The Singles Gym Blog

The Holiday Dating Trap

Have you ever noticed that there is a major jump in the need for a date around the holidays?  As a single person, you may feel pretty much fine all year, but once November comes to an end and December hits...YOU NEED A DATE!

I was reading the results of a poll for single people. The results of one question in particular really highlighted  this dating conflict that seems to happen during the holidays.  The question was: 

How important is it to you to be dating someone during the holidays?

Interestingly enough, only 20% of the 7500 people polled said that it was not really all that important, meaning that, even if you are fine being single the rest of the year, at this time of year 80% of you feel it is important to be dating someone for the holidays.

Those figures seem to correlate with what I notice about my single friends.  The closer we get to the Christmas holiday, the more the pressure they seem to feel that they should be dating someone “special”.

So which group do you fall in for the holidays?  Are you part of the  80% or part of the 20%? If you are in the 80% where do you think all the pressure comes from to “be with someone special” during the holidays? Is it what you think society expects of single people, or is it just pressure you put on yourself?

Whatever, the reason, if you are one of those that fall into the 80% holiday dating trap – beware!   You are coming from a very needy position and that means:

• Your expectations or standards are likely to drop and you are more likely to compromise the very things that are important to you in a happy relationship.

• You are at greater risk of making some horrible dating mistake that will turn into a story that your friends and family remember and remind you of for a long time to come.

• You have to figure out what you do once the holidays are over.  Do you stay in the relationship because you’re in it now, even when you realise it isn’t your ideal one, or do you go through the pain and the consequences of a break-up?

If you are in the 80% category, it might be worth taking a closer look at those people that are in the 20% category.   Look at how they are and how they approach the holiday season. I think what you may find is that those people may actually  be enjoying their holidays  more than you are.

If you fall in the 80% category, take a step back and try to relax a little bit on the dating scene for the holidays. Take solace in knowing that there are at least 20% of single people that are not stressing  about a date for the holidays and they are enjoying their holidays.

‘Love Drug’ Offers New Hope for Shy Men

A new ‘love drug’ which may offer hope to millions of shy people is being researched by scientists in US, Europe and Australia.  Oxytocin, a hormone that is naturally produced during sex and childbirth, promotes romantic feelings and helps mothers bond with their newborn babies.

According to the Daily Mail, research is showing that this hormone reduces anxiety levels, eases phobias and facilitates social contact.  This is also found to be a safe product with no side effects, and it isn’t addictive - positively good news for the 60% of Britons who suffer from shyness.

And this is great news for shy men in particular.  Living in a society where it is still commonly assumed that men take the initiative when it comes dating, this new discovery will offer new hope for millions.  I recently received an email from a young man who described how his shyness was crippling his life.  He was too shy to speak to women, much less ask one out on a date and he feared that meeting and falling in love with someone would elude him forever.  This new ‘love drug’ may offer hope for him and for millions of shy men, who until now have been suffering in silence.  For these men, dating success may not be so far off on the horizon after all!

Times are changing: Part Two - How do you respond to change?

Yesterday I was talking about the growing trend of men and women deliberately choosing the single life over a family life, how things have changed, and that it's what you do with change that counts.

In reality, what usually happens in times of change or transition is a sense of confusion and instability, and there are some quite different ways that people deal with change. One way is to attempt to hold on to the "old" - have you noticed the proliferation of the gender books:  men are from. . .women are from....?  In this scenario change is resisted.

Another and opposite approach is for the pendulum to swing from one extreme to the other - a bit like going from the Victorian age to the Flower Power and "Spread the Love" age.  In this scenario it's more to do rejecting the old than embracing change. Everything to do with the old is thrown out and what you end up with is taking the extreme opposite position.

Times are changing: Part One - Men and Women Choosing Solo Life over Family Life

A couple of weeks ago I noticed two articles about the growing number of men and women who are choosing NOT to be in a relationship.

The first one was about a bachelor Carl Weisman, who wanted to find out why a growing number of men, like himself, were shunning marriage and opting to stay single.  According to the article, he surveyed 1,533 men and concluded that these men were not afraid of marriage per se but that they were afraid of a bad marriage and that they were more afraid of marrying the wrong person than of never getting married at all. 

The second article suggested that women, in greater numbers, are now choosing the single life over the demands of the family life. According to these women, they believe they can be happy and fulfilled without having a partner. The name coined for women making this choice was "Freemale," which made me wonder: what would the term be for men who make this choice?

Derren Brown's Trick or Treat: The Negative Trap and Relationships

Derren Brown demonstrates the power of negative suggestion by taking 19-year-old Lauren on an emotional rollercoaster."

I was completely mesmerised as I watched this episode! In this programme Darren Brown shows in just 23 minutes, in a most visible and extraordinary way, the power of negative suggestion.

A student, Lauren, was recruited by Derren Brown - in his own unique way of course – to take part in a very simple task.

Derren had put a very small and adorable kitten (even non cat lovers would agree) in a glass container. Derren introduced Lauren to the kitten and then showed her how the glass container was wired up to a box with a large red button on it which he had placed on a nearby table.  If the red button was pushed a bolt of electricity would be transmitted to the glass container and the kitten would die.

Lauren’s task couldn’t have been easier and the reward for getting the task right was pretty compelling too.  Derren explained that the task for Lauren was simply not to kill the cat.  The reward she would get for not killing the cat was £500.00.  Now really, that could not have been a more simple task could it?

Commitment Phobia - A Modern Malady

As a psychologist, I get referrals to help people with all kinds of phobias.  I have, however, never, in all my years of practice, ever received a referral for anyone suffering a ‘commitment phobia’ yet this problem seems to have reached epidemic proportions and is causing untold heartache for so many people.

Sharon and John have been together for six years.  Sharon wants to get married, John doesn’t.  Every time Sharon brings up the issue John accuses Sharon of nagging.  He refuses to talk about the issue, except to rationalize his stance and to tell Sharon that she is being too ‘needy’ and demanding.

Sharon feels confused and frustrated by the mixed messages she gets from John.  On the one hand, John is always telling Sharon how much he loves her. He assures her that they will always be together and he tells her how utterly devastated he would be if they ever split up. On the other hand, John refuses to take their relationship one step further.  Likewise, John seems to prioritise his time at work and his time at social activities over his time with Sharon.  She seems to constantly come in at third on John’s priorities and if she didn’t arrange her timetable to fit in with John’s timetable, they probably wouldn’t spend much time together at all.

How (Not) To Find Love

Everyone spends a huge amount of their lives, tantalized by love, either by looking for it, trying to keep it, or trying to get over it. We have more opportunities to meet people, we have more disposable income, more leisure time than any generation before yet finding love seems so elusive to so many.

Martha Beck writing for Oprah.com (Living, November 2007) notes that today’s dating game is based on the concepts of scheming, flattering, and playing hard to get. These behaviours are all based on a model of love-seeking where the idea of romantic pursuit is a type of predation, a hunting experience – the goal of which is to capture. The predatory model of dating has even infiltrated the words we use. The kind of question you will most likely be met with when you next meet up with your friends is “Did you pull last night?” You might have also heard people talking about ‘dressing to kill.’

How Do You Find Your Ideal Partner?

"How do you predict who you will spend the rest of your life with," was the burning question Dawn Porter, a journalist from London was asking herself.  Dawn, 28, who featured in this BBC programme on Thursday night (6th March) , had not been in a serious relationship for the past four years and was concerned that her ideal relationship had not yet materialised.  She had just come from a meeting  with her relationship coach. 

At the end of their conversation, Michael, Dawn's relationship coach, suggested that Dawn had absolutely no clue as to what kind of man she really wanted and so he left her with the task of 'designing her ideal man.'

The rest of the programme found Dawn defining her ideal man and then creating a series of 'scientific' tests to assess her candidates against the checklist she had created. 

Dawn's criteria for her ideal man included five criteria:  his looks, his intelligence, how he smelled, how well he danced and having great sex.   

After undergoing a series of tests and being scored for each test, three men with the overall top three scores were announced as semi finalists and then finally the man with the overall highest score was named the 'winner' and Dawn and Jason lived happily ever after...

Well that was how the story was supposed to end but unfortunately, for Dawn, it didn't end that way.