This title will sound familiar to you if you have read Phillip (of Dr. Phil fame) McGraw’s book Love Smart:  Find the One You Want – Fix the One You Got.

I finished this book last night and I found it a practical guide to putting yourself in a position to find a partner.  That sounds passive:  you actually will be doing your part to ensuring that you end up with the right person for you.

He makes the disclaimer that he is not saying that you need a significant other in order to be happy but he is assuming that the reader would like one since she has picked up the book (the book is written to women).  The book reads easily, like you’re having a conversation with someone who knows you fairly well, has given you good advice in the past and is sure you will want to follow the advice he’s providing now.  The book empowers you, the reader, to do your part to find the right guy for you.

It uses some common Dr. Phil-isms such as:

• You teach people how to treat you
• The only person you are in control of is you

According to the book, you can’t begin a search for the right person if you don’t know who you are, which is nothing new.  But knowing who you are is not enough:  you must also know what you want (also not novel).  Dr. Phil recommends making a list of all the wonderful qualities you want the man of your dreams to have, under specific categories that he suggests.  You should also have a list of deal breakers, qualities in a man that you absolutely will not consider (obvious ones are someone with addictions–gambling, alcohol, drugs).  The goal is to find a guy who has 80 percent of the qualties you would like, and none of the deal breakers.  If a man doesn’t have 80% of the qualities you desire, he suggests that if the guy has the potential to acquire these qualities you keep him on your list of potentials.

Like I said, he puts the ball in your court.  He covers issues such as selfconfidence and how you appear to the outside world (this is where the whole ‘you teach people how to treat you’ comes in:  if you wouldn’t date you, why should anyone else?).  The book devotes a chapter to internet dating too, shows you how to find out if a love interest possesses those qualities that you want in a guy from pretty ordinary conversation, suggests ways to get out there more and you’re given some insight into how men think.  (I must admit I found this chapter one of the most interesting.  I officially have to stop hoping that men think like women).

And as the last part of the title of the book implies, this book touches on how you can improve an existing relationship. 

I am glad I bought the book (I rarely purchase books) because it is a book that I will revisit through my looking for love stage and beyond.

Filed under: Love?, Reading & Writing by jummy