PERSONAL: IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THE WOMAN IS UGLY ..IF YOU YOU GIVE ME SOME HIGH QUALITY SEX......TRYING TO FIND THE RIGHT ONE

I want to marry someone who is nice to me. Nice includes sex, laughing, cooking a meal, folding the laundry, or doing something  just because you love me. That’s what nice is.If my asking makes you mad,then I am not the one for you. If you ask other guys about the number one thing missing from women in the dating pool today, most will almost certainly tell you this: there is a major shortage of sweet women.  A girl can be hot, sexy, powerful, smart, dynamic, and interesting, but if she’s not sweet, most (not all, most) guys will not really want to marry her.

If you’re selfish, you love being taken care of. Guys might be willing to put up with you (a selfish girl) (and by put up with, I mean fuck you) as long as they think they won’t have to deal with you for life. Most woman day goes like this: you goes to work every day and focuses on performing tasks and accomplishing them in a directed, linear, focused way, you are spending the majority of your waking hours in your Masculine.This has help you get awesome professional life but this exact same qualities will mess up your love life. If you’re talking to a me and you’re trying to be right, you are in your Masculine energy. This is fine if you are at work, but presumably you’re not trying to have sex with anyone at work. With me, you have a different objective—to love. And simply put, arguing doesn’t create love. Arguing is, by definition, focused on differences.I can't tell you how many woman I have talked to you are like this.You need to open yourself up. ..be soft with me. You do not need to protect yourself or defend yourself anymore.To love someone is to accept them as flawed. To marry them is to give them the gift of being loved despite those flaws.

The way most woman behaves with me is so unattractive. And by attractive, I’m not talking about whether they have nice face and figure. What I mean is their energy. Let me give you a  metaphor. A relationship is almost like the set of batteries in, say, a vibrator.(funny..i just thought of this right now) There’s a plus side (Masculine) and a minus side (Feminine). In order for the thing to start buzzing, you have to have the pluses touching the minuses. Two pluses and nothing happens. Two minuses and nothing happens. The different kinds of energy have to be lined up with their opposites if you want the thing to turn on.

If a guy spills his, um, seed on the ground, nothing happens. It’s just a bunch of stuff.. But if he deposits it into some nice, luscious Feminine—well, babies happen. The guy’s genes get to make it into the next generation. The same thing is true in terms of a man’s work, whatever it is that he is trying to bring into the world. With a great relationship, a man plugs into the fertile.Feminine and becomes capable of achieving more than he could accomplish on his own. This is the basic meaning behind the saying “Behind every great man is a great woman" Listen...there will be alot of guys who want to donate their sperm to you..But you need to know is, will that guy send your egg to college? And if a guy hasn’t even bothered to call you or to walk across the room to talk to you, you can be pretty sure the answer to that question is a big fat no.

You know how there are people who are just naturally “good people”—they’re helpful, courteous, thoughtful, gracious, polite, and kind? That is the type of woman I want. I’m not suggesting you turn yourself into some sort of maid or geisha. I’m saying you need to step into the idea that loving someone is about giving something, not getting it. The big secret about marriage: It’s about giving something, not getting it. The other big secret: You will have to go first.You want to give myself wholly to another person. You should either consister adopting a child or having one.As far as I understand, parents must nurture their children and sacrifice everything for them without ever expecting to receive anything in return; not even respect or affection. Inside every husband is a baby man. And when you learn how to love that little guy. Being nice is never a sign of weakness. Being a parent is forced surrendering

There are some woman who actually love drama. If a regular relationship feels boring to you with a little craziness sex on the site. I am not your man.. You’re looking for something more along the lines of Sid and Nancy, but without the murder. Movies, television, and love songs insist that intensity equals love. It doesn’t. It equals chaos. Think of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

If you keep attracting the wrong men..that is your fault. I don't have any sympathy for you. It is you who brought these men into your life—even the bad ones. I’m not saying you consciously chose them. I’m not saying you wanted them to treat you badly. What I am saying is that nothing can change for you until you realize that at some level you have been choosing these men. Your relationship mirror back your deepest, most unconscious beliefs about ourselves. Not to hurt you—though it will feel like that until you wake up from your long, deep slumber—but so that you can have a healing and know who you really are. You delude yourself. So many people I met were very proud of  their tough, take-charge interio and never wished to compromise. It is such a turn off.

I once had a girlfriend who was, how shall I say, interesting-looking. When we first started dating, there were times when I would look at her face and think, “Wait, what?” At first I even thought about breaking it off. Not only was her style completely different from mine—much more conservative—but everything about her physically was not what I was used to. But I stuck with it, in part because she had—seriously—a sparkling personality. She really did. She was one of the kindest, most agreeable people I have ever met. We stayed together for a good amount of time, and somewhere along the line my eye … adjusted. She had a ton of beauty; I just had to look at her differently to see it.Ultimately, loving that not-so-perfectlooking woman made me aware of a whole other level of beauty that, even though we’re no longer together, I can still access and appreciate. Years later, I learned this same lesson the opposite way, from a truly gorgeous woman, Melissa. We stayed together three years, and during that time I discovered that (unfortunately) the effect of beauty is often like any other effect: eventually it wears off. Usually sooner. It’s not that Melissa ceased to be gorgeous—the hordes of other men sniffing around all the time were proof of that. It’s that her beauty ceased to change the way I felt about her. It didn’t make me willing to put up with her bullshit (and she had a ton of bullshit)

I’ve always thought another interpretation of the Beauty and the Beast story is that it doesn’t actually matter if the woman I’m with is ugly or awful—if you give me some high-quality sex, I am going to attach to the woman no matter what. Unfortunate, but apparently true. A hot woman doesn't equal great sex.

There is also the law of attraction. It can mean a lot of things, but in this case it means that your match will always be, well, your match. So if what you are is shallow, then that’s what you’ll attract. No exceptions. Like always attracts like. When I bring more caring—more depth—to my dealings with women, not only do I  begin to see something different in them, but I will begin to see something different in me. It comes down to the energy you are putting out there, which will always, and I mean always, return back exactly what you sent out. It’s like a boomerang. If you send out love, you will get back love.

But so many woman will not settle for anything less than a total catch. They wants a high-earning, tall, ..ect. They won’t say this out loud, but since they  works hard to look good, have a great job, and  feels, at some level, deserving of a guy who will drop as many jaws as she does. They dream of a certain life with a certain kind of man, and they don’t want to give up that dream. The problem is that when they hold out for so long, they end up sailing right past their mid-thirties.They wasted time with foxes. In the animal world, foxes hunt girl chicks and steal their eggs. That’s what they do in the dating world, too. You only have so many eggs, ladies. It effing sucks, but it’s true, and if you want to get married and have kids in that order (not that I’m stuck on the order), you need to take responsibility for this fact ASAP. The difference between “plenty of time” and “OMFG.

A friend of my said to me. recently..'You are a very amazing guy. Just don’t settle.”He didn't mean that I should get everything on a list. What he meant is that I am worth being committed to (which I know) and by someone who really deserves me (which I don’t always know). He meant that I need to take care with me, the way I would take care with something I really valued. It’s a message that I need to take to heart. Because when it seems like a woman is offering me something, I’m often tempted to just take it. Other times I’m tempted to just leave it. Either way, I lose sight of the real question: is this the right thing for me?

When you see a man who has the kind of resources like myself and has his picking of women yet has chosen to be with a woman who is maybe not that spectacular-looking.  I can only tell you that that woman must be a fantastic person who gave him the gift of seeing him beyond what he had to offer materially.Someone who is actually kind and loves him.

ARTICLE: The Bad Behavior of Visionary Leaders By TONY SCHWARTZ NYTIMES

We live in a world that values cruel people







As I was reading Ashlee Vance’s “Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,” I was alternately awed and disheartened, almost exactly the same ambivalence I felt after reading Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” and Brad Stone’s “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon.”

The three leaders are arguably the most extraordinary business visionaries of our times. Each of them has introduced unique products that changed – or in Mr. Musk’s case, have huge potential to change – the way we live.

Life@Work

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The Power of Starting With ‘Yes’APR 17

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I was awed by the innovative, courageous, persistent and creative ways all three built their businesses. I also love their products. I own a Mac Pro and an iPhone, and I have been a loyal customer of Apple for 20 years. I buy many books and other products on Amazon, lured by a blend of low prices, ease of purchase and reliably quick delivery. The Tesla X is hands down the best car I have ever driven, and it’s all electric, rechargeable in your garage.

Plainly, I have bought in to what these guys are selling.

What disheartens me is how little care and appreciation any of them give (or in Mr. Jobs’s case, gave) to hard-working and loyal employees, and how unnecessarily cruel and demeaning they could be to the people who helped make their dreams come true.

In fairness, the leaders all have loyal defenders. At Apple, for example, Mr. Jobs’s successors – including Tim Cook, the chief executive, and Jonathan Ive, the chief design officer – have argued that Mr. Jobs matured significantly as a leader in his final years. Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos have senior leaders who have worked with them for many years. But even an admirer like Mr. Ive remained bewildered by the way Mr. Jobs treated people.

“He’s a very sensitive guy,” Mr. Ive told Mr. Isaacson shortly before Mr. Jobs died in 2011. “That’s one of the things that makes his antisocial behavior, his rudeness, so unconscionable. I can understand why people who are thick-skinned and unfeeling can be rude, but not sensitive people.”

Given the extraordinary success of these men, the obvious question is whether being relentlessly hard on people, and even cruel, may get them to perform better.

Like their biographers, I think the answer is no. Our research at the Energy Project has shown that the more employees feel their needs are being met at work – above all, for respect and appreciation – the better they perform.

As Mr. Isaacson writes of Mr. Jobs: “Nasty was not necessary. It hindered him more than it helped him.”

Similarly, a person who worked with Mr. Musk told Mr. Vance: “He can be so gentle and loyal, and then hard on people when it isn’t necessary.”

At Amazon, Mr. Bezos’s angry outbursts came to be called “nutters.” “He was capable of hyperbole and cruelty in these moments,” Mr. Stone writes, “and over the years delivered some devastating rebukes to employees.”

Why would otherwise brilliant men behave in such destructive ways?

The first answer is that they can. Genius covers a lot of sins. A great product is a great product, and you don’t have to do everything right to be successful. Most customers don’t care how the sausage gets made, as long as it tastes good.

Employees, in turn, are willing to sacrifice a lot to work for a visionary. Much as Mr. Jobs was, Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos are passionate, inspiring and charismatic leaders.

“Numerous people interviewed for this book decried the work hours, Musk’s blunt style and his sometimes ludicrous expectations,” Mr. Vance wrote. “Yet almost every person – even those who had been fired – still worshiped Musk and talked about him in terms usually reserved for superheroes or deities.

Finally, a certain level of financial success and the resulting power effectively excuse those who achieve it from the ordinary rules of civility and even humanity.

Mr. Jobs drove around without a license on his car, and he regularly parked in spaces reserved for the handicapped. As Mr. Ive said of his attitude, “I think he feels he has a liberty and a license to do that. The normal rules of social engagement, he feels, don’t apply to him.”

Amazon employees collected examples of Mr. Bezos’s most eviscerating put-downs, including, “Are you lazy or just incompetent?” “Why are you wasting my life?” and “I’m sorry, did I take my stupid pills today?”

When Mr. Musk’s loyal executive assistant of 12 years asked for a significant raise, he told her to take a two-week vacation while he thought about it. When she returned, he told her the relationship wasn’t going to work anymore. According to Mr. Vance, they haven’t spoken since.

Abusive as all this sounds, I would argue that most of the bad behavior of these men is fear-based, impulsive and reactive rather than consciously hurtful. It grows not out of a sense of superiority but rather of insecurity.

Some of my data, unfortunately, is my own experience. I spent most of my early adulthood relentlessly seeking to prove my worth and worrying that I would forever fall short. I have spent my recent years far more focused on trying to become a caring and encouraging leader. Even so, I know well the anxious feeling that can arise when a deal is coming undone, a project isn’t gelling or an employee seems to be falling short. I know how frightening it can be to feel out of control.

People like these three visionaries deeply crave control. Each of them was far more likely to act out suddenly and behave poorly when he wasn’t getting exactly what he wanted — when he felt that others were failing to live up to his standards.

All three invested endless hours and energy in building and running their businesses — and far less in anything else, including taking care of the people who worked for them or even understanding what doing so might look like. To a large extent, people were simply a means to an end.

The question raised by the stories of these three men is not whether being tough, harsh and relentlessly demanding gets people to work better. Of course it doesn’t, and certainly not sustainably. Can anyone truly doubt that people are productive in workplaces that help them to be healthier and happier?

The more apt question is how much more these men could have enhanced thousands of people’s lives – and perhaps made them even more successful — if they had invested as much in taking care of them as they did in conceiving great products.

“Try not to become a man of success,” Albert Einstein once said, “but rather a man of value.”

LOVE: MY ATOMS HAVE ALWAYS LOVED YOUR ATOMS

I don't believe in luck. I do believe we've known each other since forever, though.You know how? When the big bang happened, all the atoms in the universe, they were all smashed together into one little dot that exploded outward. So my atoms and your atoms were certainly together then, and, who knows, probably... smashed together several times in the last 13.7 billion years. So my atoms have known your atoms... and they've always known your atoms. My atoms have...always loved your atoms.I don't believe in luck. I do believe we've known each other since forever, though.You know how? When the big bang happened, all the atoms in the universe, they were all smashed together into one little dot that exploded outward. So my atoms and your atoms were certainly together then, and, who knows, probably... smashed together several times in the last 13.7 billion years. So my atoms have known your atoms... and they've always known your atoms.  They must have loved each other, oh, so much.  Those subatomic particles that split, enough to stay so close at hand.So as to become so closely knit.And when they grew to become a cell, Still then, they never strayed too far. In fact, they snuggled with their hope to tell about the love that bound them to make them what they are.Then over the eons, as they finally formed their skeletal frame and stood erect in your beauty's perfect skin.They discovered their substance had a name still driven by a force they could not keep in.And so, they learned to move your hands and eyes and lips and heart, So as to set in motion all their plans to complete their every part. Now, with your embraces of the night, I'm thankful for such a small and simple virtue and the fact that our souls are bound that tight  by so deep a love that will always keep me near you

PERSONAL: I HATE WHEN WOMAN SAY.. "I'M TIRED OF DATING BAD BOYS" THAT IS BULLSHIT

I read this all the time...“I’m tired of dating bad boys, can we try and take things slow?” And the sucker (that’s me) would say, “Absolutely,” with a genuine smile on my face.Each time, it ended the same damn way: Things would go great for the first couple of weeks, we would go out on great dates. I would never rush things, fishing for only a kiss after several dates.

I would be a nice guy, and then the girls would disappear. They would stop answering my calls and replying to my texts. A couple of weeks later, I would run into them, at which point they each told me the same thing. They were seeing someone; they rushed into things, but are now taking it slow.

I was taking them out on romantic dates and courting them, some other guy was the one sleeping with them and satisfying them.And that is when I formed my opinion of what it is girls really want. They want the romantic and chivalrous things, the nice dates and the cute surprises — just not from a nice guy. They want it from someone they can teach to do those things — from the bad boy

I know women are sexual creatures the same way men are; they have needs, and it is only natural that they should want them satisfied by someone with whom they have instant attraction — the other stuff they can work on later.They want someone who will please them in all ways, be the envy of girls everywhere AND open the door and act like a gentleman (the last one is the project).

All of this boils down to one thing: They want a challenge. They want to be the one who not only gets the sexy guy all their friends were swooning over, but they want to be the one who makes him fall in love with them, they want to be the one who turns the bad boy, into their nice guy.

Challenges are kids....I don't have time for that.So here we are, full circle. I’m not a nice guy anymore; I’m tired of being screwed over. I’m tired of waiting to sleep with a girl out of respect only to find out she slept with my buddy the same night I took her out to dinner, I’m tired of making an effort for no reward, I’m tired of being rejected (I don’t care what gender you are, rejection hurts).

But, most of all, I’m tired of listening to you complain about how there are no good men left, when I was right there.So you know what, I’ll stop being a good man; I’ll stop being a nice guy, and maybe then you’ll stop pretending like I don’t exist.

What I’ve learned is that nice guys don’t finish last. No, they get hurt enough or ignored enough and change. They learn the game and adapt, and in the end, there are no nice guys left.They change into something that gets your attention, and is given a chance, something you see as a viable sexual partner. But that isn’t all true because there are still some nice guys hidden out there in the world, you just don’t call them that.

So now that I think about it, I might not be a hopeless romantic anymore, after all. Maybe I have been reformed, maybe I have been cured and my friends will stop calling me “Ted Mosby.” I know I am still a gentleman, but after all, “a gentleman is simply a patient wolf.”

The truth of the matter is this. While this may seem like the ranting of a jaded man, or an overly confident douche, at the end of the day, I’m just another heartbroken person trying to avoid it happening again.

There is this misconception that men don’t have feelings or emotions, that when you flake on a date or break things off out of the blue, that we don’t get hurt. We do. We may not wear our emotions on our sleeves, but we do get hurt. Those things do bother us, and the end result is always the same: a guarded, bitter man with higher walls than a medieval castle.

It took all of this for me to realize that being a hopeless romantic in today’s world is pointless; you have to adapt.You have to accept this modern thing we call dating and love, or the same thing will happen over and over again, like an endless waltz.

The most honest and truthful reason I can give you as to why there are no nice guys left is fear. We were terrified of being alone, and we got so sick of being lonely.

Everyone wants intimate companionship, even nice guys. So to get it, we threw in the towel, we changed and learned — we stopped accepting that nice guys finish last.

Nice guys can’t finish last if there are none left. We know that being a nice guy didn’t entitle us to a great girl, but on those rare occasions when we ignored the timidness of our personalities and made our feelings known, we at least wanted a fair chance. But we never got one, and if we did, it was over before we knew it. “On to the next one!,” you said, as our hearts lay shattered on the floor.

People, especially girls, always say you have to fight!

I’m sorry, I can’t anymore. I’ve got nothing left. When you’ve been broken as many times as I have, it’s a constant fight just to hold yourself together.

It was much easier to change banners and give up on being a nice guy. And nice guys everywhere are realizing that as well; they are hanging up the knight’s armor and donning the bad boy’s leather jacket. If you can’t beat them, join them.

Who knows though? Maybe one day, the genders of our generation will stop thinking that they are each entitled to some mythical perfection that they deserve.

They will stop playing games and hold themselves to a higher standard and respect themselves enough to date people who truly make them happy and loved.

Maybe one day our generation will wake up and say, “I desire a certain kind of love, and I want certain qualities in a partner that will make him/her perfect for me! I don’t care how hot you are, or how sexy you are, that is not enough for me.”

And then what we will see are two souls, fighting for exactly what they want, encountering each other, and knowing, immediately, that they wont play games — that she was meant for him, and he was meant for her, and nothing else matters…

Until then, I guess I will have to hope

PERSONAL: WOMAN WITH LOW INTEREST LEVEL

If your interest level is low, please don't bother contacting me. My time is important and I will not risk going out on dates with women who have no interest in long term relationship that will end in marriage. I have zero-tolerance policy (including matter-of-fact I will call you on your bad behavior, so don't tell me that I am being rude when I am not)

I hate uncertainty...if you see me as an option for you, rather than something you definitely wants to be with ..don't waste my time. Keep dating other men who don't have their act together and don't know what they want. Motivation is the key here. If you are not showing your interested in me from the beginning ...then it just indicate to me that you are not as serious about wanting to be with me. I am not here to chase after you, I have enough woman chasing after me. If I am not your first priority, you are not mine. If you are looking for better prospect who want to marry you..good luck then.

I don't play games, but most people play a childish form of communication. This is what children do! They say one thing and do another. they throw temper tantrums. they react emotionally to everything. Women with high interest level wont confuse you. When a woman wants to be with you she’ll find a way to be with you. A woman who is into me has no need (and less motivation) to engage in behaviors that would compromise her status with me. I’m a firm believer in the psychological principal that the only way to determine genuine motivation and/or intent is to observe the behavior of an individual. All one need do is compare behavior and the results of it to correlate intent. You don’t need to be psychic to understand women’s covert communication, you need to be observant.

Everything has a price, and if you're willing to pay it, you can do it. If you want to get married and have kids ....you should do what is necessary to make it happen. You will have no one to blame if doesn't happen to you. There is no right person or perfect person out there. As a man, I can have kids in my 70s, you don't. You have until your early 30s before things get hard,,,,trust me I know because I had to go through IVF for two years with my ex wife.

-You can be sure that a girl likes you if she gives you her phone number and tells her that you can get in touch with her anytime. I can't count the number of times that so many woman respond to me without their number...totally ignoring my request after the second time with my response to them. I am not looking for a cyber relationship. I am looking for a real one.

-If I can only reach you through text, and it takes your hours or days or longer to text me. back;you shouldn't even be dating. I am looking for someone who wants to be with me. You respond to my calls/texts quickly.

- You ask question about me and it doesn't seem like I have drag things out of you.

-I am a giver myself and looking for a givers. One definite indicator of how much a woman wants you, lies in how much she is giving you. It does not have to be material things. She can be giving you kisses, hugs, food, comfort, massage or anything. The more she is giving, the more she is in love with you, it’s that simple.

ARTICLE: The Dowdy Patient By DAVID J. HELLERSTEIN

“So who is that dowdy person that always comes at lunchtime?” my officemate asked.

I knew immediately whom he was referring to: Greta, a woman in her 30s who faithfully took her seat in the waiting room at midday every Wednesday and sat stiffly until I opened my office door. With her homely dresses and unstylish hairdo, Greta looked like someone you’d see in a 1950s Good Housekeeping magazine.

“She’s great,” I said. “A really interesting person.”

This was true, but my officemate was right: Greta was not exactly alluring. It wasn’t her looks, which were fine (I’m certainly no Adonis myself); it was her unfashionable dress and grooming. Which was a shame, not because I cared how she looked, but because Greta herself so deeply yearned for a romantic relationship.

A boyfriend, then marriage, and soon after that, kids — that was pretty much all that Greta felt was missing from her otherwise enviable existence, which included Ivy League degrees, a Wall Street career, a downtown loft. There was a lot of back story: She had overcome a difficult upbringing in a small Midwestern town; her mother had died young; her father was strict and domineering. And so on. All of which made her accomplishments that much more impressive.

For more than a year, Greta and I met once and sometimes twice per week for psychotherapy and medication treatment. She suffered from panic attacks, which we found responded to low doses of Klonopin and Lexapro. In therapy, we addressed the frustrations of her office politics, her conflicts with her brothers, her mixture of sadness and relief when her father died. And she got better: She became calmer and more assertive, and formed stronger friendships. Her career thrived.

The only area of her life that didn’t improve was romance. Not that she didn’t go on dates, but they typically were one-off events. There never seemed to be a spark, much less a flame.

One day, after a bit of hemming and hawing — I knew it would be a sensitive topic — I raised the obvious: Had she considered getting a makeover? One of her friends, as Greta herself had told me, had recently seen an “image consultant” who recommended a whole new wardrobe, new hairstyle, different makeup. Could that, I asked, possibly be helpful?

“After all,” I added, “men tend to judge … ”

Greta bristled, and I stopped midsentence.

“You know,” she said, “I look much better when I go on a date. I put on makeup, I dress up. My friends say I look great!”

That shut me up.

For a number of months — in retrospect, far too long — I accepted that explanation. Her friends no doubt were attuned to the actual workings of the dating world, whereas as a married man, I’d been off the market for years. What did I know?

Over time, though, I began to wonder. I couldn’t really imagine that Greta underwent a major transformation on weekends. Plus, her dowdy persona Monday through Friday couldn’t help but decrease the odds of a fortuitous encounter with a future romantic partner during the week.

I’ll be the first to say that looks shouldn’t matter, that we shouldn’t judge people based on superficial criteria. But it’s also true that there are costs to ignoring, or defying, the social realities of the world we live in, and I suspected that Greta was paying those costs.

By objecting so strenuously to my makeover idea, Greta gave me an easy out. She clearly didn’t want to touch that issue. It was her treatment; she was choosing what to focus on. So I let it go. For years.

The real problem was that I didn’t know what to do in this situation. Years of psychotherapy training had given me no guidance in how to deal with the staunchly dowdy patient. Starting early in our training, we psychiatry residents spent innumerable hours addressing issues raised by inappropriately seductive patients. How best to deal with patients who flirt in session, who wear inappropriate attire, who ignore boundaries, who try, whether consciously or not, to lure you away from “therapeutic neutrality”? There were articles, books and lectures that helped us deal with a patient’s “erotic transference” and our own “countertransference reactions.”

But advice about the patient who refuses to be attractive? No.

Maybe a female or gay male therapist would have had an easier time addressing this topic with Greta. But for me, as a straight male working with a straight female patient, every option seemed blocked. Basically, no matter how I tried to put it, I would be saying, “I find you unappealing.”

Which, at least to Greta, would have raised the reasonable question, Why on earth would she want me to find her appealing? The whole thing reeked of grossness. Like it or not, in raising the issue, I could be viewed as endorsing regressive cultural norms, implicitly justifying or defending the regrettable behavior of my gender.

When I eventually tried again to discuss the issue of her appearance, things did indeed play out this way. Greta began to find me slightly creepy. Since previous therapists had never brought up this topic with her, she came to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with me for mentioning it. I don’t think she was right, but I can understand why she thought so.

This story does not end well. After nearly a decade of our work together, Greta remained unhappily single. When she was offered a job transfer to California, she took it and moved away. We did some telephone sessions and I continued to renew her medications until she found a new doctor. And that was it.

Last year, after a long hiatus, Greta came back to town. She made an appointment with me for a review of her medications, which she’d been getting from her primary care doctor and which had become less effective. I felt a bit of anticipation, perhaps hoping that she had been transformed with the help of a new therapist or the mellowing effects of California culture.

Alas, when she came for her appointment, it was clear that little had changed. Greta looked the same: the same Good Housekeeping hair, the same frumpy skirt and too-sensible shoes.

And her life? She filled me in: Her career was fine, she had a circle of new friends. But in terms of relationships? Nothing. After our work together, she had concluded that she just wasn’t meant to have romance. She had resigned herself to solitude.

Every therapist at some point discovers his limitations, be it a type of person he can’t help or an issue he is unable to successfully address. For whatever reason — a poor match of patient and doctor? my own deficiencies as a therapist? the complexities of our society’s gender relations? — the dowdy patient was mine.­

ARTICLE: How to Make Online Dating Work By AZIZ ANSARI and ERIC KLINENBERG

WE turn to screens for nearly every decision. Where to eat. Where to vacation. Where to eat on vacation. Where to get treatment for the food poisoning you got at that restaurant where you ate on vacation. Where to write a negative review calling out the restaurant that gave you food poisoning and ruined your vacation. So it’s no surprise our screens are becoming the first place we turn to when looking for romance — because you need someone to take care of you when you get food poisoning on your vacation, right?

One of the most amazing social changes is the rise of online dating and the decline of other ways of meeting a romantic partner. In 1940, 24 percent of heterosexual romantic couples in the United States met through family, 21 percent through friends, 21 percent through school, 13 percent through neighbors, 13 percent through church, 12 percent at a bar or restaurant and 10 percent through co-workers. (Some categories overlapped.)

By 2009, half of all straight couples still met through friends or at a bar or restaurant, but 22 percent met online, and all other sources had shrunk. Remarkably, almost 70 percent of gay and lesbian couples met online, according to the Stanford sociologist Michael J. Rosenfeld, who compiled this data.

And Internet dating isn’t just about casual hookups. According to the University of Chicago psychologist John T. Cacioppo, more than one-third of couples who married in the United States from 2005 to 2012 met online.

Online dating generates a spectrum of reactions: exhilaration, fatigue, inspiration, fury. Many singles compare it to a second job, more duty than flirtation; the word “exhausting” came up constantly. These days, we seem to have unlimited options. And we marry later or, increasingly, not at all. The typical American spends more of her life single than married, which means she’s likely to invest ever more time searching for romance online. Is there a way to do it more effectively, with less stress? The evidence from our two years of study, which included interviews around the world, from Tokyo to Wichita, Kan., says yes.

TOO MUCH FILTERING The Internet offers a seemingly endless supply of people who are single and looking to date, as well as tools to filter and find exactly what you’re looking for. You can specify height, education, location and basically anything else. Are you trying to find a guy whose favorite book is “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and whose favorite sport is lacrosse? You’re just a few clicks away from this dream dude.

But we are horrible at knowing what we want. Scientists working with Match.com found that the kind of partner people said they wanted often didn’t match up with what they were actually interested in. People filter too much; they’d be better off vetting dates in person.

“Online dating is just a vehicle to meet more people,” says the author and dating consultant Laurie Davis. “It’s not the place to actually date.” The anthropologist Helen Fisher, who does work for Match.com, makes a similar argument: “It’s a misnomer that they call these things ‘dating services,’ ” she told us. “They should be called ‘introducing services.’ They enable you to go out and go and meet the person yourself.”

What about those search algorithms? When researchers analyzed characteristics of couples who’d met on OkCupid, they discovered that one-third had matching answers on three surprisingly important questions: “Do you like horror movies?” “Have you ever traveled around another country alone?” and “Wouldn’t it be fun to chuck it all and go live on a sailboat?” OkCupid believes that answers to these questions may have some predictive value, presumably because they touch on deep, personal issues that matter to people more than they realize.

But what works well for predicting good first dates doesn’t tell us much about the long-term success of a couple. A recent study led by the Northwestern psychologist Eli J. Finkel argues that no mathematical algorithm can predict whether two people will make a good couple.

PICTURE PERFECT People put a huge amount of time into writing the perfect profile, but does all that effort pay off?

OkCupid started an app called Crazy Blind Date. It offered the minimal information people needed to have an in-person meeting. No lengthy profile, no back-and-forth chat, just a blurred photo. Afterward, users were asked to rate their satisfaction with the experience.

The responses were compared with data from the same users’ activity on OkCupid. As Christian Rudder, an OkCupid co-founder, tells it, women who were rated very attractive were unlikely to respond to men rated less attractive. But when they were matched on Crazy Blind Date, they had a good time. As Mr. Rudder puts it, “people appear to be heavily preselecting online for something that, once they sit down in person, doesn’t seem important to them.”

Some of what we learned about effective photos on OkCupid was predictable: Women who flirt for the camera or show cleavage are quite successful. Some of what we learned was pretty weird: Men who look away and don’t smile do better than those who do; women holding animals don’t do well, but men holding animals do. Men did better when shown engaging in an interesting activity.

We recommend the following: If you are a woman, take a high-angle selfie, with cleavage, while you’re underwater near some buried treasure. If you are a guy, take a shot of yourself spelunking in a dark cave while holding your puppy and looking away from the camera, without smiling.

TOO MANY OPTIONS As research by Barry Schwartz and other psychologists has shown, having more options not only makes it harder to choose something, but also may make us less satisfied with our choices, because we can’t help wonder whether we erred.

Consider a study by the Columbia University psychologist Sheena S. Iyengar. She set up a table at an upscale food store and offered shoppers samples of jams. Sometimes, the researchers offered six types of jam, but other times they offered 24. When they offered 24, people were more likely to stop in and have a taste, but they were almost 10 times less likely to actually buy jam than people who had just six kinds to try.

See what’s happening? There’s too much jam out there. If you’re on a date with a certain jam, you can’t even focus because as soon as you go to the bathroom, three other jams have texted you. You go online, you see more jam.

One way to avoid this problem is to give each jam a fair chance. Remember: Although we are initially attracted to people by their physical appearance and traits we can quickly recognize, the things that make us fall for someone are their deeper, more personal qualities, which come out only during sustained interactions. Psychologists like Robert B. Zajonc have established the “mere exposure effect”: Repeated exposure to a stimulus tends to enhance one’s feelings toward it.

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Charles

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This is a fascinating article by Aziz Ansary and Eric Klinenberg. What is it, exactly, that makes two people come together? I like their...

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Back in 1995, when the internet was new to most of us, I started playing trivia games on America Online. I found fun, like-minded people and...

Annette

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I love the ending with the 'meeting them in person'. That's been the challenge for me - getting the guy off the computer and out on a date!...

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This isn’t just a theory. In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the University of Texas psychologists Paul W. Eastwick and Lucy L. Hunt suggest that in dating contexts, a person’s looks, charisma and professional success may matter less for relationship success than other factors that we each value differently, such as tastes and preferences. In fact, they write, few people initiate romantic relationships based on first impressions. Instead they fall for each other gradually, until an unexpected or perhaps long-awaited spark transforms a friendship or acquaintance into something sexual and serious.

Think about it in terms of pop music. When a new song featuring Drake comes on the radio, you’re like, “What is this song? Oh another Drake song. Big deal. Heard this before. Next please!” Then you keep hearing it and you think, “Oh Drake, you’ve done it again!”

In a way, we are all like that Drake song: The more time you spend with us, the more likely we are to get stuck in your head.

No one wants to invest too much on a first date. After all, the odds are it won’t be a love connection. It’s hard to get excited about a new person while doing a résumé exchange over beer and a burger. So stack the deck in your favor and abide by what we called “The Monster Truck Rally Theory of Dating”: Don’t sit across from your date at a table, sipping a drink and talking about where you went to school. Do something adventurous, playful or stimulating instead, and see what kind of rapport you have.

SWIPE AWAY Apps like Tinder boil the dating experience down to assessing people’s images. Compared with stressing out over a questionnaire, swiping can be fun, even addictive. Within two years, Tinder was said to have about 50 million users and claimed responsibility for two billion matches.



As with all other new forms of dating, there’s a stigma around swipe apps. The biggest criticism is that they encourage increasing superficiality. But that’s too cynical. When you walk into a bar or party, often all you have to go by is faces, and that’s what you use to decide if you are going to gather the courage to talk to them. Isn’t a swipe app just a huge party full of faces?

In a world of infinite possibilities, perhaps the best thing new dating technologies can do is to reduce our options to people within reach. In a way they’re a throwback to a past age, when proximity was crucial. In 1932, the sociologist James H. S. Bossard examined 5,000 marriage licenses filed in Philadelphia. One-third of the couples had lived within a five-block radius of each other before they wed, one in six within a block, and one in eight at the same address!

Today’s apps make meeting people fun and efficient. Now comes the hard part: changing out of your sweatpants, meeting them in person, and trying for a connection so you can settle down and get right back into those sweatpants.

LOVE: THE VOWS TO YOU

I vow never to make you guess how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking. I know you’re not a mind reader, and I won’t make you try and be one.

I vow to never, ever break your trust, but also to lie to you if it means making you smile.

I vow always to treat you like you’re the most amazing person in the world. Because, to me, you are. You mean the world to me. If you ever forget exactly how incredible of an individual you are, I vow to be there to remind you. Actions speak louder than words, but I’ll use both — just to be safe.

I vow to make you fall in love with me all over again, every chance I get. I vow to surrender myself to you and always keep you guessing. I’m yours — all of me. I want you to know me inside out, and I vow always to let you in. I will never distance myself from you because there’s no distancing myself from you; we’re one in the same.

I vow to be an incredible parent and role model for our children.I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to change diapers, rock cradles and read stories so you can get an extra hour of sleep.
I’ll teach our children by example and make sure they grow to be strong, confident, capable, compassionate and intelligent individuals — just like you.

I vow to make compromises.To be honest, I’m not worried about having to give up something for you because I know you wouldn’t make me give up something I love. And if I give up the things I don’t love, you’re doing me a favor.

I vow to fight your battles with you as a team.If you grow weak, I’ll be there to fight your battles for you. .

I vow never to abandon you.I will never, ever leave you. I will never give up on us and fight tooth and nail just to hold on to you.

I vow to dedicate my life to you and to be there for you until your last breath — or my own.I will be there for you through the best times and the toughest times. Most importantly, I want us to be there for each other when the curtains close.

LOVE: HOW I SEE YOU AND YOU SEE ME

I do not see the woman I am with as the container she comes in. I do not look at her from the outside in or see only the soft little folds in her skin. I do not see her as the vehicle that carries her double D breasts or the head upon which her curly hair rests.I do not see her body as “her.I do not confuse his body for his person.

I see her as an endless supply of compassion and as the music that her voice makes. I see her as warmth in winter and as inspiration and as the definition of unconditional love. I see her as acceptance, as hope, as faith. I see him as her brilliant ideas and her wit and her wild sense of adventure. I see her as an endless sunrise. I see him as her soul.  I see her as the bigger heart that forgives me.. I see her as the kind, smart, wonderful woman everyone told me I should find…before they specified that none of that counts unless she’s beautiful.

I see the woman I’m with as the way she cares for others, as the way she laughs at the innocence of children and small animals and grimaces at liars and cheaters and the way she gathers Christmas presents for the homeless. I see the woman I’m with as my renewed faith in humanity, as the lessons I have learned in love. I see her as the overcoming of obstacles, as the soft water tension that supports our tiny boat in an endless sea. I see her as the unbreakable chain on our bike, as the strong film that protects the inside of a fragile egg, as fireworks and high fives and the fizz of a celebratory champagne bottle. I see her as the heartstrings that pull tight to wrap my hand up in her.

I see her as the encouragement she gives me and the love that she puts out into the world. I do not see her body as the barrier between my heart and her or as the moat that blocks the rest of the world out of the palace in the middle. I see the woman I am with as the love I share with her and as the strength we give each other. I see her as the goodness that she brings out in me. I see him as her character, as the woman she is, as the image her heart and soul portray.

She sees me as a soul, a human mind, who needs a body to hold him to the earth.  She sees me as ideas that need a head to fill and an eternity that needs some time to kill, and she sees me not as a way but as a will.  She sees me as feelings that occupy my physical space and as expressions that manifest themselves in my face. She sees me as a partner and when she looks at me we see what lies behind our eyes. She sees me as myself, as the words I speak and the thoughts I think, as the dreams I chase, as my hopes, and my happiness, and as the fears I face.

Perhaps that is because she and I are the exception, and not the rule, the content rather than the cover, the flawed rather than the flawless. Fortunately for me, I learned to love in spite of flaws and in spite of the world’s bad examples, and that has taught me that my love is not about what other people see.
 All that matters is the way I see her and the way that she sees me