The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

What if you want a boyfriend? You're old enough to be dating, but you're haunted by fears and self-doubts, and you feel like you're self-sabotaging every time you go out. Let's listen to this after-hours call.

I always want a relationship. When I get one, I get haunted by the fears of, what if he doesn't like me? What if he doesn't call back? If he doesn't call, is it something that I did? Am I acting like I like him too much? Am I being too much that he doesn't want? This goes on in my head constantly whenever I meet somebody new and start liking them. Just want to know how to overcome this so that I can begin to have rewarding relationships and not self-sabotage or something like that.

I can remember being at Brown University when I would meet a guy that I liked. That meant I valued him. I wanted to date him. I wanted to get to know him better. I would do a lot of the same things now. Back then, I didn't have a lot of self-confidence. I didn't have the confidence I certainly have now, but at the time it was, will he like me? What can I do to please him? Am I saying the right thing? I was always self-monitoring. Am I okay? What I didn't know to do at the time was not to focus on myself, but to recognize, to first, self-validate, to recognize what I love about myself. So, number one, I would recommend that you do that, that you sit down with paper and pencil and write down everything that you admire about you. What do you value in yourself? Because you need to see that you're worthy of going out there and meeting this guy, of dating him.

Now, if you've chosen way above you, that's a problem. For example, if I chose if I, at the time, was really scattered and didn't know what I wanted for a career, and I meet, oh, Bill Gates, you know, he's got his life put together; he's going to want a woman who's more put together than I was at that time. It doesn't mean I'm a bad woman. We're just at different stages, and you wouldn't be attracted to me, understandably. So if you can write down everything you like about yourself and then pick someone that you think will be a match for you, you'll have a lot more self-confidence around that person.

Then you want to ask yourself a second question.

Hey, I got to 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. 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 @Amazon.com. Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance. That is interesting.

Then you want to ask yourself a second question. Why am I having this response? Why do I always critique myself? Would I do this to my best friend? If my best friend said that she saw a guy that she wanted to date, would I say, oh, what if he doesn't like you? What if he doesn't call back? What if he doesn't look at you again because it's something you did? Are you acting like you like him too much? I don't think you do that to your best friend, so this is called the best friend technique. If you wouldn't do that to your best friend, don't have a double standard. Don't do that to yourself, but you wouldn't do that to your best friend. Treat yourself as your own best friend. But you do want to try to figure out why you're having that response.

Maybe your parents divorced, and you feel like dad left mom because she wasn't good enough. Maybe it was true; maybe it was not true, but maybe you've told yourself, oh, the only way to keep a guy is to try to please them. Well, if you do that, that's a recipe for a divorce or a very unhappy marriage because you need to be able to please yourself in a relationship too. So you want to look at any of those historical factors, your parents' relationship or bad relationships that you were in, to figure out what conclusions you might have drawn that are sabotaging you and leading you to sabotage yourself.

Now the third point would be to make yourself lovable. So the first is, what do you love about you? The second is to look for any historical factors, you know, your parents' divorce or previous relationships. The next is, make sure you make yourself lovable, that you have an interesting life, that you enjoy living with yourself. If you don't, that doesn't mean you can't date now, but be a work in progress. Work towards making yourself more interesting. Find interesting hobbies. Make sure you've got good character. If you lie, that will haunt you. You'll hear that you're haunted by your fears that will certainly haunt you because if you lie, you'll picture—you'll hope other people lie too because you don't want to feel like the only one that's lying. And you'll also be terrified that they lie, and you'll be terrified to face that fact in yourself. So if you've got some really bad character traits, work on improving them.

The last point I want to give you—there are many I could give you—but the last I want to give you is that you need to train yourself to focus externally. I mean, it's good to self-monitor at times, but there are other times when you're dating when you want to judge him. What do you love about him? If you're attracted to him, is it his looks? Is it his tone of voice? Is it something superficial, just the color of his hair, or is it his character, the way he comes at life, his good sense of humor, his courteousness, his interest in you? If you went to pick out a dress for yourself, you wouldn't be saying, well, does the dress like me? Does the dress think I'm nice? You would be saying, do I like this dress? Does the color suit me well? Does it look good on me?

Well, the same goes for picking out a guy. You want to say, what values does he bring to the table? Is he honest? Is he productive? Does he love what he does as a career, or is he in the process of finding a good career? Do you share the same interests or hobbies or leisure activities? There's so much to learn about him that if you're sitting there grilling yourself, judging yourself, self-sabotaging—if that's what's going on in your head, it'll backfire. You don't want to do that to yourself. So if you're in this self-doubt puddle or pool, you want to use these tips to get yourself out of it, and I hope that helps.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner. Hi, hon. Hey. Are you going out tonight? Yeah, I'm going to a club. Oh, will there be boys there? No, Mom, it's a nun club. Well, just be careful. I will.

And that's from Buffy. It's really tough being a mom of a teenager. It's really tough because you're not making the choices anymore. When they were two, three, and four years old, you made all the choices: you know what friends they got together with, what they wore during the day, what they ate. But when your kids become teenagers, you have to let go. And sometimes your kids make bad decisions. Sometimes they make wonderful decisions. Sometimes they're so-so, but you have to rely on your kids' judgment.

One of the biggest fears that we have—my teenagers are already grown up—but one of the biggest fears that I can remember having was pregnancy or something going wrong with sex, with kids, maybe having sex prematurely, in a way that your child isn't ready for it, or just being harmed, or just psychologically damaged, or raped. Who knows? They're going to a club; there's alcohol, guys. And if you're a parent of a son too, that doesn't get you off the hook. You're worried that your son may do something, that the hormones may be flowing too much.

Oh, trust me, when guys are young, that's the furthest thing from their mind. Yeah, he dated a lot. Both of us dated a lot. So our parents were very good with us. They let go, and we made very good decisions. However, it is a very difficult period for—

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, 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 and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke, who's world-famous for his theories in goal setting. Sharing information and problems, including fears, is another important part of communication. Honey, I worry sometimes that my business will fail, and I'll leave you and the kids with nothing. This underscores a key issue that comes up in many marriages: finances.

In the past, men typically took charge of finances and didn't want their wives to worry about them, leaving their wives in the financial dark. This traditional view is not necessarily based on bad motives on the man's part. It may stem from his protective attitude toward his wife.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com.