Rescue Dating
For the Perfect Search
by Melinda Maximova

An Up-Grader is the man who wants the benefits of marriage but not the commitment “Why buy the cow when the milk is for free?” If he’s taking you for granted, then call him on it. Tell him that you value him and you value the relationship you see it heading in a dangerous direction.

Is he an Up-Grader? Holding on to you until he finds Ms. Right? If so, get out. Life is too short to waste on someone who is never going to love you the way you deserve to be loved. However if he is genuinely a great guy with some bad habits that can be gently faded, use all the tricks and tips to reel him in. After all, if you don’t, there is another woman waiting in the sidelines that will.

Stumble it!

Let’s face it, dating isn’t as easy for you in your 30s and 40s as it was in your 20s. Remember when you didn’t even have to try to wrap a man around your little finger? Well, times changed; the power balance shifted. When you were in your 20s men were willing to kiss your feet and make you the princess you thought yourself to be, but once he approached 40 he began to grow into his own power and no longer wanted to be the groveling gimp at your feet. As men get older they become more powerful, while women seem to be losing ground in the dating department. Fair? -Of course not. But if millions of smart, good looking, and capable women in their 30s and 40s find themselves wondering why they can’t get a guy to stick around, chances are they’ve turned a blind eye to the Power Shift phenomenon. Chances are they are at its mercy.

As an in-the-trenches matchmaker and the CEO of Perfect Search, I have helped thousands of accomplished men find the women of their dreams and in the process, have learned how men think, what they want, and what they don’t want. I can help you reclaim your power without giving up your right to operate a power saw or to run a boardroom. I will empower you to find romance on your own terms.

Most women have little idea how men really think. You are intelligent and grounded women who are having a hard time finding and keeping Mr. Right. It doesn’t have to be this way. If you are ready to get your head out the clouds, I will give you a little tough love and show you how to take the power back and get what you want in the process. I will take on the issue of why men fall for younger women and teach you to maintain your femininity and act like a woman. Many may start to cringe as your “sexist” alarms go off, however, through humor and case studies, I require you to hear me out. Through this blog, I will give a road map for overcoming the pitfalls of the Power Shift phenomenon so that you can date successfully in your 30s and 40s and find, and keep, a good man.

Stumble it!

Press Release

Perfect Search’s interactive web channel, What Do Men Really Want, allows viewers to vote and predict who will be the best match for our Bachelor of the Month. Check out our Bachelor for October and view the results from our Bachelor for September. View the 5 minute video clip of our featured bachelor and the candidates who want to meet him. You can try your hand at matchmaking by casting your vote.  We will announce the winning match at the end of each month.

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When men get older they feel a desperate sense of their lives coming to an end. Mid-life crises is real for them and women who simply ignore it, or worse yet, ignore him, will lose him. His entire self-value has been based on conquest and strength and he hits a point in his life where he feels his youth slipping away. He feels he is missing out and may have settled for less than he could have achieved. He sees the end of his life for the first time, and it is terrifying. He fears losing his virility.
A mid-life crisis translates into many difficult behaviors, which for the wife, can prove challenging. He may be secretly craving hot, sexy, women while he still can get them, or he may want fast cars and adventure before it’s too late. Many men become the “grumpy guy on the couch”. He begins to take the relationship, and his wife, for granted. He may stop talking; stop giving compliments, stop making romantic gestures and stop offering to help. Women have to lead by example to guide their husbands through this time. This is not the time to take him for granted. A marriage of 17 years has many highs and lows. There are so many variables and challenges. Even though he is a grumpy guy on the couch, he is her grumpy guy on the couch and she is going to have to be the strong one to help him get through his crisis with out losing the marriage.

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The Urban Cougar is the older woman who seduces younger men for pleasure. Unlike Mrs. Robinson, however, the Cougar is single. She’s hot, sexy, smart, confident, successful, and powerful. Moreover, she has a trail of guys following her around who will just about give their eyeteeth for a roll in the hay with her.

In fact, her profile sounds a lot like men in their mid-30 and 40’s. The Cougar is independent and has options. In short, she doesn’t need a man. She either has kids already, or has made the decision not to have any. Her motivation for hooking a man is just about as low theirs is for hooking a woman: Conquests. But the Cougar is not a man. In her heart, she’s a girl, and like most of us, she knows that if the right guy comes along… As soon as that happens, even the Cougar is susceptible to the power shift phenomenon. However, when the Cougar wants to convert Mr. Good-Enough into Mr. Right, the Cougar may be even less equipped to deal with the power shift than other women discussed.

If she becomes needy, clingy, and desperate for this fling to become something real, the Cougar will start referencing her old rule book, the one that worked for her in her 20s, and guess what? Her guy will run for the hills. However, unlike the non-cougar women, who may have hinted that some of this man-hunting behavior was sure to crop up, the Cougar has presented herself to the world, and to her guy, as if all these “girlie” dating practices are beneath her. Her guy will be far more shocked than if he was dating a princess from the start. He won’t just run for the hills. He will sprint. And he won’t ever look back. No second chances.

The Cougar must be even smarter than her girlfriends when she discovers that Mr. Good-Enough is actually Mr. Right. The Cougar knows that her guy wants her because she’s hot. He also wants her because she’s essentially unavailable. Her guy has a no-strings attached pass for hot sex with an amazing woman, and for most guys, that’s just about as good as it gets. Until she falls in love. When the Cougar discovers that Mr. Good-Enough is Mr. Right, she has to give him time to fall in love on his own terms. That means that the Cougar has to sit tight, hold her breath and be cool. More than that, she has to continue to be the woman her guy was attracted to in the first place. Men can move at the speed of glaciers when it comes to realizing that they’ve met the one. A man in love will do all kinds of things he said he would never do. A man in lust will move on. For her guy to change his vision of his life and commit to her, an older woman, he’ll have to be in love and fully attached. This takes time. She’ll have to be her oh-so-cool kitty and stay in stealth mode about her feelings for a lot longer than feels comfortable. Landing her guy will take time and patience, lots of patience.

If Cougar is developing real feelings for her guy she will need to take stock of him and set her expectations accordingly.

• Is he recently divorced?
• Is he terminally single?
• Is she just one of many?
• Is she his quick relief when he finally tears away from work?

Recently divorced men who have spun out of a marriage and haven’t had any dating experience don’t know how to date. They will say the wrong things and essentially have no clue about the rules. Put them in the Cougars’s cage with a 40-year-old woman who has been serially dating for the past 10 years and he will get eaten alive. He is unprepared for the emotions, and will escape as fast as he can.

The terminally single guy presents a special case. For one reason or another, his vision doesn’t include a Mrs. Right, and it never has. Ms. Cougar, will need to know from the start that this guy may never be hers. She needs to set a time limit. Make it a generous one, like a year. Then she needs to sit back and observe his behavior.

• Is he consistently moving toward the relationship or darting in and out?
• Is he progressively incorporating her into more and more aspects of his life?
• Is he asking for more of her time?
• Is he surprising her with gifts, or flowers?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes, then she may have converted the previously un-convertible guy because, deep down, he knows that she is the one for him. If, however, the answer to any of these questions is no, then, she may very well be wasting her time. So, chin up. Have fun. And, by all means, keep all options open. He’s not the one for her.

Likewise, if her guy is married to his work, he has a plan “A” and that doesn’t include a Mrs. Right-Now. By the time he’s ready, she might be a lot older. Men think nothing of dedicating ten or more years of their lives to their work. For some of these men, they manage work and love concurrently, but often at great sacrifice of the love. And Cougar already knows, from experience, that she has no interest in being Mrs. Keep-the-Home-Fires-Burning while her man is off building the empire. If she did, she wouldn’t be a Cougar in the first place. Never be a plan “B”. Be a plan “A” and until she finds it, she should remember the Cougar Mantra: Have fun. And when the fun stops, move on. Grrrr!

Stumble it!

Most readers have been counseled their whole lives to avoid the rebound relationship. The fact is, however, that for women in their 30s and 40s, many relationships fail before the right one comes along. And the older women get, the less time they have to waste if they want marriage and kids. They also know themselves a lot better, and they know what they want. Moreover, they are capable of exercising a kind of maturity that was not available to them when they were younger. Falling in love after a break up can be the best thing that can happen to a woman with a broken heart. My philosophy is, “Why wait?” Even if you go out and blunder your first few tries, you will learn from your mistakes and you may just luck out and find someone really great. Love heals pain. Why be miserable and lonely if you don’t have to be? The next guy doesn’t have to be a rebound guy. He can be the one.

Stumble it!

Dating tip for the day: People should go on at least three dates before deciding if it is a good fit. Alcohol plays such a significant role for first time dates. It isn’t fair to judge each other on just one introduction. When people are nervous they may drink to relax and the alcohol goes straight to the head when adrenaline is flying. Someone may say something unappealing or act silly and it isn’t fair to pass judgment so soon. A date should not be a test. It should be a way to get to know each other. You should both do your best to get the other to like you in order to bring out the best in your partner. You can decide later if you want to pursue it further, but the date should bring out the best in each other by making the other feel wanted. A date should be a measure of, “Is this is a good person? Would I like to have a second date?” Don’t think too far ahead. So many people try to plan the future like, “Well he lives too far away. It would never work” or, “she has a kid. That will never work.” My advice is just ask yourself, “would I like to have a second date? Would I like to have a third date? etc”.

Stumble it!

In my role as a matchmaker I have interviewed hundreds of women for my candidate pool. So many women comment that they think they are such a catch but why aren’t men attracted to them. Women who are educated, career oriented and successful are still single year after year and don’t understand why. I also have interviewed hundreds of men and know that while men do want all of the above qualities in a women they also want to be sexually attracted to her. They want hot. If you want to attract a good man, he’s got to be hot for you. It doesn’t mean he will think you are a bimbo if you are hot. Women can be sexy AND smart. They are not in opposition. There is an expression, “If you want a hot woman, don’t hang out at Harvard, hang out at Heald Business College”. This misconception has been brought on by the generation of women who felt they needed to shed their femininity in order to compete with men. This is not the case. In order to attract a guy they want, women need to be sexy and feminine. He will still respect you intellectually and professionally by doing so. In fact, nothing is more powerful than a smart, sexy woman.

Men want women who are powerful, intelligent, grounded and beautiful. They want all of those qualities. But she needs to embrace her feminine spirit. She needs to embody a youthful openness, spontaneity and feminine kindness and courage. She needs to appreciate him for his masculinity and embrace the differences and values between the feminine and masculine. She needs to make him feel proud to be a man and she needs to be proud of being a woman in all her playfulness, sexuality, creativity, and a confidence in the world. Men like youth for all of those reasons. Why do women feel they need to be like men in order to be valued and respected as equals in society? Women are not men, and men love us not being men.

Women in their late 30s and 40s were raised with the backlash of the women’s movement. Our mothers were enlightened and didn’t want us growing up with the same sexist stigmas and restrictions that put limits on their mothers. They were determined to let their daughters work in any field she wanted and do what ever she wanted-with out relying on a man. Our mothers taught us to wait for marriage and wait for children. “Get your education, see the world, live your life”. “You are the prize, my dear. Men are disposable”.

But what was an essential part of our history for creating equality among the sexes, unfortunately also required women to act like men to succeed. The women’s movement threw out the “baby with the bathwater”, so to speak. Women weren’t accepted in terms of their feminine contributions. By imitating the masculine model women have even more so devalued the feminine. Many women either live for men and lose themselves, or break away and create professions trying to act like men in order to be accepted. Our patriarchal culture has therefore continued to devalue the feminine spirit perpetuating the battle of the sexes.

It has been my experience that even the most feminist men -most enlightened men- still want a woman to be sexually attractive. This means, “hot” .- Not Pamela Anderson hot, but playful, sexual and youthfully open, hot.

Stumble it!

The Bigger Fish Syndrome is the woman who is perpetually looking for a bigger fish. She once dated Mr. Right, - a handsome guy with money, and now no man is good enough unless he is super handsome and super wealthy. No one else can possibly measure up. Some guys may be as successful as Mr. Right, but not as handsome. Some may be as handsome, but broke. Some may be as handsome and successful, but divorced with children. These women with the Bigger Fish Syndrome want their own guy. They feel they are a great catch and deserve a guy who hasn’t yet had a family. She wants to be wife number-one-and-only. So she is still mooning over the one who rejected her; the one who got away. Even if she may like a new guy she always feels she can do better. She is “Quite frankly, looking for a bigger fish”. She keeps saying, “next” because she wants to keep her options open. She is not willing to forgive any flaws and wait out the mid course corrections. It is merely impossible for her to get any relationship to stick.

So these women date, and date, and date. All through their 30s they continue their search for Mr. Right. When she does find someone close, he escapes, or she dismisses him the minute he fails to treat her the way she demands. These women become Serial Daters searching for their Bigger Fish. But the reality is, she may have been shooting too high. Mr. Right is also searching for his Bigger Fish. He is looking for his Perfect “10” and unless she can fit the bill she will find herself alone and having waited too long for kids.

When women suffering from the Bigger Fish Syndrome approach 40 and still haven’t had kids they begin to feel a frantic sense of desperation. Here they are still childless. Their desperation is apparent to all men who date her. Every date becomes a fertility interview. She appears neurotic in her attempt to accelerate relationships beyond a natural pace. She is trying to snag a man to father her children too late. She is competing with women 28 to 33 years old who have the luxury of a slow courtship, marriage for a few years, and then two or three kids before 40. Sadly, these women with the Bigger Fish Syndrome waited too long for kids and potential suitors sense it. They are thinking, “This woman is too needy. She’ll have us married after the second date.” She didn’t give potentially, great-guys a chance when she was younger and dismissed them heartlessly for the first dating mistake while holding out Mr. Right. But Mr. Right has options too. And Mr. Right wants Ms. Right, and Ms. Right isn’t 40 years old wanting to start a family. If these women want to land their Mr. Right at age 40 they had better understand that Mr. Right may be right under their nose and that he may not be Mr. Right at all, rather, more like Mr. Almost-Right

Stumble it!

My clients have been men, so I am in a unique position of being a woman, but knowing what men want. My clients have been quite frank with me as if I were “One of the guys”. Because of that, I have an insight that would surprise many women, upset them perhaps, but over all, is information they should know in order to successfully find and keep the man that they want.

Women in their late 30’s and 40’s still expect men to fall all over them like they did when she was 23 and are frustrated when they don’t. Suddenly guys aren’t jumping through hoops for her any more. Men are now coming into their own power as they approach 40 and now have options. There is a shift in power in the mid 30s.

Princess Syndrome:

Women who suffer from the Princess Syndrome are women who were so beautiful they had the world at their feet their whole adolescent and adult life. Men have always jumped through hoops for her. Her perception of reality is warped. Men stumbled over themselves to wait on her and put up with her tantrums just to have the opportunity to have sex with her - because she was beautiful.

When men were young their hormones drove them and it didn’t matter to him that she was acting like a spoiled princess. But now that men have options, they view women with a sense of entitlement as too much work. And the sex wasn’t even that good. Men feel these women become lazy lovers because she never had to work to keep a man sexually. She just had to lie there and be beautiful while he worshipped her. Men approaching 40 begin to feel their own power and younger women begin to notice him for the first time. The options are new to him. The power is intoxicating. He has never experienced this kind of attention before and is swept away by it. He is thinking this may be his last chance and wants the freedom to explore these other women as never before. He is not about to stay with an aging princess who displays Man Repellents:

• Has a sense of Entitlement
• Is Neurotic
• A Complainer
• Never satisfied
• Constantly putting him down
• Emasculating him

Stumble it!