The Top 10 Dating Essentials

By Paul R. Shaffer

The Top 10 Dating Essentials isnt a book about how to manipulate potential partners into dating you, nor is it about social etiquette on a date. Its about knowing whats important to look for in a partner, what makes a relationship work, and what you need to be working on with yourself.

After three books on couples conflict resolution, and following up 2014s Top 10 Marriage Essentials, Paul Shaffers Dating Essentials addresses what every dater should know about dating. The ten essentials details:

Knowing what healthy actually looks like
Moving past your own past
Understanding your partners type
Recognizing manipulation
Mythologies of dating
Knowing what to judge
How to handle conflict
Knowing healthy boundaries
Respecting the time needed for relationship transitions
What true intimacy looks like

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504912945

Paul R. Shaffer

Paul R. Shaffer contributed to nature guides from Golden Guides and St. Martin's Press.

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© 2015 Paul R. Shaffer. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/15/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1295-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1296-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1294-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Foreword

Chapter 1. Knowing What Healthy Looks Like

Chapter 2. Knowing the Past and Present You

Chapter 3. Knowing Your Date

Chapter 4. Knowing the Game

Chapter 5. Knowing the Mythology

Chapter 6. Knowing What to Judge

Chapter 7. Knowing How to Argue

Chapter 8. Knowing Healthy Boundaries

Chapter 9. Knowing How Long to Wait

Chapter 10. Knowing How to Keep the Connection

Afterword

Acknowledgements

There are several people who provided support and much-needed feedback to me over the writing of this book that I would like to express my thanks to: Debbie Medves, Kim Spies, Carrie Foote, Jessica Francis, Shannon Hull, and Jim Brant.

Thank you, thank you!

In addition, thanks to Jeff Seiler for his critical eye in helping to edit this book.

Dedication

This book is for the kids in my family - my own (Megan Joy) and my sister’s (Sheyli, Natalie, Billy and Harmony). At the time of this writing, they’re all of dating age, so I hope they find it of value.

Foreword

Knowing Me

Since the rest of this book is going to be about you and your dates, I think it’s only fair that I take a little bit of space upfront for me, myself and I - this being a reader/writer relationship we’re building, after all. (I wonder how many people just skipped ahead to Chapter 1.)

So let me do something a little unusual and sit on the couch for a second, and you can take the therapist’s chair - just for a minute. Of course, you don’t get to ask the questions, right? Just stay quiet and let me talk. I’ll be quick.

Okay. Well, it all started a long time ago. You see, I liked girls since kindergarten. I never did go through any awkward stage where I thought they had cooties. So, in that respect, I was ahead of the other guys. I thought girls were cool and intriguing from the get-go. (Though I was wise enough not to say this out-loud.) They acted different. They talked different. They looked different. And I liked different.

By the last week of my kindergarten year, I was engaged to a girl named Karen. (Regretfully, I don’t remember a last name.) But that being the last week of kindergarten, and Karen going to a different grade school than I the following year, I never saw my fiancée again. So I learned about romantic loss very early on. It took me fifteen years before I moved on and got engaged again at the matured age of 21.

My sister was a year older than I - putting her a year ahead of me in school. She made it very clear to me that all of her female friends were off-limits and would have no interest in somebody a whole year younger anyway. Partly due to this, the majority of my childhood and teen years I learned how to be friends with girls, rather than pursue them. While I didn’t appreciate it at the time, those friendship years actually helped me throughout the rest of my life.

So it wasn’t until I went off to college that I entered the dating world. Perhaps predictably, the first girl I, as a freshman, took out on a date was a senior - just to disprove my sister’s theory. The following four years were just as much relationship education for me as academic. And they were also some of the best years of my life.

This book, however, isn’t based on my personal relationship history. Obviously, some of my own experience is going to trickle in (which adds up to about 22 years of dating and 12 years of marriage), but most of this book comes from 1) my academic and ongoing professional education, and 2) my 30 years - and counting - of directly working with couples as a professional counselor.

So let’s talk about that part of things - the professional side.

College started in 1980, with a bachelor’s degree in psychology by 1984. Then a master’s degree in clinical psychology by 1988.

Over the next 16 years, because of the amount of couple’s work that I was doing, I decided to start writing down all of the educational relationship content that I went over with couples. Rather than verbally share it again and again, I wanted to have something tangible for them to take with them into the real world outside of my office. By that time I’d picked up a lot of different things from different places, and had my own spin on the information, a way of organizing it all that worked for me and the couples I saw.

In 2005, the culmination of this was my first book, Conflict Resolution for Couples (which since has gone through several updates, ending with the Complete Edition, or 10th Anniversary Edition, in 2015). That same year I started into my own full-time private practice, forming Right Choices Counseling.

Three more books later and here we are.

I was helping co-lead a divorced single’s support group and was sharing with them some of the material from the Top 10 Marriage Essentials that was published in 2014, at which point somebody asked, So when are you going to write a book on dating, something for us? At first, I just politely laughed. Another book? Not an easy thing. And then others chimed in, "Yeah, why not a Top 10 Dating Essentials?" Hmm.

At that point in time, most of my high school and college friends had been married for a very long time. But most of my immediate friends were actually divorced singles. Both my sister’s kids and my daughter were of dating age. It made sense that since I still worked with both single and married clients (young and old), and had all these single people running around in my own life, and that there were different dynamics between dating and being married, why not a book specifically for them?

So here’s book five, and the long way around to how it got here.

Okay, I’ll take my chair back now. Thanks for keeping it warm, and thanks for taking the time to get to know me just a little. The rest of the book is about you, the people you already know, and the people you will come to know. It consists of 10 chapters, one for each dating essential, with four case studies spread out over the entirety. Each of the case studies is coming from a different dating period of life: youth, thirty-something and still single, forty-something and divorced with kids, fifty-something and empty nest.

Hope you find what you’re looking for with what I have to share, and maybe even some things you didn’t know you needed that will be of help!

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On a technical note, in referring to personal pronouns in my books on conflict resolution I used he and his rather than he/she and his/her. In the Top 10 books, for sake of balance, I’m choosing to use she and her. Don’t take it personal.

Also, for what it’s worth, the specific examples of individuals I use in this book aren’t any one actual, living breathing person but a conglomeration of any number of people I saw with those particular issues. So, if you’re a former client, and it sounds like you, it wasn’t you. It was any number of people like you.

Chapter 1

Knowing What Healthy Looks Like

While the dating world tends to over-focus on finding prospective partners, daters often fail to look first at themselves, making the potentially false assumption that they’re already in a good place and ready for a relationship. It’s a popular term in today’s culture to refer to oneself as the complete package, meaning that you think you have all of the necessary qualities that a relationship needs. However, looking closer may reveal a couple pieces nicely intact but several others that are completely missing. Or there may be the overall qualities one would want, but many of them are significantly out of balance.

It’s one thing to feel like you’re a healthy partner. It’s another to know exactly what healthy looks like. The more physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy you are going into the dating world, the better your chances of attracting someone equally healthy. The more dysfunctional, needy or issue-laden you are, the more likely you will be attracted to another for all the wrong reasons, and they to you.

There are things about ourselves that are likely to only improve with the practice that actually comes from being in a relationship. However, we stack the odds in our favor if we’ve done most of the personal prep work ahead of time.

First things first, we’re going to spend some time in this chapter talking about the different types of healthy that you need to be developing in yourself, and looking for in your potential dating partners.

A Physically Healthy You

Physical health is how you take care of whatever you’ve already got - how you keep your body healthy through proper diet and exercise. It’s easy for some people to dismiss the value others place on maintaining their physical health because of the extremes which people take it - health food cultists, exercise fanatics. But it doesn’t change the fact that how you take care of your body does make a legitimate statement about you, and is a possible reflection of some deeper qualities.

For those who neglect their health it raises questions about:

• priorities (Why isn’t self-care more important to her? Does that mean I’d have to always be looking out for her health because she’s not going to be?)

• discipline (If she’s lacking self-discipline with this, how far does that stretch into other areas of her life? Financially undisciplined? Emotionally undisciplined?)

• control issues (If she’s not focused on managing the health of her own body, is she over-focused on controlling everything else? People with control issues tend to not take control for what they should, and try to over-control the things that they shouldn’t.)

• self-worth (Does she just not value herself?)

• longevity (How far into old age is she going to make it? I want a partner that is going to be around for my lifetime.)

• quality of life (I want a partner that can share in the same activities that I do, not someone that’s always going to have to sit things out, or hold me back.)

For those who over-focus on the physical aspect of health it raises questions about:

• priorities (Does he have a life outside of the gym?)

• narcissism (I wonder if he can walk by a mirror without looking at himself?)

• obsessive behaviors (Is exercise an addiction for this guy? Could he go for a couple of days without it and not get depressed?)

• physical aggression (Does he try to solve his relationship problems physically too?)

• shallowness (Is he only interested in appearance?)

Ideally, if we’re embracing balance and not the extremes, then we continue to take care of our bodies throughout our lives because 1) it’s healthy love of us, 2) continued quality of life in our senior years, and 3) a gesture to our partners of how we want to continue to make an effort at being attractive for them.

If during your dating days you took good care of yourself, but now that you’ve become exclusive, or gotten married, you suddenly stop, what message does that convey? If it’s not due to an extenuating circumstance, such as a physical ailment, naturally it’s going to raise questions for your partner. Did you just take care of yourself in order to win her? Or if maintaining your health was important before, has that changed because she’s no longer as important to you?

◆ ◆ ◆

In dating, sharing in being physically disciplined together can be very powerful since it’s such a visual statement of how we’re both willing to take care of us in such a healthy way. Predictably, it improves the quality of the couple’s physical relationship, but the shared activity is also meaningful for the emotional intimacy as well.

For those relationships that don’t have physical health as a priority in common, the experience can be one of lost intimacy because something that one values isn’t willing to be shared by the other.

For those couples where neither attaches a priority to physical health, while they will both feel physically accepted by the other despite neglect, they are still engaged in unhealthy love which always translates into future consequences.

◆ ◆ ◆

Let me balance what I’m saying. While attaching a priority to our own (and our partner’s) physical health is a good thing, it is still accepting that our bodies are going to age. There is a difference between what life does to us versus what we do to ourselves. Valuing our physical health is not about basing our self-worth on our physical appearance. It’s adjusting our personal goals to accept that taking responsibility for our personal health is a lifetime project. It shouldn’t be work if we’re focused on how much better we feel physically and mentally when we do take care of ourselves, and the quality that it adds to our lives and relationships.

A Mentally Healthy You

The difference between mental health versus emotional health is the difference between our thoughts versus our feelings. Since both of these processes occur in our brain, they are somewhat intertwined.

Mental health has to do with our dedication to being truthful with ourselves, and those we’re in a relationship with. It’s about being able to embrace thinking that is balanced and clear, without our historical baggage controlling our perspective. The more we can’t face our own imperfections, or recognize and develop our personal strengths, the more we aren’t really seeing ourselves in an accurate light. Similarly, the more we fail to recognize the true positives in our partners, or aren’t willing to honestly see their faults, the more we’re unable to be realistic about what they bring to the relationship, both good and bad.

With thought distortions we are often too close to a situation to have a clear perspective, yet we still think we’re seeing straight. For many, thought distortions aren’t a momentary thing, but habitual; a recurring fault in our logic. We may have hung on to that particular way of thinking since childhood. But if we continue to hang on to those distortions, they will continue to warp our understanding of what’s going on around us, interfering with how well we function with our relationships and society.

Let’s talk about some of the more common thought distortions.

Black-and-white thinking is when the thinking is limited to two extremes. My way or the highway. You either accept me or reject me. Right or wrong. Good or bad. Always and never.

Black-and-white thinking tends to overlook compromise, and grossly over-simplifies rather than respects complexities. The reality of many issues is that there’s usually a partial truth to both sides of an issue, not a clear right or wrong, and often more than one possible solution.

Insecure individuals tend to only see things in terms of accept or reject. Any form of criticism, even if it’s constructive and necessary, is still experienced by them as a rejection - leaving little room in a relationship for healthy feedback on what they’re doing that’s not working.

Mental filter is when you allow a single comment or event to drown out any other information that might be conflicting. For example, a couple can have a great week together but one negative event occurs over the weekend. Because of that negative event, for one member of the couple the whole week was remembered as being a disaster.

One of the benefits of having a healthy partner is how they add to our own balance. We need somebody to add those additional details that, in the moment, we may be forgetting. We need other people to help restore perspective when we’re lost in our own emotional pain.

Magical thinking is when we mystify the meaning behind events - interpreting coincidences as fate, or a chance meeting as meant to be. Happily ever after. My soul mate. Love at first sight.

The dating experience is riddled with magical thinking; reading an amazing amount of deeper meaning into the smallest of events, gestures or comments. Sure, we’ve only known each other for 2 months, but we’ve never felt so intensely about anyone else before! Suddenly we think that we don’t have to take it slow, caution isn’t necessary, red flags don’t matter, because the love we share is unique. She must be the one!

Mind-reading, or "defining reality", is when you automatically assume that you know what someone else is thinking, or feeling, without actually asking them - or not believing what they say if you do.

This is one of the most frustrating thinking errors in relationships because it cuts a person off from getting important feedback or necessary correction. And usually it means they’re listening more to their own internal fears or negative conclusions. For example, You’re only being nice to me because you feel guilty for how you’ve hurt me. You don’t love me anymore. You just want a mother who will baby you. I know you think I’m ugly.

People will sometimes use mind-reading statements as a way to get a reaction from the partner. You don’t love me anymore, can be a partner’s backwards way of trying to get assurances from the other that they are loved. Often, though, this simply comes across as a manipulation, which it is. If you have a question about such things, then you need to ask your partner about the truth of it, rather than accuse.

Fortune-telling is when you predict the future with only minimal information. The fortune-telling can be slanted towards being overly positive or overly negative. Such people can talk themselves out of a relationship before they’ve given it a chance, or talk themselves into an obviously unhealthy relationship.

If we’re predicting a particular negative outcome, we’re increasing the likelihood of it occurring. If I’m concluding I’m going to screw up, chances are I will because I’m approaching it with that expectation.

In the extreme positive direction, I can fail to learn from my mistakes because I never take the time to look back at them and decide how to correct them. I keep focusing on the path ahead, thinking, magically, that next time everything’s going to be fine, even though nothing has changed in myself to make that likely.

Should statements are statements we tell ourselves or others that often include the word should, and indicate an obligation or a right way of doing things.

While shoulds can help set limits and create order and direction in our lives, if not balanced, shoulds can also become oppressive and prevent us from experiencing freedom. In dating, there is a big difference between "You should not cheat on your partner versus He should know what I want without me having to tell him". Not cheating on your partner is a healthy limit for the relationship; however, no one will ever understand you so well that you will never have to educate them about your needs or desires.

Personalization is when you give yourself too much credit, negative or positive, for something that was not entirely, or maybe not even remotely, about you.

For the insecure person, if a friend hasn’t called in a while, she will automatically assume that she must have done something to offend the friend - that he must be angry at her.

Or when he does something that inadvertently impacts her, she automatically assumes that it was done intentionally to hurt her.

Blame is when you fault other people, or circumstances, for a problem, overlooking your own contribution to the situation. The distortion denies any personal responsibility.

The person who does not grow (does not mature emotionally) is the individual who does not accept responsibility for her own behavior.

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Since distortions take place in our head and aren’t normally identified in daily conversations or behavior; often it’s not until we get into an argument with our friends or dating partners that the distortions come to the surface. Sometimes we won’t even see our own until someone else exposes them.

How you correct thought distortions is to first be able to identify which ones you indulge in – being open enough that you are willing to explore your own thinking errors. For many, it involves writing down their thoughts in a journal or personal log and then exploring them for possible distortions. Or sometimes it requires help from a trusted friend or partner to point some of them out.

From there, it’s actively working at catching the errors when they occur and replacing or countering them with more realistic, healthy, balanced thoughts. It’s hard work because it takes place in your mind, a more abstract realm than the physical world in front of us. But if you want to be approaching your relationships realistically and the errors occur frequently enough that it’s problematic, the work needs to be done.¹

An Emotionally Healthy You

Whenever I talk about mental health, I naturally feel obligated to bring Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled, People of the Lie, The Different Drum) into it. Not that Peck was such a personal model of mental health, but conceptually he was one of the best at explaining it.

Mental health for Peck came down to how we rise to the challenges of life, especially when it comes to how we handle emotional pain. There are two extremes when it comes to emotional pain: 1) those who over-indulge in it - such as those who struggle with excessive worry, guilt or depression, and 2) those who avoid it at all costs, even to the point of dissociating from reality. Being mentally/emotionally healthy is the balance point between those two extremes where we are able to own our pain and work through it rather than be chronically overwhelmed by it, or routinely attempting to escape it.

Peck summarized mental and emotional health into three parts: personal discipline, healthy love and application of grace.

Personal Discipline

To walk that tight-rope between avoiding or over-indulging requires personal discipline, which Peck divided into four categories:

1) practicing delayed gratification

2) accepting responsibility for our part in things

3) committing to being truthful

4) balancing

The majority of us are lazy when it comes to being self-disciplined. We can be very motivated in our careers, but have no structure or goals when it comes to our personal lives. The outcome of this can be a very day-to-day existence that has little direction other than achieving financial security and doing whatever feels good in the moment. Ultimately, though, it leaves most feeling somewhat hollow and asking Is this all there is?

We tend to approach life expecting a pain-free, easy existence, so when we encounter struggles and challenges we feel somehow wronged or cheated. Yet, much of life is difficult and often unfair - bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad. At some point, we need to adjust our expectations to fit the reality or we will continually be derailed by how our picture of life doesn’t match up to the way it actually is.

When our dating relationships don’t work out the way we want them to, we can become bitter at dating and give up on finding love, or our willingness to be vulnerable. But we have to adjust to the reality that good relationships are hard to come by and healthy people are in the minority. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t out there. We have to be patient and find other ways to meet our personal needs in the meantime.

We want our fun up front without having to work for it, but delayed gratification promotes getting the work done first. Work means anything that is difficult. Couples avoid doing the work of a relationship because having those more difficult discussions (talking about the differences, moving through conflict resolution) is uncomfortable and so we avoid it as much as possible. But then our relationship doesn’t progress as well as it should. It stays out-of-shape because we’re not willing to go through the necessary exercise.

We try to protect ourselves by displacing the blame for our mistakes on others or events. It’s