The Chatty Cathy – and how it keeps intimacy at bay
I’m going to pick on people who talk too much. I feel that I have the right to do so, as I’m a recovering Chatty Cathy. I still tend towards talking too much, especially when I’m nervous and don’t know what to do with myself. However, I have worked long and hard to overcome this social killer, and while I’m far from perfect, at least people no longer resort to extreme methods of escape when they see me coming their way.
If you’re wondering what talking too much has to do with dating, then let’s examine what the Chatty Cathy Syndrome (CCS – yes, I just made that up) projects within a social situation. It screams that the listener is not important to you, and therefore you don’t want an intimate relationship with them.
CCS is extremely affective in keeping genuine intimacy at bay, and individuals that are attracted to partners with CCS are attracted because they know the CCS person is emotionally unavailable. “How can they be emotionally unavailable,” you ask? I mean, CCA individuals share all sorts of truly intimate details with whomever is willing to listen. So how can they be emotionally unavailable? Easy, they are so concentrated on vomiting out every little intimate detail about themself that they don’t leave room to get to know the listener.
Intimacy is about a two-way vulnerability. Each of you trust each other, understand each other, and care deeply about each other. Notice I used the qualifier “two-way.” So many times, I see people in a one-way, vulnerability relationship. There is no two-way with a Chatty Cathy. They are too busy hiding behind their own thoughts, feelings and insecurities to care about their listeners.
I find the biggest CCS offenders are individuals seeking approval from without. Individuals that suffer greatly with Fear of Rejection. Their belief is if they share as much about themself as possible, then surely someone will like them. Ironically, it’s the person that shares the least about themself that makes the most friends and gains the most approvals.
Also, I will argue that individuals with CCS actually want to keep intimacy as far away as auditory vomiting can take them. Being vulnerable to another human is too scary, and therefore talking too much provides a protection barrier against intimacy.
Listeners win. Chatty Cathy’s lose. One of the most freeing days of my life (as well as one of the most depressing) was the day I truly understood that no one, and I mean absolutely no one, cared a fig about what I thought, how I felt, and what I did yesterday. The American greeting, “How are you?” really doesn’t mean they care how you feel. It’s just an acknowledgement of your physical presence. You’re supposed to say, “Fine. How are you?” Nod, and move on. Even if your cat died that morning, you found out your mother had terminal cancer, and a tornado blew your house to pieces. “Fine,” is really the only acceptable response.
If you have CCS, then my dating advice to you is to: Clam up! Don’t say anything about yourself during dates 1-3. Work really hard on this. Ask lots of questions. What you are looking for is intimacy, approval, love, acceptance. You’ll get this (and a lot more dates!) if you focus on the person that’s with you, and push the focus off yourself. If you’re practicing the dating plan, and only engaging in task-based dates, then this shouldn’t be as hard as if you were sitting across from each other at a table. AND, if you’re a CCS person, please avoid the coffee/dinner/drinks dates completely. You will not do yourself any favors. Remember, the men that want more of you, want it because you talked almost exclusively about yourself which told them, you are emotionally unavailable. AND, they are attracted to your unavailability.
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Why “I only date one man at a time” is so self-defeating
I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve heard or said, “I only date one guy at a time.” This statement is so self-defeating. While I understand you want to feel integrity, loyalty, and any other positive feelings you associate with being good and proper, dating is not a commitment! Dating is a period of time two people set aside to go do something and get to know each other. That’s it. Not get married. Not move in together. Not have sex. Nada.
There are five separate stages to a relationship: Wooing, Dating, Courtship, Engagement and Marriage. Again and again, women (and sometimes men!) stifle their ability to find the best possible mate for themselves, because they are confused over the difference between Dating and Courtship. While I’m not sure where our current societal opinion came from, I am sure that in the Victorian age Courtship was declared. At that point, the female and the male began their exclusive journey together. Before that, men were expected to come around and woo.
Dating may be a relatively new invention and entirely possible that no one ever really understood the function of dating. So, ask yourself this question: How long on average should you date someone before you consider yourself part of a couple? One? Two?
Examine closely your answer to this question. If you said less than three, then you may want to look at your self-esteem. Then think how a man would answer the same question. Does the word “frightened” enter your mind at all? I say at least three months or eleven dates whichever is the LONGEST, and then only if you both decide to be committed to each other.
Most of us want to be loved. I’d even argue that all of us need to be loved. Love is the glue that binds us together. Love is the magical stuff on which our biological cells form our bodies. I understand wanting to rush headlong into the warm, fuzzy envelope of intimate love found within the walls of a relationship. However, rushing into a relationship with the wrong person wastes so much of your precious time.
Let’s look at both dating patterns in the next blog. One where we date someone exclusively for three months and one where we date a pair and a spare (or as Kirschner calls this: The Program of Three).
What exactly IS The Spark?
You walk into a room. Your eyes scan the crowd, and something, someone draws your eyes like a magnet. You assess his face, his clothes, and his body. You find your eyes wandering uncontrollably in his direction. You feel, The Spark!
When I felt this, I instantly knew I’d found a man of German descent. I used to quip with my friends that I could walk into an arena filled with tens of thousands of men, and I’d be attracted to the one and only German male in the building. Every man I dated between the ages of twenty-three and thirty had a mother born and raised in Germany. The men between thirty and forty-five came from families of German descent. I truly believed a German male was “my type.”
At age forty-five, I started my new journey on which The Journey program is based. During this time, my new counselor described something called Poisonous Pedagogy as described by Alice Miller. I was completely amazed to see my life laid out in black and white. Poisonous Pedagogy was (is?) a traditionally German method of raising children which uses fear tactics and sometimes severe physical and emotional discipline. This blog is not about parenting principles, so I’m not going there. What I am going to discuss is my kindred feelings towards the German men I dated over the years.
Each man was emotionally unavailable for some particular reason. Each had excessive emotional anger, and sometimes rage. All of them were verbally and emotionally abusive. My task was to save them from their past, and make them whole and loving again. Until that instant within the counselor’s office, I really didn’t understand how each of them represented my father or that I picked them because of how I was raised. Without empirical evidence, I cannot say definitively that I was physically attracted to them, because they were of German descent or because they were raised to meet my Parent Trap. Nor can I say they also were raised using the Poisonous Pedagogy methods. What I can say, is I believe I was attracted to them because they appeared familiar. I could feel their victimization within the set of their shoulders or the softness of their eyes. In this, I felt safety. I felt The Spark!
In reality, I was anything but safe. Emotionally and physically I opened myself to repeated victimization again and again. Through therapy, I became determined to overcome. Once my therapist gave my condition a name and a reason. Once I realized that I did not have an inherent flaw, and that I’d been brainwashed to believe I was inadequate, I began to grow in ways that opened a whole new world filled with love and support.
I changed my dating habits. I ventured out of my comfort zone. I opened my heart to new posibilities. I stared at my fears and questioned them. And I found Scott. A truly loving, thoughtful, and giving man… of Irish descent.
Online Dating Experiment: Narrowing of the field
I sent out the, “thank you but no thank you” messages today. I feel for the ones that got them. I didn’t elaborate too much on why their grammar offending me too much, but I was at least honest.
I had a high school acquaintance mention that I might be leading them on with this experiment. That’s just the thing. Most of them got one email from me saying no more than, “Howdy.” The few that answered in a manner that I could respond, got only one more email. I’ve kept it very light and noncommittal. If any of them is floating on cloud nine because they got a message from me, then my company is SO needed today. Boundaries! I think my next blog will be on boundaries and how important they are in today’s dating and relationship arena.
One or two emails do not make a relationship! Neither does one or two dates. There are five distinct phases in the man/female relationship: wooing, dating, courtship, engagement, marriage. We go from wooing to courtship with out dating. Dating is the most important part of a relationship. Or should I say the foundation of the entire relationship. You should be dating 2.5 people per week! Not one until you figure out he’s not a keeper. You’re wasting so much time, and you’re putting way too much pressure on a budding relationship!!!
If you were looking for a job, would you only put in one application and hope for the best? Serial dating is not your friend. Courtship is the phase where you pare things down to just one person, and then only after you both decide this is a committed relationship and one you both want to work on extending for a while.
Never, EVER hold a conversation on the first date!
I’m taking a side-step in my social experiment to talk about the first date. The free site I’m using has you post what you’d think was a good first date. I’d say 90% want to meet for coffee, dinner, conversation. CONVERSATION IS NOT YOUR FRIEND!
Let’s dissect a first date where you “talk” to each other. You both show up looking the best you could for that day. Some women overdress, and it just about kills me when I see this – but I digress. He wants to impress you. You want to impress him. Begin the conversation… or should I say, begin the interview.
Let’s call it what it is. You want to know if he’s suitable enough to marry, live with, go out with, impress your parents, pay off your bills or whatever your relationship goals are at the time. He has his own purpose for dating you. He may only want to get laid or alleviate loneliness. The conversation now proceeds into an interview without either of you really knowing what you are applying for. Both of you assume the position is some type of future relationship, but what TYPE of relationship? There are hundreds of definitions and descriptions for a relationship. If you applied for a receptionist position, I’m sure you’d understand what the duties were prior to the interview. Also if you were under qualified, you’d lie, fudge, enhance, twist, or fib about your qualifications to make your chances of getting the job better than they really are. If you were totally unethical, you’d outright lie your socks off to get the job. What is so different between an interview and the first date? Since neither of you are “real” on that first date, then whatever you learn during that first date is suspect.
I suggest you try another approach. Use the first date to observe the person’s actions rather than their words. Do something together, rather than facing each other over a table engaging in artificial conversation. Meet in the park and fly a kite. Try out laser-tag or putt-putt golf. Tour a local museum. Take a wine tasting or beer-making class together. Don’t make the focus of your first date conversation. During a task-based date, you’ll see if he’s focused on you or keeps checking out the babes that walk by him, if he opens your doors, is friendly to others, and how he handles stress-based and problem-solving issues. These are the things that tell you more about who he really is, than an hour long conversation about his trip to England way back in 19-whatever. You get a free event to something interesting, and you start to work off some of your stranger-anxiety under less artificial circumstances.
The point is to have fun during the “date.” Life is way too short to spend an hour of your day sitting across from someone that may or may not be telling you the truth. Go out and play. Enjoy a couple of hours with this person. If he makes it to Date Four THEN have dinner with him. That’s when you’ll have lots to say and will have a genuine interest in getting to know each other.
Online Dating: Day two of my social experiment
Day Two of being a man on one of the free online dating sites. Why there are any single men out there, I have to wonder. There are a plethera of incredible women looking for love on this particular dating site.
For the most part, I’ve found attractive, interesting, capable women so far. I obviously haven’t met any of them, but most are responding nicely through messages. This brings me to beleive the “sane” men aren’t utilizing this resource effectively, or their profiles are a mess. I’m seriously considering hold a profile makeover seminar for men.
I remember back in my single days, I signed up with Match.com to see what was available. The few men I managed to attract via photos (remember, I carry a few extra pounds in real life), said it was refreshing to find someone that didn’t fall into the “trio.” He described the trio as dancing, must love cats, and Christianity. I checked each of the women, and none so far fall into the Trio as he called it.
I’m completely confused by what I “thought” the experience would be like, and the reality of the experiment. 1) I have more women to choose from than I could ever have imagined. 2) Most of the women so far (and I picked a lot of them at random) have responded with complete sentences, and have indicated they would like more correspondence. 3) I don’t understand how any man with this much selection can manage to be alone.
If you have any ideas, please share your thoughts.
Online Dating: What the men see on their screens
I always wanted to know what a man sees when he uses an internet dating site. Recently, I created a fictious male profile, and signed up. So far, I’m completely amazed at what I found! Just searching for a women that likes the outdoors between the ages of 40 and 55, I was bombarded with profile pictures to surf though.
My profile picture was of a man in his mid-forties with gray hair, advanced degree, and I tried to make him interesting, funny, and non-threatening. Then I went in search of women to contact. The most interesting part of this entire experiment so far, is the amount of women to choose from.
My alter-ego (we’ll call him Sam to keep him anonymous), contacted several women based on their interests, and not because of their profile picture. Besides receiving no responses at all from most of the women, I received a “get-to-know-you-back” from only one, and the others all said, “good luck in your search.” I was stimied in what they meant by good luck?
I never expressed interest in them personally, but I was curious to figure out why they’d wish me luck as if dismissing me from their possible selection pool. I asked one of them this morning. I’m curious to know what her answer is. I think I’ll share my journey in this with the rest of you. Not many of us have the opportunity to see how the other half lives.
Where are all the single men over 40?
I get asked this question a lot, and I’ve spent a great deal of time mulling it over trying to find the answer. As a scientist, the first thing I want to know is how many single men there really are in that age range.
According to a 2004 Census Bureau press release, women out numbered men in the 40+ age bracket. In the 85+ category, the ratio is almost 2-to-1. So does this mean there aren’t enough men to go around? Possibly, but probably not. The figures you also need to look at are the younger age groups. The same press release points out men outnumber women in the less-than-40 age groups. No wonder our society developed the slang word cougar to describe older women seeking relationships with significantly younger men.
Apparently, if you’re willing to date younger, then you’re probably going to find more available men. If you are not, then you are going to have a more difficult time finding a companion to share your retirement years.
I noticed on the AARP site, the organization is gearing up with social media formats. They even have someone who writes about sexual issues for the AARP crowd. Very progressive I think as they should consider we have the bulk of the baby boomers over 55. She suggests online sites, volunteerism, singles’ groups, and church. These are all favorite staples of the single-I-don’t-want-to-be-single-anymore crowd.
I, however, believe theses suggestions are inefficient. We had the meat market in our 20s, why can’t we duplicate this in our older generations? Instead of surfing though pictures on online dating sites, and shaking our heads at the dismally written profiles attached to the better pictures, why don’t we, as single women, put our collective heads together and create a group opportunity? The problem isn’t really that the men are scarce. The problem is we can’t get enough of them all in the same place to “shop.”
I asked myself how to recreate or gather a large pool of single men together in one place where they can meet a large gathering of available single women. I tried singles’ event planning, and while I was pretty successful at this, the problem is our society still thinks being single means they are pathetic. There’s an entire psychological drama associated with trying to get single people who don’t know each other all in one place at one time. That’s what the Star Groups within Lynx Dating Solutions are all about: Single women getting together and creating opportunity to meet suitable me. We hold an event that invites single men over 40 to participate. I’m seriously considering a motorcycle/car poker run in October of this year which benefits breast cancer, is worked by members of the Star Groups (only single women), and the men who participate will all be single. Anyone interested in helping me?
Why do we think George Clooney’s so hot?
In reality, this could be Usher, or Perry Como, or fill-in-the-blank-celebrity. What really goes on when you see their presence on the screen? When our pulse starts to race and our thoughts go limp with desire?
First of all, when a researcher wants to know if there’s a biological factor associated with attraction, they set up a controlled experiment. Some of the more popular types is having test subjects fill out surveys stating what their visual/mental preference is in women, then a population of women are gathered together to sweat in same-style t-shirts. The subject is then asked to rate the odors of each t-shirt. The data is compiled to see if there’s any correlation to his original survey questions. There are other types of research, but this one will do for illustration purposes.
If the data shows something significant, then scientists believe they found something. If the data is all over the place, then they will continue to search for a better experiment. There really isn’t a biological reason for a women to be attracted to a particular man. At least they haven’t found one yet. So let’s take that at face value and discuss George Clooney. One, he’s very popular with some of The Journey members, and two, he’s from just up the road here in Kentucky.
Born in 1961, 5’11” tall, dark-haired, easy on the eyes, dresses well, is highly successful, and portrays an easy-going good-boy/bad-boy character. What’s not to like? Unless you are actually an aquaintance or friend of Clooney’s, you don’t know him. You haven’t smelled his t-shirt, touched his hands, kissed his lips, or pressed your lips upon his forehead. So where’s your biological connection to George? It is in your mind, built from images, thoughts, experiences, and desires from your past. You’ve gotten your social attraction via the characters he plays. One Journey member said she was attracted to him because of the way he held himself during interviews rather than by the characters he played in movies.
Test this out next time you go to a movie and see a hottie up on the screen. Is it the actor or the actual character his playing that attracts you? I remember back when I wanted nothing more than to sniff Matthew McConaughey. I’ve watched him for years. He even caught my eye in a bit part during Dazed and Confused. When I actually saw him during a TV interview, I thought to myself, “there’s no way in the world I would date this nut!” For now, I’m rather partial to Bradley Cooper. ‘Course I haven’t seen him in an interview yet.
Which celebrity are you most attracted to? and which character did he portray that attracted you the most?
What does it REALLY mean when your Chemistry goes haywire?
Immediate Chemistry with someone is not necessarily a good thing. Women tell me either after meeting a man or right after the first date, “There just wasn’t any sparks.” And I think to myself, “Then you should have dated him a little while longer before you gave up.”
In the previous post, I described The Parent Trap (Reishus), and that sense of familiarity you get when first meeting a most fabulous male. Here’s an interesting tidbit that I’ve found in my scouring of research on dating. Researchers cannot find anything biological that attracts a woman to a man. Everything is social. This is not so for men, as they’ve found several biological connections which attract them to certain females. In some cases, men are rendered completely unable to tell whether a woman is attractive or not.
For women, we need some sort of social cue to get revved up. And this makes sense if you look at this in terms of survival of the species. A woman carries the product of love or sexual union for eight months. She also has to raise the child for many years before the child is self-sufficient. Seeking a mate that can provide for her and her child makes sense, and social interaction would play heavily in her decision making.
Yes, I know we no longer have to gather sticks and twigs for nesting, and we don’t go out and kill our dinners anymore. We do hope for ourselves at least someone that doesn’t require us to take care of them and their progeny.
So with all this knowledge, why are we attracted immediately to someone? He meets your Parent Trap. And perversely enough, the more he meets your Parent Trap the stronger your initial sexual attraction is for him.
I suggest to members that they avoid dating men who summon sparks within them, and date men that they are not physically attracted to at all. In reality, the rule of thumb is, “If he doesn’t physically repulse* you, say yes.”
I told this to one of my classes, and a Journey member emailed me a few months later to tell me she’d been dating this guy for several months. She said she definitely wasn’t attracted to him, but he was very nice. She really wanted me to know that she wasn’t happy dating someone she didn’t want to have sex with, but was resigned to her fate.
I was shocked to say the least. Please, please understand me. Sexual attraction should grow over time, especially as you get to know each other. So after several dates, if the spark doesn’t appear from somewhere, pass. The two of you just aren’t in the right place at the right time to be together.
So, I’ll bet you’re wondering why you see a Mr. McBuffy and start to think of I Can’t Believe Its Not Butter commercials. I’ll be happy to explain that… next time.
*There is evidence that women are repulsed by men that are closely related, or that share close genetic materials.
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