How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man 6 page

.changes all his phone numbers so that none of his old flames can contact him anymore.

.allows you to help pick out his wardrobe.

.man who wears matching outfits is totally committed because he has lostfriends’ respect.

.gives you a nickname he can’t allow his friends to hear, like Schmoogles. Trust me, he knows full well that as soon as his friends hear that, they’ll know he’s sprung and, though it’s your nickname, that’s what they’ll calltime they see him.

.puts making you happy in front of his own happiness.

.’s seen you without your hair styled and no makeup and still keeps calling.

.’s met your entire family and is still willing to attend the family reunion.

.knows your kids are crazy and ill-mannered but loves you anyway.

.’s seen your mother in action and still thinks you can make it as a couple.

.allows you to meetfamily, realizing this could change everything.Ladies Only…, the Breakup Is a Blessingknow it’s hard when you leave someone you’ve loved; it’s painful, emotional, and leaves a mark on your heart that feels like an open wound. But there’s a blessing in the storm, I promise you. You just have to recognize it and claim it for yourself. All too often, women stay in relationships because they’ve got some serious time invested, even though there is constant fighting, you’ve got very little in common, and you’ve grown in different directions. I know people who are married who don’t even like each other, but still, they hang on. I ask, what are you hanging on to? Know that if you just let go, the chances are that you’ll wake up in peace. The arguing will be gone. So will the fighting. You’ll get to do what you want to do without having to cater to a man who doesn’t appreciate what you’re doing. First, though, you have to remember what you’re breaking up from: if you’ve been cheated on, lied to, abused, left to spend all your time alone, forced to constantly question his whereabouts, then you’re not leaving much. Let go of it and claim your blessing. You may be hurt, alone, and scared of getting back into the dating game, but this is the alone time you need to better position yourself for what the Creator has in mind for you. What He has in mind for you may be just waiting for you to be free and available. The blessing is that you can reinvent yourself-be who you want to be instead of who you had to be in order to make that past relationship work. I can truly attest to the blessings that come when you become open to change. If I had focused on trying to get into acting, I can assure you I wouldn’t have the success I have today. If I just did stand-up, I would have never gotten the Steve Harvey Show. If I stayed on the show, I would have never gotten on the radio. If I had focused on radio, I never would have written the book. If I’d never written the book, I never would have gotten the international acclaim that comes from my book-buying audience. I’m constantly reinventing myself, and you shouldn’t be afraid to reinvent yourself. If you’re getting out of a toxic relationship, the blessing is that he can’t throw you down the steps anymore; if you’re getting out of a relationship in which your man was unfaithful, the blessing is that you don’t have to sit and wonder and worry about who he’s with at night. If you’re getting out of a relationship in which your kids saw you arguing and fighting and mad all the time, the blessing is that the kids don’t have to witness you feeling sad and depressed anymore-they can see you happy again. Look at the positives and “do you.” Get back to the hobbies you liked doing before you got with him. Go out with your girls like you used to before your relationship took precedence. Spend some time getting really clear about what, exactly, it is you want for yourself before you get into another relationship. And when the new you emerges, you’ll be a better you. And the better you attracts what? A better man. And both of these are a blessing.

Men the Right Questions to Get the Real Answersadmit it-simple as we men claim to be, we can be tricky creatures, especially when it comes to women. We are the masters of the okey-doke and will dole out affection in drips and drops and use them as emotional placeholders until we decide in our own minds whether we really want to be with you or we want to move on to the next conquest. We’ll send the sweet text message to get you swooning, but then go for days without calling. We’ll spend the whole of a month wining and dining you and making you feel like there’s some amazing chemistry between us, but then clam up when it comes time to explain what, exactly, our intentions are concerning the relationship. We do this because we can. We can because all too many women let us. All too many women let us because they’re afraid of the alternative-having to start all over again with a new man, or having no man at all.wrote both in Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man and in Chapter 5 (“The Standoff”) of this book that women truly interested in finding the right guy have to get over the fear of losing one, because the moment you lose that fear is the moment guys lose their power over you. A man will disrespect you, put in minimal effort, and hold out on commitment if he thinks he can get away with it, so your job is to not let him get away with it. But this requires heading off the foolishness at the beginning-before a man gets his hooks in you-so that you can make clear-eyed decisions, devoid of emotion, about whether to continue pursuing a relationship with him. So much can be found out about a guy before you get in too deep-if you take the time to ask the right questions. I’m not referring here to the five general questions every woman should ask a man when she’s getting to know him (see the glossary), though asking those questions, as explained in the first book, will help you figure out what a potential mate wants out of life and what he wants out of a relationship with you; learning how to probe his answers will help you get to the very essence of who this man is and whether he has what you’re looking for in a long-lasting relationship.do this successfully, though, you’ll have to wrap your head around and understand one basic thing about us men: no matter the question, we will always give you the answer that will make us look the best.and simple.’m willing to wager that in the history of your relationships, you’ve never had a man introduce himself and share with you all his baggage and all his bad habits in the first several dates. You’re an adult; you know full well everyone comes with a history-everyone comes with a backstory and flaws. Yet if every man’s story was as good as the story he reveals about himself, you would have found your Prince Charming by now. Why aren’t you with the perfect man? Why? Because no one is that good.that you long to be needed and wanted, however, men prey on those vulnerabilities; we manipulate our answers and the impressions we make so that we appear to be the man who can fulfill all those needs and wants-we sell the Happily Ever After. Tell a guy you’re looking for a man who is capable of commitment, and if he’s truly interested in you, he’ll have no problem telling you he wants exclusivity too. What he’s not going to offer up is that his last relationship didn’t work out because he cheated. Tell a man you’d like to be in a relationship with a guy who is good with kids, and he’s going to regale you with proud stories about how much he loves his nieces and nephews. But he’s probably going to keep to himself the information about his wicked baby mama drama, or the fact that he doesn’t see his kids but once every other month. And I promise you, you’re not going to hear on your first date about a man’s bad credit, his house foreclosure, or that he lived with his mother until five weeks ago; instead, this guy is going to go out of his way to show you his nice watch, his slick suit, and the nice car he barely held on to during his own personal economic crisis.do this because we think that if we release this information too early, we won’t get the catch-you. You have to remember that at the base of it, we’re no different from, say, a peacock with a plume of colorful feathers, or a lion with a huge, bushy, fiery orange mane: just like a male peacock spreading those feathers or a male lion standing tall among his pride to attract their female counterparts, men flash things like their money, their cars, their clothes, their watches, and their job titles to impress women. The presentation is critical to us-it’s all part of the bait we throw in the water to capture the fish; we just want you to bite on the hook. A man knows he’s not hooking any woman with stories about how broke he is or how he doesn’t have any power at his job or how his ex-wife comes around the house every Thursday to scrawl “He’s completely unreliable” in red chalk across the garage doors. He’s wrapping himself in all the pretty packaging so you’ll buy into him.on, admit it: women tend to ask men two questions, tops, before they make the decision about whether a man might just be the one for them. Knowing this, we’ll answer the first question in a way that’ll make us come out smelling like a rose. Ask a follow-up question for a little clarification, and we’ll find an even slicker way to tell you what you want to hear. And once a man tells you what makes him sound the best, you hear what you want to hear and, instead of asking more questions and getting to the truth of the matter, you form your own truth. You get so enamored by his buzzwords-I want to be committed, I love kids, I’m a hard worker, I love to cook, I’m into the arts-that you skip asking more questions and immediately start saying to yourself, “It’s him! It’s him! Oh, thank you Lord, I found him!” You take the good parts-the answers to the first two levels of questioning-bundle up those words and internalize them, then use them to justify falling in love with who you think is the “ideal” man, never considering-often, until it’s too late-that had you probed a little deeper you would have gotten closer to who he really is.don’t dig deeper because you’re scared that if the questions run too deep, he will run off and you will lose out on a good one. He doesn’t tell the whole truth because he’s scared he might not appeal to you. Everybody is just scared now. Scared and avoiding the whole truth.’t buy into the fairy tale. Sure, men would serve themselves well if they provided the relevant information up front; not only would it clear men from ever being accused of lying-a charge that adds a lot more tollbooths on the road to solid relationships-but certainly it would give the women we truly want to build relationships with more insight into who we really are. All too often, we men prevent the relationship from growing because we create an element of distrust early on, by withholding vital information that gives women that which they need to make sound decisions for themselves. When a woman gets blindsided with information she thinks should have been disclosed up front, she questions everything-no matter a man’s intentions.should men offer all the information up front? Of course we should. It’s only fair. But we won’t volunteer it because telling the whole truth not only makes us look lesser in your eyes, but it also takes the “chase and capture” out of our hands and puts the future of the relationship squarely into yours. A man’s candidness early on gives you the chance to truly understand how, for example, past relationships might affect your future together; the opportunity to process the information; and the ability to decide for yourself if you can handle the baggage that comes with all the good he’s already told you about. Sure, there are some men who will lay out all the dirty laundry up front for you to see. But this is rare. Very rare. So the onus of getting down to the truth is, unfortunately, on you.you get to the truth by digging deeper.’t you tired of being the victim? Tired of getting played? Tired of thinking you got somebody and then finding out he’s not all he made himself out to be? Stop giving up the cookie before you have all the information, and instead get the information and then decide if it’s in your best interest to share yourself with him.this will take no more than three questions, I promise you. It hardly ever changes with us:No. 1get you the answer that makes us look best.No. 2get you the answer that we think you want to hear.No. 3introduce you to the truth.have no other choice but to tell the truth after that; our liar bench isn’t deep enough to go up against your intuition, especially when you start probing us in that slick way only women can pull off. Witness:NO. 1: Why did your last relationship break up?Answer That Makes Him Look Best:, I was trying to be all I could be-I was working hard, trying to provide for her, and she didn’t understand my work ethic and she just couldn’t take it anymore.Breakdown:answer makes him seem like he’s a hard worker, committed to building toward the future. It also plays into a woman’s natural instincts to be nurturing-makes you say to yourself, “I would never leave a man who’s trying his best-I’d focus on supporting him.”NO. 2: If she were more supportive, would you have stayed in the relationship?Answer That You Want to Hear:. I want to be committed. I want to be with somebody who understands me and wants to be with me and understands what I’m about. I’m looking for that type of woman who wants to be committed and supportive of her man.Breakdown:’s telling you what you want to hear-that he’s a man who is committed and looking for a long-term relationship and willing to do what is necessary to take care of you. He knows those are all the buzzwords that get you hooked, and now he’ll sit back and let you fill in all the blanks-imagine him walking out of the house in the morning, briefcase in hand, going to work hard for you and the family, then coming home and holding and caressing you in his strong arms until you fall asleep. Of course, he didn’t say any of that other stuff; he just said what you wanted to hear. Don’t fall for the okey-doke. Get to the bottom of it with this…NO. 3: Well, if you were supportive, you were looking for loyalty, and you’re a hard worker and a good provider, how could the relationship break up? What happened that she said, “I can’t do this anymore”?Truth:, I was looking for that support because I couldn’t find it at home, and I met someone who was more supportive and loyal.Breakdown:only thing left for him to do was to admit that it was infidelity, rather than a nonsupportive woman, that led to his breakup. Of course, there are nuances to why he ended up cheating, but the fact is that the relationship ultimately ended because he was being unfaithful-he broke the cardinal rule. Now you know he’s a hardworking guy who requires support and loyalty to be in a relationship, but you also know that he’s capable of cheating if he feels like he’s not getting what he needs out of the relationship.’s another example.coached a listener on my radio show, the Steve Harvey Morning Show, to dig deeper into her questions with her man when she wrote that she suspected he wasn’t quite the father he made himself out to be. “He says he’s a great father,” she wrote, “and speaks highly of both his son and his daughter…”NO.1: How’s your relationship with your children?Answer That Makes Him Look Best:’s great. When we’re together, it’s nothing short of magical. My son is just like me-athletic and strong. And my daughter is smart and so beautiful. They’re amazing kids.Breakdown:answer makes him seem like he’s a fantastic dad, committed to his children and putting in work to mold them into good human beings. It plays into your natural desire for a man who will faithfully and happily participate in the rearing of the family you hope to have someday.NO. 2: How is your relationship with their mother?Answer That You Want to Hear:’s cool. We do what we can to get along for the sake of the kids. She doesn’t make it easy, but my kids are worth it.Breakdown:’s telling you what you want to hear-painting a picture of himself as the good guy in a relationship gone bad and the man who is willing to endure suffering and strife if it means he’ll get to be with his kids. Now, he’s looking like a superhero in your eyes because there is nothing sexier to a woman than a man who will bend steel and leap tall buildings to get to his children. You start imagining him rubbing your pregnant belly and reading to your babies and standing over the grill cooking up a home-cooked meal for the entire family while you stand by, looking on admirably at your magnificent catch of a man. What you missed was that he said his ex doesn’t make it easy for him to see his kids, and that he sees them when he can, not necessarily on a regular basis, and certainly not in the most pleasant of circumstances. Get to the bottom of it with this…NO. 3: If you and their mother don’t really get along, how does that hinder your relationship with your kids?Truth:, because she and I don’t really get along, it’s hard for me to see them as much. I see them maybe once a month and talk to them occasionally on the phone. But there’s some distance there because of the drama with my ex.Breakdown:only thing left for him to do was to admit that he’s got some baby mama drama that keeps him from being the superdaddy he originally made himself out to be. The mother of his children may have good reason for cutting back on his time with his kids, or she could be a lunatic; in either case, you’d have some issues to deal with if you got into a relationship with this man-namely a potentially dramatic and volatile relationship with his ex, and some real inadequacies he may have as a father.to the bottom of that information allows you to make an informed decision about whether you want to start something with this guy. It’s not hard-women are inquisitive by nature. You and your girlfriends ask these same questions when you recount your dates for each other anyway. You and your girls get to the bottom of things quickly. Do the same with him. Put aside all the romantic notions and approach this thing with eyes wide open and a clear mind.wife, Marjorie, played this really well when we started dating again. Of course, she was already privy to my shenanigans; I’m a public figure so there was already a lot of bad stuff about me out there-all she had to do was a simple Google search and everything she ever wanted to know about me, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the lies, was right there at her fingertips. I came in the door with publicized relationships gone bad. My advantage was that Marjorie already knew the real me; we’d been friends for twenty years and dated a few times by the time we got back together, so she knew there was some good there. A lot of good. But to figure out if I was truly ready to share that good with her, Marjorie knew I was going to have to add up some things for her. First, she asked why my first two marriages didn’t work. I had a pat explanation at the ready:

“I was on the road touring and it kept me away from home a lot,” I said simply. “The separation just grew and kept us apart and I wasn’t there enough. I was working and trying to make it for us, but bringing home a check wasn’t enough.”veiled attempt to end this line of questioning by telling Marjorie I was committed and hardworking was no match for her; she kept the questions coming. “But what specifically made you decide those marriages weren’t for you? Is it that marriage isn’t for you?”brought my A-game on that one-told her what I thought she wanted to hear. “Well, I’m a romantic and I love the idea of being married. I want a committed relationship, I want a family, and that hasn’t changed just because the first two marriages didn’t work out. I have a lot, but I really want someone to share it with-a woman who can be loyal to me, who will support me while I’m out doing what I have to do to take care of our family, a woman who wants to share all the blessings in my life.” I gave her details about how it all went down-about how my first marriage ended after I went away to become a comedian, and some of the problems that grew from my second marriage too., I thought I’d made it through-that I’d said what it took to get Marjorie hooked on the idea of being with me. But she just wouldn’t let it go; she needed more from me-not because she was trying to give me a hard time, but because she really needed to make sure that her heart was protected. See, she’d already been through two marriages that didn’t work, and she was in a good place-raising her kids, working hard, and really secure in knowing what she needed out of her next relationship. She’d made very clear that she didn’t need to be in a relationship to be happy-that being alone was okay. But if she was going to get into another relationship, she needed to make sure that not only was she ready for it, but that any future mate was ready too. So a few days after our initial discussions, Marjorie pitched the third question: “I get that when you started telling jokes things weren’t the same, but why did you just go away? Help me understand this thing.”’d already told her what made me look best (I’m a hard worker), and in the second conversation, I told her what I thought she wanted to hear (I’m a romantic looking for a partner with which to share this journey). But in response to this third question? There wasn’t any more carpet and cushioning I could put on the floors, no curtains I could use to dress up the windows, no faux finishes I could throw up on the walls to make me look better. I’d run out of ways to decorate the truth, and it was clear to me that she wasn’t going to stop with the questions until she got the truth, so the truth was what I had to give her. And when I opened up to her, I revealed to Marjorie that the truth was that I was too young to get married the first time-that I should never have been anybody’s husband at twenty-four. I didn’t have it together in any way and really, the shortcomings in our relationship were mine-I was to blame, not my ex. All I could do in that first marriage was protect my wife and profess my love for her, but I simply wasn’t capable of providing for her in any meaningful way. Not only couldn’t I provide, I didn’t even have a plan for providing. I knew from age nine that I wanted to be on television, but I wasn’t doing anything useful to make that happen; I’d gone to college and gotten kicked out, and while I was working at the Ford Motor Company, I dreamed about being a star but had no real, tangible way of becoming one. “If my ex didn’t believe in my future, I couldn’t say I even saw it for myself,” I told Marjorie. “Still, I resented her and anyone else who didn’t support my vision. So really, I couldn’t stick around for that.”went on to tell her about how by the time I got married the second time, my career was in bloom and that I started enjoying the fruits of my labor in ways that were destructive to my relationship. Regardless of the reasons why I did that, when I was forced to really dig deep into what went awry, I always came to the same conclusion: my actions were wrong; I wasn’t conducting myself in a way that was conducive to a successful marriage.probing, Marjorie really got to the truth with me. Admitting that I was resentful, didn’t have a plan, and walked out on my first wife because I didn’t have my act together didn’t make me look like a good guy, by any stretch. Admitting to cheating on my second definitely wasn’t going to make my case any easier. But it was the truth, and that truth gave Marjorie the chance to really come to terms with what she was signing up for, and, honestly, made me dig deeper into how my own personal shortcomings needed to be checked if I was going to make a marriage with Marjorie work.that conversation, Marjorie looked at me more closely and watched my actions and acknowledged that I was different now-that I was doing what it took to make our relationship work. When I was on the road, I would send for her every chance I could, she knew she could call the apartment anytime and I’d answer the phone, and if she was with me, I wasn’t sleeping with my cell phone duct taped to my thigh so that she couldn’t keep an eye on who was calling and texting me. She saw a man who was shedding the baggage and ready for real love, and she liked what she saw. And it wasn’t long before she was saying, “I want you. You’re the man for me.”she had to come to that on her own, after gathering her information, evaluating it, and coming to some conclusions about what she would and would not tolerate. She didn’t go about it in any nasty, mean way; she simply asked the right questions and kept digging until she got to the treasure-the truth.that you can do this, too, and that you’re going to have to be just as smooth and persistent about it. You can’t grill this guy like you’re Bill Duke in that scene from Menace II Society, where the main character is sitting under the bright light in the interrogation room, sweating and stuttering while Bill stares at him with those piercing eyes and announces, “You know you effed up, don’t you?” every time his suspect opened his mouth. No guy is going to willingly stick around for the lie detector test and the military-styled interrogation tactics.we will do, though, is answer truthfully over a period of time. Asking those questions during the ninety-day period I told you about in Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man will give you plenty of time to learn the truth. If you really want to get to the bottom of it all, tell a guy, “I’m just looking for honesty-it really turns me on when a man tells the truth,” and he’s going to pull out all the stops because the mere promise of an eventual romp in the hay with you is like truth serum to a man: “Did you say the truth turns you on? Oh! Okay! So I was with these midgets, right? And we pulled out these monkeys…”, maybe he won’t tell you all about the midgets and the monkeys. But he will be more willing to give you the truth if you’re willing to put in the work it takes to get to it.

’t Let Your “Off” Day Be Her “On” Daymoves men more than your graceful curves, the softness of your skin, the shape of your eyes, and the pout of your lips-the way your calves look in a sexy heel, and the way you sway and glide across a room, everything on your body moving in a perfect, deliciously beautiful symphony. These things drive us crazy. It is, absolutely, the first thing we will notice about you-every single time.don’t care about where you work.don’t give a damn about how much money you make.don’t care if you can actually string a whole sentence together, really-at least not when we’re deciding if we’re going to get your attention. (When it comes to picking a partner to have children with, we tend to get a bit pickier.)a man is concerned about when he first sees a woman is how she looks, how she’s dressed, and what she’ll look like on our arm when we’re strolling along. To us, these considerations say the following things about you:CARE ABOUT YOURSELFyour skin is a wreck, your fingernails are raggedy, your feet look like you’ve been running marathons barefoot, your hairdresser doesn’t even know your name anymore, much less style your hair, and your closet looks like it came straight from wardrobe on the set of an ’80s sitcom. What does that say about you? Nothing nice, I’ll tell you that much. To a man-hell, to anyone looking-it practically screams, “My face, my body, and my clothes are nothing special-completely unworthy of anyone’s time and attention, even my own.” However, a woman who clearly looks like she takes the time to care for her self-gets facials and manicures (or, if she can’t afford to go to the spa, creates her own spa at home), applies makeup in a way that is natural and appealing, wears a hairstyle that is flattering and clothes and shoes that are stylish-makes a statement, “I really like me, and you should know by looking at me that I do.” Men appreciate women who value themselves, because it generally means that those women are happy with who they are and place a premium on their self-worth. We don’t mind telling you you’re beautiful, for sure. But if we’re going to be in a relationship with you, we don’t want to have to be responsible for you liking you. That’s way too much work for any one man to assume, and rather than imagine ourselves doing all that heavy lifting, we’ll just move on to the woman who looks like she can handle caring for and about herself on her own.CARE ABOUT HOW YOU LOOK IN A MAN’S EYES you are the woman at the club in the dress that’s a little too tight, the top that’s a little too low-cut, the makeup that’s a little too loud, the hair that’s a little too big and obviously fake, and the platform shoes that are a little too high. Oh, you might draw some serious attention dressed that way. But I can guarantee you that the men who will approach you have made some simple calculations in their heads: two Long Island ice teas + three dances + a couple of half-planned, zero-effort dates = a hasty romp in the hay, without any commitment from me. That woman will have men throwing her into the “sports fish/throwback” category so quickly her bedazzled hair weave will spin. Remember what I said in Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man about the “sports fish”? She’s the one who sends off the signal that she has absolutely no rules, requirements, or respect for herself and that we men can treat her any old way, with absolutely no effort to make our connection permanent or long-lasting. In fact, the only thing we’ll see in that woman is a hint of desperation, extreme tackiness, and a flashing neon sign on her head that’ll blink, “One Night Only!”-as in, once that night of fun is over, we don’t have to be bothered with her ever again. The woman who dresses sloppy sends signals too: men will assume that (a) you are incapable of fixing yourself up, that you don’t know how to make yourself look hot and, quite possibly, could have some hygiene issues; (b) you don’t care how you look and you could potentially embarrass him if he’s going to introduce you to his boys or his family; and (c) you keep a nasty house. None of these things are a turn-on. None of them.kind of woman we will notice and approach is a woman whose dress style is sexy/neat-which is more subtle than sexy/provocative and more engaging than just plain. A woman who looks put together and sexy-who showcases her assets without oversharing and who uses her clothes, hairstyle, and makeup to good effect-is the one who says to men, “I am beautiful, I am to be respected, and you can take me around your mother and your frat brothers without feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed.”’LL MAKE US LOOK GOOD is critically important to a man. It is one of the first things that will come into our minds when we see you-how will I describe her to my boys? How will she look on my arm at the business dinner? Or at a Yankees game? If I took her home to meet my family, how will they perceive her? In the first moments that he sees you, a man is sizing you up for the long haul-how you’ll dress when he takes you to the park, when you go to a house of worship together, when you’re out at the club or having dinner with his friends, when he takes you around his coworkers, including those who make decisions about his paychecks and promotions. We look at and evaluate everything, initially based on how you look. Without even being conscious of it per se, we are giving you the head-to-toe once-over-taking in everything from how you’ve fixed your hair, what your nails look like, how your clothes fit to what your calves look like in those heels and what your body would look like in its natural state. If you look good, we instantly start to think of you as someone with whom we might have a future, someone who’ll be part of the equation going forward. We’ve assessed that you could be the perfect fit to help us satisfy the three things most important to a man: who we are, what we do, and how much we make. This matters because appearance is everything to men; perception is reality. This is natural. It’s not taught or learned-it’s innate. Every animal has something they use to make themselves look more attractive-to look like the fiercest, most beautiful of the pack: peacocks have amazingly colorful feathers; lions have bushy, fiery manes; and elephants have long, strong tusks. We men have money and stature-a nice watch, a fancy car, an enviable job with a title. And we have our lady.pretty, put-together woman helps us exemplify the three things that drive us and certainly helps validate our worthiness to the rest of the world. If you’re on a man’s arm, looking absolutely stunning, well put together, and poised, then everyone is going to be looking at you and him and wondering, “Well damn, what does he do for a living? He must be all that.” In the world of men, that’s an absolutely necessary ego trip, one we cannot live without. Most women I know like retail therapy when they’re feeling kind of blue. We men need ego therapy. And a stroll with a woman we perceive as beautiful can be as powerful a feeling as hitting the game-winning home run.woman who cares about herself and how she presents herself to the world, and looks like she’d elevate our game, is the woman who will get our attention; she’s the one who will make a man down a shot, pat his boys on the back, and then take what feels like a twenty-mile walk through a crowded club to ask you for a dance, or work his way over to the vegetable section in the grocery store to strike up a conversation about the difference between Roma and vine-ripened tomatoes just so that he can talk to you.you get too bent out of shape about what I’m saying here, keep in mind that this philosophy was taught to me by my mother, who dressed whenever she left the house-and she did this even though she was married already. It was she who taught my sisters to fix their hair and put on something nice and apply a little makeup on their faces before they left the house no matter what-even if they were going to the store for a pack of gum, it was important for them to step into that store looking “dignified.” “Conduct yourself with some dignity so that at least if you see a man, he can say to himself, ‘Wow, that’s one dignified lady.’ At least he’ll know up front he’s dealing with a person who cares about herself.” The way you dress is an extension of you. If you’re seriously open to a relationship, why miss the opportunity of meeting someone because you didn’t pull it together before you left the house? I’m telling you, a single woman who is serious about finding a man can’t afford days where she totally lets it all go. In the event that Mr. Right is somewhere in the vicinity, you have to be prepared to look the part of Mrs. Right. And if you’re not looking the part, a man will not imagine you in the part either., he might just turn his attention to the woman who did bother to go to the grocery store with it a little bit more pulled together. Your “off” day may totally be her “on” day-and in that split second when a man sees the two of you and is deciding which woman he’s going to approach, I promise you that the one who’s on her game will get noticed first.. Single. Time.why not put into practice one of my favorite slogans-one I live by: It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared. This is no different from the way you present yourself, say, at work. An employer will base decisions about how much you make, where you sit, what your title will be, and whether or not you get to represent the company in public based not just on your work ethic and how much you contribute to the bottom line, but also on how you look. You know this is true. He’s not picking the employee in the frumpy suit with the greasy, unkempt hair and the chronic halitosis to sit in the board meetings or give the big speech at the shareholders’ meeting; he’s going for the employee who spends at least some of his earnings on a few quality suits, a prime haircut, a consistent manicure, and a generally strong appearance to be the face of the company-to be the one who best represents the image the company wants to put forward. That boss doesn’t want anyone looking at his representative and drawing a bunch of bad conclusions, all based on one person’s appearance.was explaining this point to my employees just the other day when I noticed a few of them dragging into work looking a little less than professional. I explained to them that even if they had a bad night or early morning, I shouldn’t be able to tell it by the way they fixed their hair or the outfit they chose. I am not supposed to know they are going through a rough patch based on how they present at the office. I get that things may not be perfect at home-I understand that things happen and maybe you weren’t feeling the business suit and heels and felt more in a jeans-and-sandals state of mind, but that kind of attire has no business in a professional setting. We have an image to uphold. I don’t care how tired I am, I’m going to dress and make sure I look good. I’m not coming out of my house in a jogging suit, without shaving. I cannot afford to be disheveled, ever.someone is always watching.same goes for women who are open to a relationship: you cannot afford to go to the party in a jogging suit, looking unkempt, if you’re serious about finding a man. I’m not saying you have to hit the grocery store in a gown and chandelier earrings; I’m not saying that at all. But when you step out, step it up. Presentable does not mean perfection, but you can at least look pulled together. It’s just natural that doing this will catch a man’s eye-make him decide whether he’s going to throw his bait your way.you, the need for you to look good extends beyond the initial meeting and first few dates. If a man is still in the process of trying to determine whether he wants to commit to you, you can’t just go au natural early in the relationship. You have to take it slow for a guy-leave the rollers, housecoats, and bare faces for when he’s really into you, or else you run the risk of giving him an easy excuse to make a hasty getaway. If you want to extend the shelf life of the relationship, keep it pulled together long enough to figure out if the two of you have a chance together (and if you’re following my direction, you’ll be using at least ninety days to figure that out, right? Right!).have a friend who was dating this woman who appeared to be the absolute total package when he met her-when it came to looking good and the way she carried herself, she had few rivals. This was confirmed for my boy on at least three dates with this woman. After the third date, she invited him over to the house for a more intimate one-on-one date-just the two of them., when he went over to her house, she opened the door in house shoes, she had holes in her socks and a beat-up pair of sweatpants on, her hair was pulled back, and she didn’t have on any makeup. She was in the house cooking and as she did so she said, “I figured we’re just chillin’ today and we should be relaxed.”

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 686