100 Mandates to True Love

100 Mandates to True Love

Mating maxims from Danville dating expert Jeannine Kaiser.

Freshly divorced in the mid-’90s, Jeannine Kaiser found herself falling in love again—for all the wrong reasons. Rather than live out that soon-to-be-country ballad, she decided to take on a friend’s dare: date 100 men over a year’s time. The idea was not to get into full-fledged relationships, but rather to get to know 100 gents in chats over coffee or a glass of wine—a liquid version of speed dating. The process forced her to address the number one downfall of her dating strategy: not knowing what she really wanted in a man/partner-for-life/guy/dude-who-would-pick-up-her-dry-cleaning. In four months she snagged Mr. Right #2. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, she corralled Kaiser, now a Danville-based certified relationship counselor/life coach and co-author with her husband Keith of Cupid’s Playbook, How to Play the Dating Game to Win (Emerald Book Co., 2010), for pointers on playing for keeps.

PK: What about Valentine’s Day? Do people put too much of an emphasis on that day?

JK: You’re talking to the woman who got married and engaged on Valentine’s Day. We do put a lot of emphasis on having a date or having a relationship on that particular day. The better thing to do as a single person is to have a different perspective, as Valentine’s Day is a day of love. It doesn’t necessarily mean lover, so it’s about who can you show love to in your life on that day. That’s a [better] perspective [than] putting all your energy into the fact that you don’t have a date for that night.

PK: Do you find that some people are just enchanted with the whole courting process and don’t necessarily want to be in any kind of long-term relationship?

JK: Yeah, what you’re describing right there is the addiction to the falling-in-love process. When you hit the part of the relationship which we call the negotiating part, you’re saying, “Well, this works for me but this doesn’t work for me. Can we do this instead?” Some people, when they get to that point, don’t enjoy it anymore because it’s work. They want to go back to that falling-in-love feeling, so they just keep recycling.

PK: Do men have to be taller?

JK: You know what’s really interesting is that we [help define] these relationships with these women. And then they’ll say, “And I need them to be this tall.” I go, “Well, okay, so you want them to be 5 foot 10 or taller; what if you met the perfect guy who was 5 foot 9? Why is that important to you?”

PK: Is your husband taller than you?

JK: He’s just a couple of inches taller. Just a couple. I’m like 5 foot 6 and he’s like 5 foot 8.

PK: Okay. What a lot of women are forgetting about the shorter guy thing is the Napoleonic complex. These guys are going to take over the world, right? Because they’re so ticked off about being short.

JK: That’s a theory.

PK: You can make it work for you. The shorter guy, he’s going to be the CEO. You’re going to be living in the lap of luxury. I know it’s not very popular in this country, but what about the whole concept of arranged marriages?

JK: We have friends that have had arranged marriages, and they have great marriages. It’s not necessarily the best way but it’s one way. We’ve seen successes and we’ve seen failures, but the reality check is it’s kind of right out there with the fifty-fifty success rate. It depends on the culture, too. We won’t see that in the United States, I don’t think, any time soon.

PK: But at the same time, I think that not everybody really enjoys the dating process. What if that is your makeup?

JK: It’s kind of problematic in our culture because that is our culture. And dating is a fairly new thing. Dating didn’t really exist before the 1950s. People met at their church functions and community functions. They were introduced through family and friends. It was a courting process but not a dating process. So really what we’re dealing with right now in our society is something that’s so new. People are kind of going, “Wow, do I really like doing this?” But once the train’s pulled out of the station, there’s not a lot of turning around. People want that romance that we’ve been sold through the movies and television and romance novels.

PK: Yeah, and your tenets: Women should not call men. Women should not ask men out on a date. When dating, the man should pick up the bill. In internet dating, women should not contact men, and no texting. You’re laying down some pretty heavy-duty rules. What’s going on?

JK: There is this biology going on between men and women that we just don’t acknowledge— that reptile in a part of our brain.

PK: The reptilian brain. Yes, that’s why we drive SUVs—because we want to be above the fray.

JK: Exactly. We think that because we have all this logic, we can override that. A lot of times we’re setting ourselves up for failure by not following some of these things that drive the male-female biology in a relationship. The guidelines that we put out have everything to do with following that biology to have greater success. And our clients that are following these guidelines, they’re finding the right relationships. If they desire to be married, they’re getting married.

PK: You could sum them all up by saying women should not really make the first move. Why not?

JK: We always get misunderstood when we say this. It is perfectly okay for a woman to get a guy to recognize her, talk to the guy, to let him know that she’s interested. What we don’t recommend is that she do the asking out or moving it forward. As soon as she’s done that, she’s moved into the male role. They’ve done research on relationships that are initiated by women and they all have a five percent success rate. So why go with something that has a 95 percent chance of failing? If the guy’s interested in you, he will either take the initiative or he won’t. They’re either attracted or they’re not.

PK: Physically.

JK: Yes, physically attracted. A woman can fall for a man that she may not be physically attracted to right out of the gate but [she] sees these great qualities of him as a person and as a man and that makes [her] have a stronger connection with him. Men, not so much.

PK: Bill Gates isn’t really that great-looking a guy.

JK: Women are really interesting regarding what they’re attracted to, yes.

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Suggestions? Please email Kilduff at thekildufffile@themonthly.com.
See more of what he is up to at http://thekilduff-file.blogspot.com.


Vince Stone Vital Stats

Age: 50 Astrological sign: Taurus

Birthplace: Orange, CA

First job: Waitress in an ice cream parlor

Planet I’d emigrate to: Mars, of course. That’s where the men are. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.

Website: yourdatingiq.com

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