with his ex-girlfriend, and not only does he seem to really love her, but he also shows genuine contrition and—yes—some emotional growth. To be frank, it was a little disappointingly well adjusted.”

On Max’s latest tome, she says, “The advice in Mate—despite its completely ridiculous premise that we’re all helplessly at the mercy of evolutionary psychology—isn’t just good, it’s shockingly good. Minus the tangents explaining how we’re all little more than idiot baboons subconsciously bent on the continuation of our idiot baboon lines, I would be perfectly comfortable distributing at least 95 percent of the material to young hetero men for their edification, mostly for the benefit of the women they would be pursuing.”

I particularly like her conclusion about what these books represent about our society – that if even men like these are evolving, perhaps men on the whole are, too.

It’s a completely different ballgame than 30 years ago – whether you want to admit it or not.

“The change in tone—in ideology, really—doesn’t mean that there’s no longer a robust market for manchild books. But it does mean that former self-advertised men on the prowl such as Strauss and Max now seem able to treat women as people, not as prey. This leads me to my theory on the great shift in bro books: maybe men are just getting better.

I can’t prove it, of course. Nor can I prove that these two famous authors are really indicative of a certain class of modern men. But I do think it’s entirely possible that they’re genuinely disgusted with their own brands. Strauss’s new book is ultimately a repudiation of his own selfishness and poor treatment of his girlfriend (now wife) and a testament to mutual romantic devotion; that’s quite a departure from his previous fuck-deride-discard body of work. For his part, Tucker Max seems to hate his fans, once referring to them in a New Yorker profile as “dudes who can’t spell ‘dude.’” Like Strauss, he got very deep into therapy and very consciously tried to reinvent himself. In the beginning of Mate, he is horrified to learn that young men have been using his humor books as guides to women. Strauss and Max are men who have not only moved on, but also partially renounced their ways; could it be that masculinity itself is adjusting to a more humane perspective on women?”

I’ll say so. Sure, you can find tons of evidence of selfish douches, irresponsible fuckwads, and narcissistic playboys. But now, more than ever, you will find men who listen to women, respect women, want intelligent women, and help out with housework and childrearing. It’s a completely different ballgame than 30 years ago – whether you want to admit it or not.

To read this interesting piece in full, click here. Your thoughts, below, are appreciated.

The post Tucker Max, Neil Strauss and the Evolution of Frat-Lit appeared first on Dating Coach - Evan Marc Katz | Understand Men. Find Love..

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A Few Tricks to Help You Bring out the Best in Your Man

For nearly a decade, I’ve tried to reverse engineer what my wife does that makes her such a spectacular partner. Today, I give away the secret sauce that makes me the happiest man I know and will make your future husband more devoted to you than you ever could have imagined.

The post A Few Tricks to Help You Bring out the Best in Your Man appeared first on Dating Coach - Evan Marc Katz | Understand Men. Find Love..

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Is It Okay to Ask a Guy to Dress Appropriately for a Date?

My question for you is why are men so relaxed in the way that they present themselves (attire wise) when going on dates?

I’m in my early 30s and I usually date men between 29-41. It doesn’t matter if we go out to a nice restaurant to have some cocktails at the bar or dinner, these men are wearing button up shirts, jeans, and then these heinous shoes! We’re talking skater shoes that slip on, wear no socks with, and have the velcro triangles on the side. Better yet, I’ve gotten actual athletic shoes and these men think it’s cool.

It’s very disappointing as a woman who gets dolled up with doing her hair, makeup, a cute blouse, skirt and some heels to come to a guy who did not come with the mentality of dressing to impress. A guy can still wear a casual button up shirt, jeans, and put some dress shoes with it just to dress it up just a tad. Woman are still visual creatures, maybe not driven by that side as much as men. We do want to be attracted to the men we are going out with. I put in the time to looking very nice and it seems like if it’s not a job interview where they are required to dress appropriately with their best foot forward, they’ve become very lax and lazy when it comes to dates as far as how they dress.

If the first date goes well by having good conversation and he’s attractive, but his dressing bothers me, is this something a woman can bring up the next time she’s asked out to a similar venue? If so, how can I express myself in a way that feeling without telling him what to do?

Thanks Evan!
Kristin

Kristin,

First of all, I wouldn’t at all disagree with you that many men are woefully inattentive to their own appearance. We can delve into the societal reasons why, but, for the most part, we don’t have to dig too deep. Men, for the most part, are not told that their status or self-esteem is dependent on how they look.

What DO men care about? How much money they earn. How physically strong they are. How intelligent or funny they are. How big their dicks are. How many women will sleep with them.

Fact is: until there are mass consequences for bad behavior, behavior doesn’t change.

So if a man can work hard, make money, work out, and be generally charming to women and satisfying in bed – all without combing his hair or putting on a pair of shoes – what incentive does he have to comb his hair and put on a pair of shoes. That’s right. None.

Which means that you’re fighting a losing battle with society. It’s as futile as suddenly declaring that a woman’s appearance DOESN’T matter. You’re going to stop shaving your legs, styling your hair, staying fit and keeping up with the latest fashions. That’s fine and you’re entitled to do it, but you’re only doing it for yourself and must be willing to accept the consequences that many men may not find you as attractive anymore. (And you may not be as high on how you look either).

Fact is: until there are mass consequences for bad behavior, behavior doesn’t change. Which means that your best hope is a full boycott of sartorially challenged men until they learn their lesson. But as long as some woman is willing to sleep with the bed-head guy in a stained T-shirt and flip flops, he’s going to keep being that way. My point is that if it bothers you this much, it doesn’t have to be YOU.

Changing others is the LEAST effective way to date.

Want to complain that men have sex without commitment? Well, you can yell at men to be more conscientious, or you can stop having sex with them without commitment.

Want to complain that men don’t like to talk about relationship stuff? Well, you can you yell at men to be more communicative, or you can stop dating stoic and emotionally unavailable men.

Only you can decide if it’s worth your time to stick with a guy who cares so little about how he looks.

Only you can decide if it’s worth your time to stick with a guy who cares so little about how he looks. But you should not criticize a guy on the second date; rather, you should see if you’re attracted to him, if you have fun, if you feel comfortable around him, and if you want to see him again.

If this man steps up to become your boyfriend, THEN you can tell him how hot he looks in a button-down shirt and some tapered jeans.

Until that point, you should probably keep a lid on your unsolicited opinion of his looks. Unless you would appreciate some strange guy telling you to grow your hair out and wear less makeup.

Which I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t.

The post Is It Okay to Ask a Guy to Dress Appropriately for a Date? appeared first on Dating Coach - Evan Marc Katz | Understand Men. Find Love..

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1. Can You Dress Sexy Without Seeming Slutty?
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