Getting Started at a Singles Event

Singles events, such as mixers, movie screenings, hikes, lunches, and parties, are a great, low risk way to meet other singles interested in dating. There are lots of people of around, most people don’t know each other, and you can always use the excuse that you want to mingle to break away from someone you’ve spent enough time with.

When you’re just getting started, you may want to go to singles events with a friend or two. This usually works out fine, as long as you remember that you’re going there to meet new people, not to hang around with the person you came with. If you go with other people, make an arrangement to separate. Sit at different tables or mingle individually as you work the room. (Susan RoAne’s How to Work a Room, Revised Edition: Your Essential Guide to Savvy Socializing is a great tool for gaining the skills to comfortably mingle in groups where you don’t know anyone.)

Once you have been to a few events, you’ll find that going alone can be quite fun. Being by yourself forces you to interact with others, and it invites others to approach you. It also enables you to stay as long as you’d like or to go elsewhere (not to his or her home!) with someone you’ve met when the event ends. My husband, Roger and I met at a singles dance which tended to end early. Because we’d each come to the dance alone, it was easy for us afterward to go to a country bar where we danced and talked for another couple of hours.

At a singles event, avoid sitting at a large table with five or more people, particularly at a dance. No one wants to be turned down in front of a crowd of people, so make it easy for people to approach you. It’s often successful to begin by seeking one or two people of the same gender to stand or sit with. Rather than getting involved in a deep conversation, keep it to small talk – and be positive. No one will be drawn to a negative conversation. Sit or stand so you can observe the room and others can see you. Be interested in your surroundings, and make it possible for people to come up to you and break into your conversation. If you someone alone who looks approachable (or needs someone to talk to), this is your opportunity to approach him or her.

Finally, a great ice-breaker I’ve found for conversation is the event itself and the sponsoring organization. Asking the other person if he’s attended other events the group has put on and what they were like can lead to information on how long he’s been dating, how much dating he does, and so forth. People love to be asked for their opinion, so this is usually a comfortable way to get the conversation started.

Today’s Dating Model

I describe the way most television and film characters, and many single people today, experience dating and sex as Today’s Dating Model. The model is quite simple, containing only three elements. It begins with attraction which is almost immediately combined with physical intimacy or sex, often in the hopes that emotional intimacy will result. In the movies and on TV, this is often the case, usually after some humorous angst on both parties’ parts. In real life, this is rarely the case, and I realize that not everyone has sex in the hope of achieving emotional intimacy. Let’s look at the model in more detail.

Step One—Attraction
The attraction part is easy and is always the first step. It’s not hard to find someone to whom you are attracted; we meet potential mates at bars and clubs and through friends, singles groups, online dating, chat rooms, and social media websites. We also meet at work, as men and women together occupy virtually every profession today. Rather than beginning a relationship with a series of dates, as our parents probably did, many singles today, influenced by television and movies, take an accelerated, often impersonal, approach.

Step Two—Physical Intimacy
In this model, people move very rapidly, sometimes within hours of meeting, to physical intimacy. As we’ll discuss in the months ahead, many reasons influence this decision. For now, let’s just acknowledge that today, for many, having sex is just one step away from having lunch or kissing.

Step Three—Emotional Intimacy
While reaching this step is the desired outcome for many, emotional intimacy rarely occurs when approached this way, except in the movies, of course. On the big screen, the leading actors almost always find emotional intimacy, no matter how difficult the journey. In reality, it just doesn’t work that way. Consider this case, described by Rabbi Shumley Boteach in Kosher Sex: “One woman whom I knew as a student told us that she has now been to bed with over twenty guys … all in a fruitless effort to find love with any one of them, and it just never seems to happen … She has yet to transform a casual sexual encounter into an intense and fulfilling relationship.”

It’s true that, just as it’s easy to find someone to be attracted to, it’s also easy to find someone willing to have sex, especially when no commitment is involved. But what are the odds that a near stranger, someone we just met, is someone with whom we can comfortably share our deepest desires and emotions? They’re not high; in fact, I would say, as a weight-loss expert, that the odds of the average person losing the kind of weight advertised by most weight-loss programs (you know the ones, where the ad reads “results not typical”) are greater than the odds that emotional intimacy will result from today’s dating model!

Yet people work this model over and over, trying to get it right. Most people eventually, if not initially, truly desire emotional intimacy. For the majority, casual sex is really a misguided attempt to find that fulfillment. It’s no surprise studies show that, over the last twenty years, more people are feeling isolated and disconnected. Continue to join me as we explore a more sane, effective approach to finding both emotional intimacy and fulfilling sex.

Grateful for The Pill and Its Advocates

Did you hear that the pill turned 50 on May 9? This is a noteworthy event, since the pill has had a profound effect on women’s sexual freedom and the ability to control their bodies. Still, experts say it did not spark the sexual revolution, despite criticism to the contrary in the 1960s. A Kinsey report on female sexual behavior published in 1953 noted that half of all women had had premarital sex. And it also did not result in a sudden drop in the U.S. fertility rate, which didn’t hit bottom until the next decade (USA Today May 7, 2010).

While the pill gave women more freedom, it also gave them more responsibility. They could no longer blame fear of pregnancy as the reason to say “no.” Women had to own their feelings and claim the right to control, protect, and honor their bodies. In a sense, that’s what sane sex is all about. To postpone physical intimacy until emotional intimacy develops places a high value on our bodies, acknowledging that they are not to be shared freely or thoughtlessly.

Fifty years ago women such as Margaret Sanger and Katharine McCormick fought for women’s right to have access to the pill. Although it was available, many doctors tried to keep it from their patients. (Even today, the pill requires a prescription, even though it meets the FDA’s criteria for switching a prescription drug to over-the-counter.) How ironic it is that so many of today’s women take the freedom of the pill for granted. Regarding superficial sex, the old adage, “just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” applies. Honor the women who have gone before you, and honor the incredible gift of your body. Sex is a treasure and you are a treasure. Treating them both as such is an appropriate way to say thanks.

Friends With Benefits – What’s Up With That?

Are you familiar with a form of superficial sex or casual sex termed “friends with benefits”? It’s a new millennium term, but not necessarily a new concept. With this arrangement, the benefits are sex and the partners are friends. Romantic love is not part of the arrangement, and the parties may or may not be exclusive. A “friends with benefits” relationship is more than a one-night stand, as it typically involves people who began as friends and decided to add a sexual component to the relationship.

The emotions and commitment usually associated with being in love are not present, although the two parties may feel love for each other. The level of commitment these parties feel for each other varies, and the arrangement lasts only as long as both people desire it to last. The goal is not marriage or even a long-term relationship, but rather, the opportunity to have sex with someone each is comfortable with and at least likes. A “friends with benefits” arrangement is seen by many as a more acceptable way to have sex than simply having superficial sex with a near stranger.

Still, the intimacy of the experience is much more physical than it is emotional. As Rabbi Boteach, author of Kosher Sex, describes about a young woman who had had many partners, the sex was “pleasurable, but not warm or intimate.” This isn’t close to what could be experienced in a sexual relationship under different circumstances.

To me, superficial sex is like quarter beers in college. I remember how excited some people were when they had to pay only a quarter for a beer. Even during my college years, a quarter wasn’t much money. With superficial sex, it feels as if you’re getting more, when in reality, you’re getting less. It’s like having two hundred pennies rather than two fifty dollar bills. Thankfully most of us mature out of this quarter beer mindset and seek a more fulfilling, valuable experience from all of life, including sex.

Having Sex is Still a Big Deal

Despite what we’ve been led to believe, not much has really changed: having sex is still a big deal. Most people over forty know this; our parents instilled this belief in us, even if our actions didn’t always reflect this belief. Unfortunately most people under the age of thirty don’t have this perspective. They don’t know that having sex is not a recreational activity or a way to socialize, but rather an incredibly powerful act with tremendous potential to heal, nurture, and connect.

Having sex is the most physically intimate behavior two people can engage in, short of giving birth. I do think that having an entire person growing inside of you is more intimate, but that’s the only experience I’d put ahead of sexual intercourse in terms of physical intimacy. And pregnancy is only available to half the population; even then, it’s an infrequent occurrence.

So, at the end of a date, when your companion asks, “Do you want to go back to my house and fool around?” (code for “have sex,” in case you didn’t know), politely respond, “No thanks.” Then turn and run! Let’s not take sex lightly or treat it casually.

Do you fool around with your money? Surely money can give great pleasure, for ourselves and for other people when we share it. Money enables us to see the world, educate ourselves, cure diseases, and make more money. Even in casinos, smart people do not fool around with their money; if not used wisely, money can cause us considerable anguish.

How about electricity? Do you fool around with it? Here again, when handled properly, life is greatly enhanced by electric power. Stop and appreciate how many things in your immediate environment use electricity. Our world comes to a stop without it. Yet we recognize the power and potential danger of electricity, as well. We’ve educated ourselves on the appropriate use of electricity, and so it enhances our enjoyment of life.

We value both money and electricity, treating them with respect, and they in turn make our lives more fun and fulfilling. So it can and should be with sex. Sex can be fun and playful, but it also has the potential to be so much more. So please, don’t fool around with sex!

Is Sex a Recreational Activity For You?

The notion that having sex is just another form of recreation is based in good intentions; most of us could stand to have more fun each day. But the price we pay when we reduce sex to another recreational activity is too high. What’s left to share with our partner, when we develop an exclusive, loving relationship, if we’ve trivialized sex as just another recreational activity?

It’s not as if we don’t have other alternatives for recreation, even along the gamut of sexual expression. We can have more fun in many ways without misusing sex. Yes, the experience of sex should be fun and energizing—but it should also be so much more. When we use sex just for fun, we have nothing left to replace it with. Nothing else crosses physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries the way sex can.
Remember that the point is not that we’re too focused on sex. On the contrary, sex is critically important and deserves our attention. That’s why we have the best experiences when we approach sex with care. As M. Scott Peck states: “So, if it is the best possible orgasm you are after, then the best way to achieve it is with someone who is deeply beloved to you.” Take the time to learn more about the benefits of sane sex.

Myth Busted: Smart Women Carry Condoms

Have you heard this statement? Perhaps you believe it yourself. Intelligent women dating today know enough to take care of themselves and carry their own condoms. When I first started dating again after a 20-year break, I thought this way. Ironically, what shifted my thinking shifted my thinking was finding out that the only way I could ever have the hope of having safe sex was if I carried my own condoms. I began to wonder how it was that so many men asked for sex, yet never had a condom.

I learned to reframe this statement—women who want to be safe and have sex carry condoms. There’s nothing wrong with either of these practices. I want to be safe and have sex, too. But I’ve come to believe that smart women wait for the right man who will care enough about himself and her to be prepared and be willing to use protection to keep them both safe. Ladies, you are worth his making a trip to the drug store! Gentlemen, this is your time to take the lead. We won’t ask you for a tampon, so please don’t expect us to supply the condoms. Think of it this way: the sock does not need the shoe; it needs the foot. It wouldn’t matter how many shoes you owned, if you didn’t have feet, you wouldn’t need socks. The reality is this: Men worth having sex with carry and use condoms.

Sane Sex or Same Sex?

When people see my book cover or hear me say the name of the book, Worth Waiting For, Sane Sex for Singles, they often hear “same” sex rather than “sane” sex. I like the phrase “sane sex” because it’s close to safe sex in sound, just as it is on the sexual continuum. I encourage people to step it up a level and commit to more than just having safe sex; I invite them to have sane sex, which is sex in the context of an exclusive, loving relationship.

But what about “same” sex? Does sane sex apply only to straight couples? Not at all. Attraction, sex, love, and emotional intimacy are pretty universal experiences, regardless of sexual orientation. Whether one is gay or straight, having sex with a virtual stranger just doesn’t make sense. Smart, healthy people treasure their bodies, and they want to be intimate only with someone who will also treasure their body. How can a person who barely knows you really treasure anything about you? So sane sex makes just as much sense for those interested in same sex as it does for anyone else.