The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com.

Jeff, you're having difficulty with a girlfriend or not knowing quite how to tell her something?

Yes.

Yeah, tell me what's going on.

Long story short, I haven't had a relationship in a few years, and a couple of years ago I was diagnosed with Peyronie's disease. Are you aware of what that is?

That's a bend in a place where there shouldn't be a bend?

Yes, okay.

You wish there wasn’t, okay.

So my question was, you know, I started dating a lady, and how do you go about telling that? Or do you wait until you know, you kind of get, you know, feelings for each other more, or start to get intimate, or, you know, I don't wanna—

Yeah, no, it’s always awkward. I mean, what? What would happen if you had a colostomy? You know what that is? It's a bag on the front. You can't go to the bathroom the regular way anymore, but you have a bag on the front. How do you tell a partner that you're attracted to that you have a colostomy bag? You know, that’s difficult. In your situation, the only difficulty is the angle. There's nothing—it's not something that will spread, right? It's not contagious, obviously. It's just a mechanical bending in the wrong direction, correct? So it may, if she values you and really cares for you, what do you think she might say?

I don’t know. Like I said, you know, we just had started, you know, dating, yeah, without one actual date. And I thought I was wondering if I should approach this now or do you wait until there are feelings?

I would wait until there are feelings because why give anybody very private information about yourself? I mean, what if one woman's—what if one woman's boob was bigger than the other, you know, when she wants to tell the boyfriend, does she need to do it on the first date? Right? And what would happen if you were partway through the relationship and you hadn't become intimate and that comes out? What would you think?

Well, that’s kind of what I was afraid of—is if you bring something out like that now, then they're probably gonna run the other way.

If they don’t know you yet, that would be the case. So you're in—there's a delicate balancing act. If it's your first or second or third date and you're liking the person, there's no need to tell them anything very private because if you break up, you may not want something private blasted, you know, out there in the internet world if she, you know, talks about it to somebody. You don't know their character, and it is your life, it is your body, it is your privacy. If you are getting more serious with her and you feel like it's going to become intimate, then at that point, you can say, "I want to share something with you." And then you can just, you know, lay it out there matter-of-factly but without overdoing it, without making it sound like it's a terrible thing and she’ll leave you, okay? You know, just, it's more of, let me just see if I could say it, you know, "I want to share—I am feeling so close to you, and you just feel like it’s going further, and I want to share something with you that’s a little awkward for me to say. Tell me when's a good time to share that with you?" You know, you obviously want to be in a private place. And she’ll probably say, "You know, now is as good a time as any," because people are curious. They're not going to want to wait forever, you know. And you can say, "You know, I have Peyronie's disease, and—" Why do they call it a disease? I don’t—rather than just a little bend.

Yeah, I don't know, but that’s—I don’t know, I can't answer that.

Right? Because I would look it up. If you could just say, "I have Peyronie's," I would take the word "disease" out. Otherwise, it’s, you know, "I'm running for my Kleenex." If you say disease, you know, "I don’t want to catch it." So, and obviously she can't catch it, so I would, I would maybe describe it in very simple terms, like this, like I did when you first asked me if I knew what it was, you know, "Just a little bend, and everything works fine." I'm assuming everything works fine.

Yeah, you know, you can just say, "Everything works fine. It's just an odd little bend, and everything else is fine." And she may say, "Big deal." And she might tell you, "You know, I have a big mole on my back." You know, she might share something with you that she's embarrassed about. Because, you know, almost all of us have what?

Yeah, we all have something.

We all have something. And, I mean, mine, for the longest time, was something that you would see the minute you looked at me. I had very frizzy hair growing up, and I hated it. But what am I going to do? You know, I can straighten it, and then the minute I walk out on a misty day, guess what happens? It frizzes up, and it wasn't a pretty curl. With some people, they have curly hair and it looks adorable on them, or it just looks playful and perky. Mine—my hairdresser even said, "No, you have the bad frizz." Now, thank luckily nowadays you can straighten it. You know, they have all these products, the keratin and whatnot. But, you know, if that's the case, you know, I'm very embarrassed. I go out with a boyfriend looking really good, and then within a half hour, what do I look like? Miss Mop. So I think everybody's got a little bit of insecurity tucked away somewhere. Maybe they were teased about it. And the more comfortable you are with it, and the less you file it in the category of disease, Jeff, the more you just see it as a little oddity, that you know, something a little different, then you won't present it as a big, heavy—it will be more of a matter-of-fact thing. Now you cannot predict somebody’s response, Jeff, her response might be—

I’ve got to interrupt this because we’ve got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that’s it. A very quick ad, and then Ellen will be back. Romance.

I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship. Well, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is, The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com. Huh. The Selfish Path to Romance. That is interesting.

Now you cannot predict somebody's response, Jeff, her response might be, "Oh, you've got to be kidding. You know, I thought you had AIDS," or "I thought you had something else—herpes or something," which, you know, a lot of people do have. But if you present it just matter-of-factly, she may receive it matter-of-factly. If it bothers her enough, then—well, it’s better to know now, right?

Better to know now, right?

But not to give up, because she is one in how many women in the world? Too many to count.

Yeah, too many to count. So I encourage you to enjoy dating again. Why didn't you date for so long? You said you—

Just one of the last ones was kind of bad, and I was right in the middle of remodeling my house, and that just took priority over everything else. I've done that, and just wait until my kids got a little bit older.

Oh, so it was thoughtful. You wanted to heal from that, you wanted to work on the house, and you wanted to wait till the kids were of an age that you felt more at peace with, right?

And then this came up. And then, you know, one of the—of course, my first doctor, my primary doctor, says there’s really nothing you can do about it. And a lot of times they say just kind of a watchful waiting. And yeah, of course, it’s been long enough now that I don’t think it’s—it’s going to correct itself.

Yeah, but look at it as you age too. If guys are dating and they need Viagra or Cialis, you know, they have to mention that, right? So I would just treat it as just a natural part of your body, and you can share it with her matter-of-factly when you feel like you’re getting closer to the intimate period of the relationship, and let her take it from there. You can’t predict the outcome, but be very good to yourself.

Okay, all right. Dr. Kenner, okay, appreciate your time.

Oh, thank you, Jeff, and happy dating.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.

"Come on in and try not to ruin everything by being you."

Maybe we could live without the wisecracks.

And that’s from As Good as It Gets, and that is certainly not as good as it gets. Do you have people in your life treating you like that? Just try not to be you, or they are very sarcastic. Sarcasm is a kind of covert anger. People don't know how to express themselves directly and assertively, such as, "I'm feeling hurt," and so they resort to barbs. They resort to tactics that backfire, tactics that turn the other person's attention not towards reflecting on what that person might have done, but they turn it towards the speaker—the sarcastic person—saying, "Boy, I don’t like that person," or "I want to get them out of my life." And the talk under our breath is not very good when someone’s sarcastic with us. And worse, sometimes we shoot back a sarcastic comment because it does invite that, and it's hard to rise above that and not do that. For more, Dr. Kenner podcast. First go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this ad.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner.

One factor that can help you choose the right partner is both yours and your partner's sense of life. According to Ayn Rand, "Love is a response to values. It is with a person's sense of life that one falls in love—with that essential sum, that fundamental stand or way of facing existence, which is the essence of a personality. One falls in love with the embodiment of the values that form a person's character, which are reflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures, which create the style of his soul, the individual style of a unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable consciousness. It is one's own sense of life that acts as the selector and responds to what it recognizes as one's own basic values in the person of another."

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book at amazon.com.