The Author I've made it my mission to help you succeed in your soulmate search, and attain happiness and fulfillment. Read my blog, send me your comments and questions, and schedule a free initial consultation by emailing:
arnie.singer@gmail.com
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Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
During a recent session with a female soulmate searcher, she let me peruse the matches that had been suggested to her, most of which she had accepted. So I started going down the list. The first two guys live in California and the third in Arizona. She lives in NYC.
 Ok, I know you’re reading my mind now, but bear with me. The fact that they live thousands of miles away from her is not a deal breaker per se. I’ve seen long distance relationships work, under the right circumstances. So what are those “right circumstances?”
The woman told me that she had spoken to each of the guys on the phone. I asked her if they were planning to come see her in the near future, or at least planning to be in NYC for any reason. Nope. Then forget about it! The “right circumstance” is that the guy is planning to physically meet you! He’s too busy? Well, when he gets serious enough to make the effort, you can speak to him. Until then, find someone who actually wants to meet you!
Guys, if you’re not prepared to travel, DON’T start a long distance relationship. What are you thinking? Don’t waste your time, and more importantly, don’t waste a woman’s time with your long distance mind games and flirtations. And ladies, if you’re stupid enough to play into this nonsense, you have only yourselves to blame so please don’t come crying to me after a few weeks or months of tele-flirting with nothing to show for yourself other than a large phone bill and a broken heart.
Bottom line: don’t accept a match with someone who is not intending to come and meet you. Make that clear in your initial phone conversation. If you happen to be traveling to his hometown for business, then that’s fine too. Otherwise, it’s his responsibility to make the trek. Matchmakers, are you listening to what I’m saying? Before you set up a guy who lives over a two hour drive from the women you’re thinking of, make sure he is ready to travel!
Once you’ve met in person and you’re both interested, then by all means, I give you permission to carry on a long distance relationship, but only for a defined period of time, at which point you’ll either get engaged and move to the same city or move on.
Are we clear on this?
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
Let’s face it, the dating game is not fair to women when it comes to age. Men can (theoretically) date women 10 years their junior, while women often have to stretch at least as far in the opposite direction. The guys I meet who are well into their fourth decade have a huge smirks on their faces. As one 44 year old guy recently told me, these are the best of times for his dating pursuits. Life is beautiful for the Quadragenarian male!
 Well guys, wipe that smirk off your face and listen closely to what I’m going to say. It’s true that you have the upper hand in the dating wars and you’re not facing the same biological clock issues that the ladies are. But let me ask you one question: Do you want to be married and raise a family? Yes, you’re nodding your head up and down, and telling me that she needs to be the right one, someone “special”. So I ask you again, do you really really want to marry and raise a family? Is it a priority for you…THE priority?
If your answer is still yes, then here’s some advice: stop being selfish and thinking only about yourself, and think about the children that you are not having, and may never have, if you continue on the path you’re on right now. You see, in your exhaustive search for the “perfect” mate you’ve lost sight of the real prize: a family, children. Now you’re in your 40′s and counting, and still picking through women as if they were books on a Barnes and Noble shelf you were browsing through to find a satisfying summer read. While you’re browsing, flipping pages, feeling covers, and reading snippets, your vital years are slipping away. True, you don’t have a childbearing clock but you do have an active-life clock which is ticking away faster than you realize. Do you want to be able to play ball with your kids? Do you want to see your second or third kid become a bar mitzvah? Do you want to see any of your kids get married? What about grandchildren?
Guys, the longer you wait to start your family the less likely it is that you will be able to enjoy them as fully as you will want to. That’s YOUR biological truth. Even if you get married tomorrow, whose to say that you’ll be blessed with children right away. You might have to wait a few years (God forbid). By the time you have your second child you might be well into your 50′s. Then…you do the math.
The time you’re wasting now chasing younger women beyond your reach is precious time you could be using to build a family with a great women closer to your age…NOW. But all you can think of is your dream of having 8 kids, which means you need a woman who is 12 years younger than you…meanwhile you have NOTHING, yet you continue to engage in your self centered pursuits, having the time of your life as you rack up your matches and dates, show up at singles events, and fantasize about that gorgeous, brilliant, saintly, 28 year old PHD/artist/aerobics instructor who you will definitely marry as soon as you randomly meet her on a subway platform.
While you’re playing dating game, the rest of us get to look at the incredible smiles on the holy faces of our children and bask in the warmth of their unconditional love. That’s the real goal you should be aiming for…not the stuff your thinking of when you engage in your dating craft. Regarding the number of kids, that’s a decision that rests solely with God. Trust me, once you finally understand “reality” and do what you need to do to marry and start a family, you will view your single years as a distant dream and begin living the life you should have lived years before.
Don’t waste another minute. Make your destiny happen. It really is in your hands.
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
I’ve never given you homework before, but this is an exercise which I highly recommend you complete if you’re even a bit serious about finding your soulmate. In fact, I’m making it a requirement.
Everyone has a list in their mind of the characteristics and qualities they are looking for in a mate. Get a piece of paper and write down your list. Yes, physically write it down, don’t just imagine it in your mind. There’s much too much going on up there as is. Be honest. If anyone just has 2 items on their list, 1) Jewish and 2) good heart, you’re either not taking this seriously or you’re not being honest with yourself. You need to write down every single item in that mental list that you’ve been carrying around with you for the last few years on every date you’ve been on.
Make the list as detailed as it needs to be, or as it actually is. That means writing “attractive” is not enough, because you undoubtedly have many factors that go into defining what attractive means to you. For some it’s the color of eyes or hair, height, size and shape of specific body parts, etc. I know you understand what I’m saying so don’t make believe you don’t. Just write down that detailed list of what you are honestly looking for and evaluating each time you meet a potential mate.
Ok, you now have a list on a piece of paper. Most of you have at least 10 items on the list. Some of you have many more. Now take a moment to think about how much you really want to be married.
Is marriage something that you’d ideally like to accomplish under the right circumstances, but you’re quite happy remaining single if that entire list is not filled to perfection?
Have you decided that you’d like to continue your search for a mate for a few more years to make sure you leave no stone unturned (or no gal undated) until you find the “perfect one”?
If you answered yes to the last two questions, then you should probably stop reading, take your list, and put it behind a thick glass frame because you’ll be needing it for a very long time.
However, if you are truly ready and willing to meet someone with whom you will build a happy and fulfilling life and family, then you need to pay close attention and follow my next instructions. Carefully go through your list again and cross out each item that is irrelevant to building a happy home and family. You might need help to accomplish this, but I think you can figure out some of them on your own. This is definitely one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do because it entails not just crossing out some words but changing the way you’ve been thinking for years and giving up on unrealistic dreams and fantasies. It might even be quite painful, but the alternative of being single for another 5 or 10 year will hurt much more.
If you’ve followed my instructions your list should now be at least half as long as it was when you began.
Now, if you have decided that you don’t want to be single for another day and you are ready to settle down with your spouse NOW, here’s what you need to do. Go through your new, short, list and decide which of those items you will compromise on. That means if you are left with 5 list items, 2 of those need to be things you’d ideally love to have but you’re willing to let them go if the other, more important, ones are there. Best 3 out of 5. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Honestly, if you’re really serious about this, you should have 3 items on your list and be willing to accept 2 out of 3. If that’s the case, you will be under the chupah very soon. Mazal Tov!
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
It’s interesting that many of the qualities you look for in a dating partner are almost all irrelevant in a spouse. At the top of the list for many guys (maybe most) are looks. Nothing wrong with that because, as we all know, physical attraction is an important part of a relationship. But some guys determine their partners solely based on looks, and those looks are often based on images of models and actresses. Now look, if you’re lucky enough to find a woman that has your fantasy look along with an incredible personality, intelligence, and the moral and ethical qualities that are included in the Hebrew term “Chesed” — Mazal Tov!  The reality is that in many cases guys will go for the looks and barely focus on the rest of the list. If you’re just looking to date and have some fun, fine. Knock yourself out. If you’re looking for a spouse to spend the rest of your life with…ARE YOU CRAZY!!!
You will be living with your spouse for years. You will face trying situations together. You will suffer, mourn, and rejoice together. Most importantly, you will raise children together (more accurately, your wife will raise your children most of the time). How important do you think looks are now??
Ladies, you’re not off the hook on this one. Many of you focus on the profession or balance sheet of a potential partner. How much is he making now, and how much will he be making in 5 and 10 years? I understand, you want to make sure you can send the kids to private school and take those annual Caribbean vacations like all of your friends in the Five Towns. Well, let me throw a bucket of ice cold water on your head. Profession, balance sheet, or earning potential is not what’s going to make you happy and secure in a marriage. Yes, making a living is important. Being wealthy isn’t.
Happiness has nothing to do with the amount of money or possessions you have. That’s why so many rich people are miserable and so many poor folks are satisfied. Super looks is irrelevant after a couple of years of marriage. If you’re not sure what I’m taking about, speak to some married friends or relatives (yes, even your parents) and ask them to explain what I’m saying.
If you are serious about getting married, you better start focusing on what’s really important in a spouse. Otherwise, we’ll be having this same conversation again in another 5 or 10 years (or more).
If you need help focusing on the right stuff, set up a meeting with me.
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
I always feel bad for those people who list their Facebook relationship status as “complicated”. I assume they’re experiencing lots of frustration and pain. I’ve been there myself. I’m sure many of you have too. So why stay in a relationship that you can only describe as “complicated”? No one is forcing you to. The choice is yours.
Sure, I make it sound so simple when, in fact, it’s really complicated. No, I know it’s not simple and I fully agree that it probably is extremely complicated. What I’m trying to say is that the only thing you’ll probably end up with from this complicated relationship is heartache, frustration, and lots of therapy bills. Complicated relationships waste a lot of precious time and usually don’t end well. I’ve seen people lose months, sometimes even years, to those complicated relationships which they never really do get totally over. Many of the people I meet with are still suffering the effects of complicated relationships that ended years ago.
I’ll admit, once you’re involved in a complicated relationship, it’s very hard to extricate yourself. It’s like trying to break an addiction. So the trick is to avoid getting involved in them in the first place. How do you know if you’re on the path to complication? There’s no foolproof way to know, but if you want to be really sure, take my advice: Follow the path of least resistance.
Let me explain by personal example. Before I decided to move to Israel for a few months as part of my plan to find my soulmate, I contacted two women there who I was interested in dating. I had known one of them as a casual acquaintance for many years and I had always been interested in dating her, but I guess the timing was just never right. When I told her I had decided to move she finally agreed to date me when I arrived. I was excited about dating her and felt that, since we already knew each other a bit and it was still about a month and a half until I would move, it made sense for us to email and speak on the phone in the meantime. That would give us over a month to develop our relationship, which we could then continue in person. She felt that we should not communicate until we actually went out in person. The other woman I contacted, whom I had never met, was happy to communicate and start the process immediately.
So what did I do? I took the path of least resistance and got to know the second woman. A day after arriving in Israel we went out on a date. We got married eleven months later. I never did end up going out with the first woman. Of course everything worked out the way it was supposed to, but it’s still worth analyzing and learning from the experience. The fact that the first woman wasn’t interested in actively pursuing a relationship (long distance) despite the fact that we already knew each other didn’t make sense to me. It gave me the impression that she wasn’t 100% interested, and that I might be getting myself into a “complicated” situation, so I passed and chose to build something with someone who seemed interested without reservations.
I wonder how many of you out there are busy chasing or pining after someone who is just not that into you, while passing up great guys and gals that are clearly interested in you? Do you want to find your soulmate, or do you want to be in a complicated relationship?
Here’s my advice. Take a good hard look at those potentials who you know are interested in you but whom you continue to write-off as “just friends”, and think about how nice, easy, and non-complicated it would be to be with someone who really wants to be with you. You might be surprised at what you see. No, I’m not telling you to give up and settle for the first guy or gal that shows interest. What I’m saying is that instead of struggling with someone who wears a big sign with giant red letters that says “complicated” (as challenging as it might feel), give yourself a break and find someone who thinks you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to them.
Try it. It can’t hurt. You might even end up happy.
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
In my last post I promised to discuss profile photos, and I will keep that promise, but it’ll have to wait another week. There’s a step in the soulmate searching process that comes before profiles and is vitally more important. If you’re trying to meet your soulmate through the good offices of an intermediary, such as a matchmaker (jretro.com!), relative, friend, or local grocery store owner, barber, flight attendant (you get the idea), you must make sure they know exactly what you’re searching for in a soulmate. If you don’t make that clear to them, they will simply use their best judgment in choosing your potential partner, which usually doesn’t work to your advantage.
 In order to give them the proper direction, you need to know what you’re looking for. It sounds obvious. Of course you know what your looking for, but do you really? Everyone says they’re looking for someone attractive, nice, and goodhearted, but is that really all it takes? If that were true, I wouldn’t need to continue writing this blog because there would be no singles left to read it. If all that you’re looking for is attractive, nice, and goodhearted you should have no problem finding a partner…no excuses. I guess it’s not so clear cut after all, is it? What exactly do you consider attractive? For most (almost all) men and many women, the answer to this question is vital, and any deviance from that answer is literally a deal breaker. Ladies, is nice and goodhearted enough, or is having a career and making a decent living important too? I can go on for another few pages, but I think you get my drift. The generic, nonspecific, description most singles give their soulmate searching agents is inaccurate, and in many cases misleading or plain out false.
In order to get introduced to, or attract, your true soulmate, you need to be clear about what exactly you need, or want, and you need to be as specific as possible. While you’re formulating your list, you should spend some quality time reevaluating every item on that list to make sure that it is realistic and truly a requirement. For example, if you’re the guy who usually gets casted as the hunchback of Notre Dame (no costume or makeup necessary), you might not want to hold out for a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. Same goes for you, ladies. Enough said.
After you’ve evaluated and reevaluated your list, and feel comfortable with your decisions, you need to convey the details of that list to anyone you are hoping will act as your agent. Be specific. That means if there are specific physical or personality qualities that are deal breakers for you, you must be clear about what they are. Be honest, and don’t be embarrassed. It’ll save you, and a lot of other people, a lot of time, frustration, and disappointment. Your agents can only help you find your soulmate if you provide them with the right information and feedback.
Now that you’ve got your story straight, you need to stick to it. Goodhearted, well meaning, cupids will try to convince you to date wonderful people that simply do not fit your list of criteria. If you’re sure there are dealbreakers in the cards, be really nice, sensitive, and thankful, but say no. Cupids, please respect the direction of your soulmate searchers. Give them advice, but don’t force them into doing something they know won’t work.
Best of luck on your soulmate search.
Next week…profile photos!
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
I’d like to begin this post by welcoming all my new Jretro.com readers and letting you know how excited I am to be part of the vibrant Jretro community. I hope that my advice and insights will help you succeed at your own, personal, soulmate search. I’ve been writing Soulmate Searching for a while now, so when you have some free time, read through my earlier posts. I think you’ll find them informative and enjoyable. At least that’s what my loyal soulmate searching readers have told me.
You’re probably wondering who the heck is this guy and why should I bother listening to anything he says? Valid point…so let me introduce myself. I spent about a decade and a half living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, single. I dated a lot of women (I’m not one of those guys that keeps a score card, so I honestly don’t know the exact number, but if you figure an average of eight women a year, that brings the total to well over a hundred), and got at least twice as many rejections. I had several serious relationships, non of which ended well, and one broken engagement. I feverishly pursued more than a few women over whom I spent entire chunks of my life obsessing, and proceeded to lose interest in those that made the mistake of letting themselves get caught. I spent the majority of my personal time (and a decent part of my work day) analyzing, in excruciating detail, every aspect of every woman I came into contact with, and every social encounter, real and imagined, that I had, or would in the future, engage in. I’m sure all this is sounding quite familiar to most of you. It certainly did to all of my friends, male and female, who went through all the same stuff I did, and from whom I learned a lot by observing their actions and listening to their stories.
A few years ago, probably around five, I started making changes in my approach to dating and relationships. I began to figure out who I really was and what I really needed to be happy. I set a goal, devised a strategy, and implemented it. It wasn’t easy, and there were setbacks and frustrations, but in the end I succeeded in finding my soulmate…and marrying her (I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I was single, for obvious reasons).
Now it’s my turn to help other men and women find their soulmates. I know how hard it is, because I’ve been through it all myself, and I feel your frustration and pain. My advice and insights derive from years of experience, observation, and analysis, along with some authentic Jewish wisdom and spirituality when needed (yes, I’m also a rabbi). I try to be totally (sometimes brutally) honest and direct, without being insulting or derogatory.
So, if you want to learn how to pick up, seduce, manipulate, or control members of the opposite sex, there are loads of dating experts who will proudly teach you how to be victorious in the sex and dating game; I’m not one of them. But if you’re done playing the game and are ready to commit yourself to a serious soulmate search, please continue reading my blog, and be in touch. I think I can help you succeed in finding, and committing to, your soulmate.
Now that I’ve got your attention, make some time to read some of my previous posts, and send me your questions. No, I won’t identify you in the blog unless you specifically ask me to.
Let’s get down to business. Since I’m assuming that most of you are first time readers of my blog, I’m going to take the liberty of repeating some of what I wrote about in my last post relating to cyber-dating, so if you’ve read that one already you can skim through the rest of this post and stay tuned for new stuff next week.
If you’re reading this, you’ve bought into the whole online dating thing. You’ve made a wise decision. The greatest thing to happen to soulmate searching since the invention of deodorant is cyberspace. You now can meet potential soulmates in any part of the world, regardless of the remoteness of your home base. You can also see their photos and get to know them a bit via email or chat, if you are so inclined (and are able to express yourself in the written form. If you’re not good at writing, just stick to the phone. Your writing disability can and will work against). How awesome is that! You are no longer confined to dating the guys on your block, or the gals in your area code. Cyber-dating is not limited to the dating sites you all relish, like Jretro.com. Facebook, Myspace, and other social networking sites I’m not up to speed on, are all tools specifically developed to connect with people. If you’re not taking advantage of them, you’re passing up a huge opportunity.
Now that you’re playing the cyber-dating card, you need to make absolutely certain that your cyber-impression represents you exactly the way you want it to. Your online profile and photos are the only thing that potential soulmates will have to go on when deciding whether to expend valuable time and resources in pursuit of you. They will make assumptions, presumptions, projections, and conjectures based on an amateur photo and a few hastily typed lines of text. You will do the same. It sounds pretty shallow and arbitrary, because it is, but it’s reality, so you might as well use it to your advantage and post the most amazing profile and photos imaginable, and reap the rewards.
In my next post I’ll discuss profile photos. After that I’ll discuss the written part of your cyber-profile. In the meantime, send me your profiles and I’ll try to give you some constructive feedback. You can also send questions, comments, compliments, and critique to arnie.singer@gmail.com.
Until next time, I wish you all great success on your soulmate search.
Get more dating advice by Coach Arnie at JCoach.com
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