The Single Girl's Guide

Excerpted from
Finding Mr. Write: A New Slant on Selecting the Perfect Mate
By Beverley East

The midnight hour is here again and your prince didn't come-another night alone. As little girls we are socialized to believe that our prince or knight in shining armor will come and sweep us off our feet. That's what the storybooks told us. Well, they lied. The pressure becomes more intense the older we get So there is a mad race to get to the finish line. Our biological clocks are ticking, we are walking time bombs. I was at a conference earlier this year and an attractive and highly intelligent woman announced that she was getting married on July 4. Everyone gathered around to congratulate her. Then she announced that she had instituted a nationwide search to find a man by that date. This is positive thinking to the extreme! I loved her sense of humor, but do we have to go to these limits?

Wake up! Stop waiting for him! If you think he's coming with a Porsche and a Carrier wedding band, think twice. You may have already met him, but through some sort of misunderstanding, one way or the other, one of you blew it. Make a plan for your next date. Decide how you can make it different. Change your attitude and your behavior. You can adjust your life. First clear out the clutter, die negative energy, the anger and bitterness. When you make space, better will always come. Clear the decks; a new ship is coming in. Be happy single. Be happy with yourself. Learn to love yourself and be in awe of die wonderment and greatness of your unique self. When you have achieved this, your man will be there, I guarantee you. Men know when you are desperate. They can read you die way you think you can read them.

In my single days, I shared my home in London with several eligible, handsome bachelors (including the one I'm married to). I got an inside view of how men behave by my house-sharing experiences: how they respond to being chased and what they like or do not like in a woman. They were united in wanting an intelligent, independent woman who had her act together and had a sense of self, someone a little elusive who would not take too much BS from them. Although their egos were greatly boosted by women who chased them, it was the ones they couldn't get that aroused their interest the most. Ms. Elusive wins every time!

Here are some guidelines that I learned along the way and want to share with you. Take this path with me, step by step.

1. How do you find a good man? Stop looking! Have you ever tried to find a phone number of an old friend you ran into a few days ago? You turn your purse inside out looking for it. You can't call her because you can't find the phone number. Then one day, when you are looking for something else, there it is, right in front of you. Well, men are the same; they show up when they are ready, in their own good time. "Men are like buses," my father would say. "Don't run after them. There will always be another. There may be a wait, and it may not be the number you want, but you can be sure there will be another."

2. Ms. Elusive always wins. Don't play games, but do not always be available. Find a hobby, create other interests in your life. I answered the phone one evening at my home, and a young lady wanted to speak to my roommate. The young lady called three times before my roommate came home. He shook his head and mouthed, "Tell her I'm not home." Wouldn't you just die if you overheard this or could see his reaction if you were die caller on the other end of the line? Don't stay home by the phone. Return calls, of course, but stop chasing men and calling them. When they are ready to speak with you, they will call, and if they are lucky they will catch up with you.

3. Enhance your personal power. Continue to work on yourself all the time. We are all works in progress. Enhance your power on all levels, emotionally, spiritually, sexually (yes, sexually - know your own body and what you like before you expect your partner to please you), intellectually, and physically. Read everything. Expand your reading list beyond self-help books (they can provide you with a source of information but experience will always be your best teacher). Read great works such as: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Second-Class Citizen, Buchi Emecheta; Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe; The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan; Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy; Dubliners, James Joyce; A Bridge Through Time, Laila Abou-Saif; and Invisible Life, E. Lynn Harris (a must-read for every woman, especially young adults new to the dating game). The list is endless. Go to seminars, lectures, retreats. Continue to further your education. Embrace other cultures. Travel will be by far your best teacher always. Join organizations and professional clubs, e.g., a skiing club. The more varied and interesting things you do, the more interesting you become.