Advice for Finding Men – E. Jean Dating Advice

Dear E. Jean: Let me start off by explaining that I’m not a woman with outrageous expectations. But the thought that I’ll never find a man to be happy with is so frustrating, I’ve resorted to casual sexual encounters. And it’s not like I’m high-maintenance. Nor am I a neurotic clinger who expects to meet Mr. Right at a bar or club. So how do I make it happen?

My last relationship ended two years ago and left me heartbroken. But I’m holding my head high and have not looked back. I don’t want to sound conceited, but I’m kind, generous, low-key, and I have a good heart. I excel at my job, and I’m pretty—so I just don’t get it. When I do manage to meet someone, we have dinner, then—nothing. Somehow they fall off the face of the planet. (I don’t sleep with them that night. I’m not the dumb girl wondering why they don’t call.) But now the dates are becoming fewer and fewer. I’ve had just one in the past seven months!—Where the Boys Aren’t

Dear Miss Boys: Auntie Eeee has a confession: Things are so bad even yours truly is on the lookout for a new man. (How long has it been? Let’s just say Auntie’s special lingerie has remained folded in the drawer so long that the teddies have regained their virginity.)

So when I read your line about holding your “head high” (not too high, I hope, or you’ll freeze out the good chaps along with the bad) and not looking back, it was a wiser Eeee who chuckled tenderly. Of course you’re not looking back! There’s no need to. The past is strapped to your forehead, and it’s screwing up your future—making you do silly things like bonking a bunch of “casuals.”

Not that we don’t all adore an exhilarating one-off every now and then. The world’s most magnificent women, from Cleopatra to Catherine the Great to Coco Chanel, endlessly pleased themselves with booty calls, but in your case, you want to “find a man to be happy with,” right? So yearning to shag a guy you love while shagging a guy you just picked up…this is not the finest way to, as you say, “make it happen.”

Which brings me to about the best dating tip I’ve offered in my 19 years as an advice columnist: Never go to dinner on the first date. Go anywhere—the juke joint, the pool hall, the sculpture garden at the museum—but, by God, steer clear of restaurants! You’re walking proof they don’t work. Even the friendly neighborhood café is a battlefield of expectation, vanity, disappointment, and nerves. Hie yourselves to the gun range! The planetarium! The dog show! The unexpected stimuli will bring out your charm. And now I have a little present for you. Come try my latest venture where I personally handpick the guy for you. It’s called Tawkify.com, a new, old-fashioned way for you to meet “the one.” It’s regressive and romantic, I promise.

This letter is from the Ask E. Jean Archive, 1993-2017. Send questions to E. Jean at [email protected].