It’s the 21st century and equality of the sexes reigns supreme in the US in just about everything. Well, almost everything. The “first move”, otherwise known as hitting on, remains trapped in the protocols of old, where men were men and women were … whatever. Has the time come to give single ladies permission to “make the first move” and “hit on” the man of their dreams?

There are two schools of thought regarding women making the first move. The anti-movers claim that if a woman chases a guy or makes herself too easily available, he will get turned off. The pro-movers say that women should make their move whenever they please. I think both of these positions have merit.

The anti-movers are right in that a women should never chase a man. When a guy is interested, he doesn’t want to be chased. By taking away his hunting license, you’re in a sense emasculating him. I don’t think that’s going to work too well for you. But making a move is not chasing. At least it shouldn’t be. If you make your move correctly, you’ll never be accused of chasing or even coming on strong.

Most woman equate making a move with aggressive behavior. They think they have to come over and say something outrageously witty or cutesy or maybe even blatantly sexual to grab a guy’s attention. But instead of dazzling the guy, they come across as aggressive, even desperate.

If a guy is interested it doesn’t really matter what your opening line is and if he’s not, it also doesn’t matter. Remember that line from Jerry Maguire, “you had me at hello?” Well, hello is just about all you need to say to make your move on a guy. You can also say your name. That’s about it. You don’t need to say anything else. If you make your move with hello and your name, you’re basically saying, “here I am, if you’re interested, YOU make the move.” You’ve brought the horse to water. Now it’s his choice to drink or not. You’re in no way being aggressive, and certainly not chasing or desperate. You’re not really even making a move. You’re just giving him the opportunity to do so. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.

If you do give him the opportunity and he doesn’t act on it, move on. Don’t try to make him interested by doing a stand up routine or song and dance number for him. You tried, and should be proud of that. Now it’s time to confidently walk on by and on to the next one. But this is where many women unfortunately mess up. They continue to push themselves aggressively on a guy who has made his intentions clear. Luckily, you don’t have to make the same mistake.

Let the guy make the first move. If he doesn’t, give him the opportunity to by going over and saying hi. If he’s interested, he’ll take it from there. Good luck!

What’s your view…should a woman make the first move or not? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Read More at http://www.jcoach.com

There’s a new book, soon to be released, called It’s Okay to Sleep With Him on the First Date: And Every Other Rule of Dating, Debunked by Andrea Syrtash and Jeff Wilser. This Publisher’s Weekly review sums up the authors’ basic philosophy:

“For the most part, they suggest throwing out any rule that feels outdated or inflexible. After all, advice that rigidly employs the words “always” and “never” is often simply bad advice. So should you sleep with him (the book is geared primarily toward women) on the first date or not? Well, do you want to? Does he? If so, then go for it.”

You already know what religion says about this philosophy (at least the monotheistic ones), so allow me to remove my rabbi hat (skullcap) and just speak to you like a plain on guy who used to be single and is now married.
BULL Sh.T (I won’t swear unless I stub my toe, so fill in the blanks)!!

I understand that the concept of just doing whatever feels good at the moment is gonna sell a lot more books than the advice I offer in From I to I Do, but if your ultimate goal is to marry the guy, please fight that primal urge to do what feels good and use your brain and intuition to do what’s going to work best for you in the long term.

I’m not saying every dating rule out there is right. Different rules work for different people. You need to choose the ones that work for you. Are there cases where a woman slept with a man on their first date and then ended up marrying him? I guess there are, but honestly, I don’t know of any…do you?

Don’t get me wrong, you have every right to do whatever you want (as long as it’s legal and ethical) and if you want to sleep with that guy you just met and are crazy about, go for it. But just understand that by doing so you are drastically decreasing your odds of ever marrying him. No it’s not definite; nothing in life is. That’s why we try to play the odds and go with the options that have the best probability of success.

Rules are all about probability. If you exercise and eat healthy you probably have a better chance of living longer and better. It’s not guaranteed. You might still drop dead in your thirties, but the smart bet is to stack the odds in your favor. Do I need to give you more examples? I think you get it.

Are all dating rules right for all people: No. But not sleeping with a guy on the first date is. If you have any idea of how men think you know I’m right. I’ve already written about this before, so take a moment and read this post.

If a man is attracted to you his primary objective is to be physically intimate with you as soon as possible (unless he’s made the decision to get married and knows that he needs to wait). He couldn’t care less about emotional or intellectual connections at this point. That comes much later in the dating process for a man. It’s your job to make sure he discovers those emotional and intellectual connections before you get physical. That way, if he decides he isn’t really interested enough to commit to a relationship with you, you won’t be as hurt as if you had been intimate with him.

I don’t think what I’m saying is any great new discovery. You probably know this from personal experience. So why ignore the truth?

I wish the authors of this new book the greatest success, but please don’t sleep with him on the first date. Your welcome.

Read More at http://www.jcoach.com

The upcoming holiday of Shavuot is called “Atzeret” in the Torah, which implies an ending. What is Shavuot the ending of? The holiday of Passover. We count seven weeks (hence the name “shavuot – weeks”) or 49 days after the first day of Passover and on the fiftieth day we celebrate the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai and the offering of the first fruits (Bikurim) in Jerusalem. The highlight of the Shavuot offerings in the Temple are two loaves of bread, representing the newly harvested wheat crop.

While Shavuot is connected to Passover, the respective holiday offerings are diametrically opposed. On Passover we destroy all of our “Chametz” (bread, leavened products) but on Shavuot we use bread as the focal point of worship and celebration. What a change!

Why we make that change is beyond the scope of this post, although it is related to the growth process we undergo in the seven weeks of counting between the two holidays. The point I’d like to focus on here is not the meaning behind the change but the rather the change itself.

The very thing that we held in contempt and were forbidden from even possessing is suddenly turned into the object of our celebration. The lesson of Shavuot is that just because we once made a decision to hate doesn’t mean we can’t change our view and decide to love.

Many of you will be celebrating Shavuot with other singles, either at large organized events or smaller informal ones. You’re going to see lots of people that you already “wrote off” as potential dating and relationship partners. You’re going to continue in that line of thinking and exclusively focus on meeting new people.

I can totally relate to that strategy, having followed it so many times myself. But I think it might be wrong. Yes, you should try to meet new people…there’s nothing wrong with that. But the lesson of Shavuot is that just because you wrote someone off in the past doesn’t mean that you can’t change your mind now.

No, this doesn’t mean that you weren’t right the first time around. There are instances where the dealbreakers are clear and impossible to overcome. There are also plenty of instances when you passed on someone for no good reason other than you just weren’t feeling it or the timing was just not right. These are the cases that I believe deserve reevaluation.

I don’t want you to view this “reevaluation” as a step towards “settling”. I don’t believe in being with (and marrying) someone you aren’t truly in love with. The loaves of bread offered on Shavuot weren’t viewed as a “cop-out” after so stringently avoiding them on Passover. They were brought amidst tremendous joy and celebration. That man or woman you wrote off for no good reason might be the source of your own joy. You’ll never know unless you try.

Years ago, while I was visiting Israel, the head of the Yeshiva I had studied at suggested that I go out with a certain girl. I told him that I had already dated her a few years ago and hadn’t been interested. He responded, “Just because you made a mistake once doesn’t mean you have to make the same mistake again.” (those were more or less his exact words) His words struck a chord, and I went out with her again.

No, I can’t say there was a happing ending to that story. I still wasn’t interested. But the lesson I learned was still valid: it sometimes is very worthwhile to give things a second chance.

This Shavuot is an opportunity to not only meet new people but to also reevaluate the ones you haven’t paid attention to for much too long. Maybe they’ve changed? Maybe you have? Maybe (hopefully) you’ve grown and matured over the years and are now at a much different place relating to dating and relationships than you were back then?

Consider reevaluating and giving things a chance. If you were right the first time around, then you’ll wipe away any shred of doubt and be able to move on without ever looking back again. But if you were wrong, you might just give yourself a chance at true love.

Happy Shavuot!

Read More at http://www.jcoach.com

A woman from outside of the NY/NJ area contacted me recently to update me on a situation we discussed months before. At that time, she had been visiting the area and was set up with a guy who lived on the Upper West. He told the matchmaker that he would under no circumstances travel the ten minutes outside of Manhattan to meet her. If she wanted to date him she would have to come in to see him.

Now, months later, the matchmaker contacted him again to see if he would meet this woman who was visiting in a different borough. I guess she thought that maybe the idea of travelling to another state was the problem, or maybe that the availability of subway service would close the deal (hey, she’s giving the guy the benefit of the doubt!). But alas, the response was unchanged: if she wants to date me, she can meet me in the city.

Thankfully, our heroine was thinking clearly enough to pass up this chance of a lifetime and to hold on to her self esteem. Now you might ask, what would have been the big deal if she went to meet this prince in the city? With the dating scene so tough, especially for women in their thirties and above, and the pickings so slim, maybe she should’ve swallowed her pride and gone?

If that’s what you think then, with all due respect, you haven’t got the faintest idea of what goes on in the mind of a single man. Let me explain something that I feel I keep repeating but for some reason, it just doesn’t seem to stick. So here goes: when a man is interested in meeting a woman, he will do whatever it takes to do so as quickly as possible.

The first time our matchmaker told our villain about our heroine he opened his laptop (while he was still on the phone) and typed her name into Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn. In the next 3 to 5 minutes (depending on the speed of his internet connection), while he stalled by indulging the matchmaker with seemingly sincere questions, he made his final decision.

Why he came to his decision, we can never be sure. For whatever reason he just wasn’t into her. The reasons and excuses he probably gave, particularly the location issue, are irrelevant. False. There’s only one reason that counts: he just wasn’t interested in dating her. That’s what he should have told the matchmaker, straight out. But he probably thought that if he did that she would think he was too picky, unrealistic, and just not ready to get married, and she would never send him another match. So he threw out the location excuse and dared our heroine to call his bluff. Worse case scenario: he wastes 45 minutes and a cup of coffee before running back home to search for girls on his favorite dating site.

When a man is interested in meeting a woman, he will do whatever it takes to do so as quickly as possible.

Ladies, including our dear heroine, stop driving yourselves crazy and getting frustrated over guys that are not interested in you. It’s ok for someone to not want to date you. It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you. It also doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with them (the guys). This guy was a jerk not because he wasn’t interested in going out with you. He was a jerk because he wasn’t man enough to admit it, instead of sticking to some lame excuse about location.

Believe me, if this guy was set up with a woman who in his mind was “smokin’ hot” he would be booking tickets on a transatlantic flight asap if necessary. Does he have unrealistic expectations regarding a mate? Probably. But that’s none of your concern. It should be the matchmaker’s concern, and she should probably not keep calling this guy anymore and feeding his fantasy image of himself as being such a good catch. But it’s not your concern.

Move on my darling and date the men who ARE interested in you and WILL make an effort to see you. All you need to remember to have a less frustrated and much happier dating experience is this: when a man is interested in meeting a woman, he will do whatever it takes to do so as quickly as possible.

Read More at http://www.jcoach.com

I’m sure you remember that infamous Sex and the City episode in which Carrie’s boyfriend Berger (Jewish, of course) breaks up with her on a Post It note. Besides feeling hurt and disappointed by the actual breakup, Carrie, and just about everyone else in the world, is shocked and devastated by the medium of communication used to convey the message. I think a sensitively written letter, or even a postcard, would have been passable, but three words on a Post It? Come on Man, is your heart made of stone? Don’t you think the woman you’ve been romantically involved with (in the “biblical sense”) deserves the courtesy of a sincere thank you and goodbye?

In today’s world the text message has pretty much taken the place of the Post It, at least when it comes to breakups. Just the other day a woman told me that the guy she had been dating for over two months broke up with her via a one line text message. No it didn’t come following a heated argument and no he wasn’t a sixteen year old (he’s actually a well educated and respected professional) and yes, her reaction was just about the same as Carrie’s.

I understand the need for some men to end a relationship in one swift blow to avoid the drama and pain of a long drawn out affair. I also understand that a person can reach the point where they just do not want to spend even one more moment in a relationship they no longer feel is working for them. But there’s just no excuse for cruelty, and breaking up with someone via a text message is nothing other than cruel.

The “right way” to break up with someone is face to face. It’s also the hardest for the breaker. While no break up conversation is easy, the in person one definitely shows sensitivity and respect to the person being “let go”. It also brands the breaker as a mensch (even if he or she is a jerk for dumping you!).

If the face to face is just not going to happen, for whatever reason, then a phone conversation is required. it doesn’t take the place of a face to face, but it at least gives both parties a chance to express their feeling to achieve a degree of closure.

If you consider yourself skilled with the pen and feel that you can do a better job of expressing your feelings in writing, then compose your masterpiece (not a five line email) but be prepared to receive a phone call and have a serious follow up conversation. Don’t just hit send and disappear.

If you’d like some more insight into how to break up, read this post – 5 Tips to Breaking Up the Right Way.

But under no circumstances should you EVER break up via text message. Is that clear?

Read More at http://www.jcoach.com

I often get contacted my men and women in relationships seeking guidance to help them decide whether to get engaged or not. They’re usually feeling that something is holding them back, but they’re not sure what that thing is and whether or not they should heed their feelings and bail or ignore them and “take the plunge“. I usually tell them that every person and situation is different, and the only way I can advise them is to speak to them in depth about themselves and the relationship. Since they’re often not willing to invest the time and resources in doing that, they’ll press me for a quick answer.

So for those of you trying to figure out if you should get engaged even if you’re feeling unsure about it, I’ve put together a short list of what I feel are the requirements for a successful marriage partner (I go into this in much greater detail in my book From I To I Do):

1. Common Life Goals
This includes whatever you consider to be important life goals that you cannot live without. Make sure you can differentiate between life goals and stuff that you wish you had but can live without.

2. Mutual Respect
You need to respect each other for who you each are right now, assuming that neither of you will change significantly. You can’t marry someone based on the hope that they will change. You need to appreciate them for who they are, now and forever.

3. Care for Each Other Deeply
Marriage is all about giving. If you don’t care enough put your partner’s needs before your own, then find someone who you do care about to marry. There’s a term used to describe “care for each other deeply” – LOVE.

4. Get Along
Yes, you need to like each other’s company and be able to along day to day. You’ll be living with this person for a very long time, and hopefully raising a family together, so you better be able to to more than just stand each other. Ideally, you want your spouse to be your best friend. Once you have kids you won’t have too much time to have too many other friends (if any)!

5. Physical Attraction
I’m assuming that if you’ve been dating this person for a while, you are physically attracted to them enough to be able to consumate the relationship. If you’re not feeling that level of attraction you should probably break up.

If you’ve got these five requirements then I believe you’ve got the potential to have a successful marriage. Of course marriage takes a huge amount of work without which no marriage can succeed, but if you’ve got these basics the odds are heavily in your favor.

But what if you’ve read my list and can check off each item in the affirmative, and you still fell uneasy about marrying this person?

1. You’ve either got the same normal fears that everyone has before they take the plunge, in which case you should focus on the positive and stay the course. You will get over them just like everyone else.

2. You aren’t ready to get married to anyone yet. Marriage is a decision that in our day and age is optional. If you haven’t made that decision yet, you’ll always find things wrong with the people you date no matter how great they may be, and you’ll continue to back out because of your unsure feelings. You’ll keep doing this until you finally do make the decision to marry.

Are you ready to get married?

Read More at http://www.jcoach.com

A couple of people recently reached out to me to ask if I know anyone to match them up with. I’d be happy to. So I got on Facebook and started searching through my friend list. There were some faces that I hadn’t seen or spoken to in ages and some that I didn’t even recognize (I usually accept friend requests from anyone who doesn’t seem like a spammer). I clicked on their “about” link to find out a bit more about them, particularly their relationship status. Surprisingly, a significant number of them didn’t have their relationship status completed. There was no status!

You might not be as surprised as I was. For some reason that I don’t really get, many people are reluctant to indicate whether they are single, engaged, married, or in a relationship. I totally get the reluctance of classifying yourself as “in a relationship” (hey, I’m a guy). Waiting until you can say “engaged” is much safer (although judging by the number of broken engagements I’m not so sure). For the most part most married folks do indicate their status as “married” and even usually tell you to whom. Most, but not all.

Why wouldn’t someone want to let people know that they are single, or married? There’s no shame in either status. If you’re married the only reason I can think of that you wouldn’t want to indicate that in your status is that you’re up to no good. Shame on you. Or maybe you just think it’s obvious to all who know you and there’s no need to take the half second to choose the “married” option on the drop-down menu? Fair enough.

But if you’re single and you hide that fact you are potentially missing out on opportunities to meet good matches. When I look at your profile with the intention of introducing you to a super attractive woman or handsome man and I don’t see “single” as your status I’ll usually bounce and move to the next profile. Sometimes I’ll look at your photos to see if there are any wedding gowns, wedding photos, family portraits, or toddlers there to help prove your case one way or another. Sometimes I’ll be able to make an educated guess as to your status. More often I won’t. The fact that you’re holding a child who may or may not be your own makes this even more confusing.

Why not indicate that you’re single, if you are? It might really help your chances of meeting the “right one”. Here’s some proof: I met my wife on Facebook, and I would not have contacted her if she hadn’t listed her status as single. There you go.

You’re single. So what? There’s nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide. Now, if you don’t want to meet someone who might turn out to be your next relationship partner and possibly spouse, then by all means keep your status hidden and hide yourself from potential dates or matchmakers. That’s your right. But if you DO want to meet someone, you can make it a heck of a lot easier on everyone if you just click “single”.

Read More at http://www.jcoach.com

After it’s second week of dismal ratings, NBC has decided to cancel the new reality dating show Ready for Love. I already gave you my theory as to why America passed on the show: American singles aren’t interested in watching a fantasy version of dating that bears no resemblance to their highly challenging, often disappointing, real life dating experience. American singles are truly ready for true love in the real world, not the kind that unfolds in front of television characters with a handpicked cast of beautiful characters.

Hurray for the singles of America! I think this rejection of Ready for Love might indicate a breakthrough in the modern day search for love. Perhaps the rejection of the show is in fact a rejection of the fantasy dating and mating experience that perpetuates in the minds of many singles (I was guilty of this too) and keeps them in a perpetual search for their perfect fantasy partners?

If rejecting Ready for Love is a rejection of fantasy, then I think the dating scene might change forever. People will start giving potential partners another chance, or two or three before deciding that they aren’t right for them. People will date potential partners that are good matches even though they might not match their idealized picture of the perfect match. People will get engaged, and married!

I’m excited by this development. Are you?

Read More at http://www.jcoach.com

I’ve heard this statement, that women don’t choose their dates (and mates) based on how handsome they are, so many times that I’ve come to believe it. But then I read this news story about how these three guys got arrested in Saudi Arabia by the religious police and charged with being too handsome. They were quickly deported to avoid kindling the desire of modest Saudi women.

But don’t the Saudi religious police (I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true!) understand that women don’t care that much about how a man looks? I mean, aren’t they confident that their women will stay loyal to their oil rich husbands, even if they are packing a few extra kilos of camel fat under their flowing white robes?

Maybe these clerical cops know something I don’t? Maybe the thing about women not caring about looks is just a myth concocted and spread by women who recognize the severe shortage of eligible, gainfully engaged, bachelors who can be even loosely categorized as good looking or handsome?

Ok, I’ll cut the sarcasm and get right to the point. I think women absolutely care about how their man looks and are (at least initially) attracted to handsome men. Why do you think the leading men in movies and TV are super handsome? But what makes women different from men is that while they might initially find handsome men attractive, their longer term sense of attraction is more heavily weighted to other qualities including personality, sincerity, ambition and yes, financial capability. Men, on the other hand, give the physical attractiveness of their women way more importance than the other qualities.

I’ve seen really good looking guys date beautiful women but eventually get dumped when those women (who were initially so taken) got to know their other qualities. Many of these women then did end up with guys whom they might not have been initially attracted to. Some of them are still searching for the “perfect” guy.

For the men out there who think they don’t have to mind their appearance because women don’t care anyway, women DO CARE, especially at the initial meeting stage. So you better get your act together or risk losing out on a lot of great opportunities to the guys who do make an effort to look good. No, you still won’t be able to compete with Don Draper, but you’ll have a much better shot with a lot more great women.

So, a big shout out to the over zealous, jihad loving band of Saudi Arabia’s finest beat walking, camel riding, clerical cops for teaching us all that women DO CARE about a man’s looks.

Read More at http://www.jcoach.com

I watch Mad Men. If you do too, you’ll understand why I want to use the show’s plot lines and episodes as starting points to glean important lessons related to relationships and love. If you’re not a Mad Men viewer, I’ll give you enough background to get you up to speed on the topic under discussion.

In last week’s episode Don Draper and Pete Campbell both engage in extramarital affairs. They are both married to beautiful women who love them dearly. In fact, Don’s wife would seem to be the perfect trophy wife, the kind of woman who you would have expected him to have an affair with. And yet, as we watched the show, my wife asked me the seemingly obvious question, “why in the world would Don cheat on her? She’s so beautiful. Is he crazy?”

Here’s what I answered her: affairs have nothing to do with how beautiful or wonderful the wife is. Just take a look at the celebrity world. Remember Arnold Schwarzenegger’s affair to remember with a former maid behind the back of his model, celebrity wife? It’s just one example. There are even studies that show that most men who cheat do so with women that are less attractive than their wives. So clearly, physical appearance has little to do with why men cheat.

So why do men cheat? Obviously, there’s no excuse for breaking the bond of loyalty and trust entered into with marriage, so I’m in no way condoning cheating in any shape or form. But we still need to understand the underlying motivation behind Don and Pete, and the millions of real life men who engage in the despicable deception.

It seems like men cheat out of boredom. They want something new, even if it’s not as good as what they already have. The very fact that it is new makes it exciting and challenging. Best of all it is totally commitment free. The very premise of the entire affair is that both parties realize and accept that there will be no expectation of commitment of any kind. The moment one party changes those rules is when the affair loses luster and turns downright distasteful if not dangerous (as in the case of Pete Campbell’s latest fling).

Relationships, especially marriage, need to based on more than physical attraction to be real and lasting. A man (or woman) who chooses a partner or spouse based solely on physical appearance and attraction will face a very challenging environment when that initial physical spark fades with familiarity. The relationship must be based primarily on personality, emotional and spiritual connections in order to grow and persevere for the long haul.

Maybe Don and Peter are just dishonest, disloyal jerks constantly looking for new adventure? Or maybe they chose to marry the wrong women for the wrong reasons? What do you think?

Please share this post with a friend who you think would benefit from it.

Read More at http://www.jcoach.com