The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr kenner.com, and@amazon.com you ever think about getting remarried? My wife's dead. Hence the word remarried. She's dead. Yeah. Well, I think that's a super philosophy. Sean, I mean, that way you could actually go through the rest of your life without ever really knowing anybody.

What do you do when you want to go back into the dating world? You've been single for a while, and you're newly divorced, and somehow you feel like you're damaged goods. You're just not worth it. With me today to discuss this is an expert, Dr Don Kiefer, and he's a clinical psychologist. He's a department chair at New England Institute of Technology, and he works at Rhode Island Hospital, and he's had his own matchmaking service. And he also gives a series of adult educational workshops, becoming your own dating coach. And welcome to the show, doctor, Dr Kiefer, thanks so good to have you on today.

What do you do? What if I were someone coming to you and saying, I would love you to be my coach, and I would love to be my own coach, but I just, you know, I just, I can't get motivated. I'm so depressed. I'm so anxious about even thinking about dating. And where do I go from here?

Well, the first thing I would do is I would really work with them about their readiness for dating like, you know, both in terms of their attitude and a lot of other things around how they're feeling about themselves,

okay, in terms of what? So if I said, Well, I just, I just am anxious about going out dating. I guess I like myself, but I don't know. I just, you know, I've had such bad luck has been rejection after rejection, and I can't put myself through that again.

Well, I would really probably probe a little bit further, and I would ask, and I've asked myself, you know, when you say, I like myself, and I would want to know more about that, because how you put yourself out there, like how you're feeling about yourself, is really what people pick up on. And there's a whole range of elements around that, in terms of not just your appearance, you know, are you happy with your work? Are you happy with where you live? You know, are you happy where you are at in your stage of life, all of those things. And I, I sort of go get people to think about the concept of charisma, because that really, that really says it all like, do people feel they have a charisma, something that that special sense that that draws people to them.

You know, I sometimes feel I do. I'll go back into role play. I sometimes feel I do, but only when I get to know a person well. So there's a huge barrier when I think about dating, oh, I've got to put myself on the line, and I've got to please all of these different men, and it's just, I don't want to go through it again.

Yeah, yeah, I understand well that, you know, has to do with what you're really what your approach is, you know, like, there's a lot of different ways that you can approach it. And so it really would depend on, you know, what have you tried before? You know, how bad are those experiences? And that's another thing I get into with people, is like, what kind of quote baggage do they have? Are they carrying with them into this next effort? Is it so much baggage that they're bound to sabotage themselves? And so I'll get into that without what type of baggage might a person present?

Well, it could be specifically like, you know, a past miserable rejection that they experienced. It could be something where they allowed a relationship to drag on for a really long time, where they, in the end, finally, were the person that did the rejecting, but they just because they felt like it wasn't going anywhere. And then they feel like, Oh, is there ever going to be anybody else like that? And those, those kinds of things. So you So you walk through, like, what kind of scripts are going through their head in terms of, you know, what are they carrying with them into that sort of, that next first date, kind of,

really, to get to the self talk. What are you saying to yourself as you're about to head out on a date, exactly, and if they're saying to themselves, Oh, this should be fun. What an adventure. I can learn from this. And if I don't like him, or if I don't like her, I'll try someone else, and I'll learn from the experience

that is so key. It's so hard for people to do that, but really, if you step back and look at it, I mean, it's an opportunity to get to know another person in the world, someone that you would not have had an opportunity to know otherwise, you know. And that's that's a great mindset, to go into it with the right attitude, like it's an adventure, and if you keep it short and sweet, which is something else I recommend, especially for the first date, then it's not so it's no big loss. It's not so painful.

You said something fascinating at the workshop, that the goal of the first date is what,

Hey, I gotta interrupt this, because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. I. Where's that ad I saw here? It is the selfish path to romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfish romance.com and buy it@amazon.com hmm, the selfish path to romance. That is interesting. You said something fascinating at the workshop, that the goal of the first date is what to get to the second love.

That when you say that is great, because what is that, too, if I think that the first date is the make or break it, then what was your point with that? That the real goal of the first date is to get to the second date. Because the first date is a real basic screening mechanism. That's it, because there's so much anxiety, there's so much expectation built up that the two people there are not projecting who they really, really are. It's really, there's so much nervousness. It's not, it's not worth it to use that as the actual evaluation mechanism. Is this person, right? For me, the main purpose of the first date is a real basic screening, you know, Is this person a potential workable companion for me, period, you know, like, is there something really grossly wrong with the match here? There's no way I could possibly tolerate being with that person. And if you can't answer that question, then it's like, Okay, let's keep this nice and short, and let's move on to the next date.

Right? So it's your screening process, and you can keep the date short. Deliberately keep it shut. Don't make a full day event or a weekend event with

I recommend people. I mean, if you'd like, if your personal works a typical Monday through Friday, nine to five, I recommend people not do a full meal, not to lunch, not to dinner, just like, you know, a cup of coffee out somewhere in the public, you know, like on a week night, where you can always have the opportunity to say, you know, I got to get to work the next, you know, the next day. And so it's a nice, legitimate excuse to make it particularly short if it's not going well, and just to keep it relatively short, just as I said, for the purposes of not making it such a big production.

Okay, so the mindset is what we're talking about that central if you go into it thinking, Oh, I wonder if he or she will like me, and I wonder if bring I don't want to go into another bad relationship again, and it's it's not worth the effort. And if it will happen, it will happen that type of a mindset is sabotaging to the person Absolutely. Whereas if what would you say the good mindset is, what?

Well, is it? The one that you mentioned before is that this is, this is an adventure. It's an opportunity to get to know somebody. It's, it's, I'm actually doing something. I'm not just sitting in my house waiting for something to happen to me. Because when you take action, and this is true of anything that you're facing, any any accomplishment that you would like to have happen in your life. It takes work and it takes action, and action equals hope, and that's a great attitude, like you can say to yourself, at least I'm doing something about my situation. Okay?

And there is some such. There are some people that will have a more difficult to find time finding a partner, such as somebody, a woman who's in her 60s or something absolutely and that's a reality that that person, I think you underscored this in the talk that I heard. They have to accept that they do. And you just go do a little extra legwork on that, you know, just do a little extra put in some more effort. I didn't mean that as a pawn right, to put in some more effort there and and so that's very helpful advice.

And those are the people that I particularly focus on. The strategy of the main goal of this sort of effort should be to to expand their social network, you know, not necessarily to go to like a singles dance per se, you know, or to go to a dating service. I don't think folks who are in those more challenged areas, and clearly women in their 60s are one of the tougher groups. But for those people, I really work with them on expand your activities, which will then expand your social network, which will then expand the potential for connecting with people that may then get you hooked up with other people.

And I would like to continue this, and not the time with you and talking about, how, where do you find people with me today? Thank you so much. Dr Don Kiefer, you're welcome, who's a clinical psychologist in Rhode Island, and he teaches a workshop becoming your own dating coach, which, and I think you said you're not currently doing it, but you also teach at the school and at Rhode Island Hospital. Thank you so much for joining us today.

You're welcome for more Dr Kenner podcast, go to Dr kenner.com and please listen to this that. Here's an excerpt from the selfish path to romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr Ellen Kenner and co author Dr Edwin Locke, who's world famous for his theories in goal setting.

All emotions have causes, including love. Love, whether mistaken, genuine or in the process of developing, is a response to subconscious estimates we make about the other person, estimates we can become aware of consciously by introspection. This gives us a wealth of information. That can be used to make good decisions. It is critically important to know what you are responding to when you feel love for someone or have doubts about someone. Does analyzing our emotions take the mystery out of love and thereby ruining it? No, just the opposite.

You can download chapter one for free by going to Dr kenner.com and you can buy the selfish path to romance@amazon.com