The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible (10 page)

The converse situation, on the other hand, is common: very attractive women routinely associate and marry men who are not nearly as physically attractive.  Scientists believe that this is because during the course of human evolution, the survival of human offspring depended very much on the cooperation of the male partner.  Human infants are remarkably helpless, requiring nurturance for the better part of two decades before they can thrive on their own.  As such, the women who were very good at choosing male partners who were strong, reliable, long-term providers had offspring that did disproportionately better than the women who did not have that skill.  Those genes got passed on, and here we are.

              This is a crude sketch of why women are willing to overlook certain characteristics in men, and we have seen enough versions of the rich older man/attractive younger woman couple to know that it is borne out in reality.  What you have to remember is that this is your gift as a woman.  It is part of the design of the universe, part of the Tao, that for you, beauty is more a feeling than a sight.  If a man makes you feel good, he will look good in your eyes.  Feeling good is the essence of fulfillment, so you have the extraordinary luck to be able to find fulfillment in all kinds of unexpected places.

As a woman, you possess the extraordinary gift of making a man who makes you feel good look good.

              The more you use the Tao, the more you move with the Tao, the more it brings fulfillment to your life.  So be patient with yourself and with the men you meet.  If you actually enjoyed the company of a man, allow that to take its course.  See what happens for another meeting or two, even if thunderbolts did not descend from the heavens during the first date and he did not have a halo around his head by the end of it.  Love visits at unlikely moments.  And as Williamson said memorably in
A Return to Love
, there is one mistake in life, and that is not to let love in.  At the same time, chemistry (or more accurately, a certain chemical compatibility) is an essential part of any relationship and you will ignore it only to your peril.  As we will discuss later, listen to what your body is telling you. 

Types of men

              There are as many types of men as there are males on this planet, so it's unwise to pigeonhole a man and close his case.  At the same time, there are some useful classifications for figuring out who you're dealing with.  The purpose of the following archetypes is to increase your awareness and help you answer the following question:  "How likely is this man to be a source of long-term fulfillment for me?" 

              I like the heart and spine classification because of its simplicity.  It gets down to what really matters in a man.  Here are the four categories and some types that you may encounter in each:

No heart, no spine.
  Needless to say, this is not the kind of person you'd want to involve yourself with.  If you were meant to hang out with jellyfish, you'd live in the ocean.

Lots of heart, not a lot of spine.
  This is the nice guy.  He can communicate his feelings, he's in touch with his feminine side, and in the end, he will annoy you because he either doesn't stand up for himself or have clear direction and purpose in life.  Earlier, we called him Lance.

Lots of spine, not a lot of heart.
  Stands up for himself just fine – and mostly just for himself.  Bad boys fall in this category, as do macho men, successful and super-driven businessmen who have no time for you, and all manner of bullies and petty tyrants.  We called him Biff in Chapter 4.

Plenty of spine, plenty of heart.
  This is the domain of the Good Guy, or Victor as we dubbed him.

Why good women get involved (and stay) in bad relationships

              When I was younger, I always noticed that many of my beautiful, accomplished, sweet and brilliant female friends dated men who did not treat them nearly well enough.  Turns out that powerful reasons drive such phenomena, so my friends weren't entirely crazy.  Once you know why good women end up dating jerks, then you can use your awareness to prevent such a thing from happening in the future to yourself or a friend.

              Some of why good women end up in bad relationships has to do with their self-concepts and self-esteem.  And some of why they stay in them has to do with what I call the
slot machine model
of human behavior and
sunk costs
.  Let's talk about the slot machines first.

The slot machine model of human behavior

              Let's say you're in Las Vegas, and you've decided to play a slot machine.  You put in a coin, pull the lever, and – nothing.  Well, that's fine – you weren't expecting to win immediately anyway.  So you put in another coin and – nothing again.  In fact, nothing is the most likely outcome every time.  Funny that. 

              But before you know it, you've sunk quite a few coins in this machine.  Now you're thinking, "I'm invested; I can't just quit now!  I've fattened this thing up – it's going to pay off any second now!  Jackpot city!" 

              The fact remains that the most likely outcome of your next pull (and the next, and the next, and the next) is still nothing.  And that likelihood does not change whether you put in one coin or 10,000 coins before this pull. 

              Psychologists have noticed that one of the reasons why this happens (and why casinos are making a mint) is that the human mind grasps poorly the concept of
sunk costs
.  Those first 100 coins that you put into the machine are gone forever, and they have no bearing upon the outcome of the next pull of the lever.  People tend to mistake the sunk cost for an
investment
, which has an expectation of future payoff commensurate with the investment.  A sunk cost, on the other hand, is just plain gone.

              The way this concept plays out in a bad relationship is that the aggrieved party thinks that she has
invested
two years dating a jerk, so she can't just throw that investment away.  Besides, through her efforts, he might reform and thereby reward her with the jackpot she's been working on all along. 

              Well, there is no way to retrieve or throw away those two years – they're gone for good.  They are
sunk costs
.  And the jackpot isn't coming.  Just as in playing a slot machine, the best policy once you realize you're in a sunk cost situation is to cut and run and immediately stop your losses.  The sooner a woman leaves behind the jerk, the sooner she's opening her life to the arrival of a guy (perhaps even a Good Guy) who can be a catalyst of fulfillment.

              Why does this happen?  I can think of a few reasons.  The first has to do with a hormone called
oxytocin
.  As far as we can tell so far, oxytocin has three main functions: it promotes powerful contractions of the uterus to expel the infant during childbirth; it promotes breastfeeding; and it creates a sense of bonding.  The bigger the dose of oxytocin, the greater the sense of bonding.  The whopping dose of oxytocin that bathes the brain during childbirth is part of the reason why mothers remain deeply in love with their babies for life.

              An interesting feature of oxytocin is that it is released as a result of touch and at the moment of orgasm.  So whenever a woman gets sexually intimate with a man, especially when she experiences an orgasm with him, she is bonding with him more closely.  This bonding occurs at a deep, unconscious level and no amount of rational thought can undo it.  In fact, psychologists conducted a study showing that a small whiff of oxytocin administered nasally was enough to make people far more trusting of total strangers (Kosfeld et al., 2005). 

              So if you're one of those good women who has been spending far too much time with a bad match, consider whether it is your good sense speaking or the oxytocin.  Like any hormone or drug, withdrawal results in exponential decay of the effects.  So one way of breaking the bond between you and Mr. Wrong is to stay away from him.  A trip is often an excellent idea.

              The reason why good women end up with bad men in the first place (and stay with them) has much to do with self-esteem and the self-concept.

The self-concept and how it affects your relationships

              How you perceive yourself has a significant effect on the companions you pick and the relationships you have. 
Self-concepts
are the beliefs and judgments we have about ourselves.  Some of them are objective: "I am a 32-year old female."  Some are subjective: "I am likable."
Self-esteem
is one of those subjective aspects of the self-concept, corresponding roughly to how much we like ourselves. 

              Psychological research shows that in the context of relationships, our self-concepts try to fulfill two functions.  First is to seek feedback from others that
enhances
the self-concept.  Second is to seek feedback that is
consistent
with the self-concept (Sedikides & Strube, 1997). 

              It's easy to understand why we would seek out compliments and positive feedback that make us feel good about ourselves and allow us to see ourselves as attractive and competent.  But what about consistency?  Turns out that we all have a strong drive to avoid cognitive dissonance by seeking out a world that is consistent with our beliefs.  As stated by psychologist Carol Brehm, "our self-concepts... make life predictable and sustain coherent expectations about what each day will bring."  Without them, "social life would be a confusing, chaotic jumble."  

              Now here's where things get interesting.  If you happen to
like
yourself, then the self-enhancement drive coincides with the self-consistency drive, and all is well.  If you're around people who are saying nice things about you, then you are getting the self-enhancement ("You're great!") that is consistent with your self-concept, which is that you're a nice person ("I'm great!").  Life is hunky-dory.

              However, if you
don't
happen to like yourself very well, you run into a problem.  Psychologists find that you will still like getting praise and compliments from others – this much seems to be an automatic, unconscious response.  But once you have a chance to think about it, you will come to distrust the positive feedback (Swann et al., 1990).

              How does this affect your romantic life?  It seems that in the context of
dating
, self-enhancement is the primary drive, and everyone likes companions who are supportive, kind and accepting of who we are.  However, for long-term,
committed
relationships, self-consistency becomes more important.  This is such a prevalent phenomenon that it even has a name: the
marriage shift
(Swann et al., 1994).                 

              The way this plays out is rather interesting (and may even sound familiar).  If a person has good self-esteem, then hallelujah – she will gravitate towards people who accept and cherish her as she is and tend to stay with those people. 

              However, if she has a negative self-concept, initially, she will enjoy the compliments and positive feedback.  But over time, the self-consistency instinct will rise up and ask questions along the lines of, "Well, he can't
really
believe I'm that great.  What's wrong with
him
?"               

              Eventually, the dissonance between the positive feedback she's receiving and the low self-concept will be so great that it creates feelings of inauthenticity and distrust ("He's just saying this stuff; he can't possibly be sincere") and leads to the dissolution of the relationship.

              This is part of the reason why those wonderful female friends of mine dated and even married men who treated them poorly.  Those women were not crazy; they were simply ending up with men who fulfilled their self-concept. 

              If you can look back on your long-term relationships and count off a series of partners whose treatment of you made all your friends scratch their heads, then the problem may lie with your self-esteem. 

How to improve your self-esteem

              The good news is that self-concepts can change, and you can enhance your self-esteem even if you think it's a little low (but not rock-bottom).  The ease with which someone can change her self-concept has to do with how sure she is with her self-concept right now (Swann & Ely, 1984).  If she's convinced she's totally unworthy, that's tough to turn around.  Luckily, that's rare, and even people who have low self-esteem only
suspect
that they're total dweebs but aren't quite sure.  In that case, here are two things that can turn your self-esteem around.

Allow positive feedback.
  Even if you start out with low self-esteem, kind words from an adoring lover can turn that around in short order as you start to enjoy and even believe what he says.  So whenever you hear a compliment, stop, take it in, and allow it to sink in.  Resist the reflex downer comments like, "Well, you don't really mean that" or "Well sure I have nice hair but look what a mess it is."  Just
take
the darned compliment and say only "Thank you."  Or even better, "You're absolutely right – thank you."  Positive feedback from others also helps, so surround yourself with appreciative people who prop you up and spend less time with those who bring you down.  The compliments are coming at you all the time if you only pay attention, so -- pay attention!  And accept them with open arms.

Engage in service.
  We get a lot of our sense of self-esteem by how useful we feel we are.  So go ahead and make yourself useful!  Nobody's stopping you.  Tutor some kids, volunteer at a shelter, sign up as a Big Sister, help out at church.  Go to a website like volunteermatch.org and find a project you can pour yourself into.