“I just help people with their dating lives. I refer them to others if they are experiencing relationship troubles.”

She said this with a straight face.

I kid you not.

We were taking about dating and relationships and I was sharing my thoughts on what makes relationships work.

She admitted she wasn’t really good at that.

She knows how to help people “find each other.”

But stay together?

Not so much.

I don’t know about you but if somebody told me he could help me find a good used car but didn’t know the first thing about what keeps a car on the road, I’d have to start wondering what he was selling me.

And that’s just it.

What is your dating coach selling you?

How to meet girls?

How to attract guys?

Attract them for what?

Isn’t the point of dating advice supposed to be to help you establish a real, long term relationship with someone?

At least the guys’ dating coaches are a lot more honest.

Often dating advice for guys is just thinly veiled “pickup theory” and the end game in that case is just to “get laid.”

No problem.

If all you’re out for is sex and one night stands, you definitely don’t need to know how to attract real love in your life.

I feel more sorry for you girls though.

Because your dating coaches are actually teaching you how to get the same thing.

The reason you don’t realize they’re pitching the same outcome is because your side of the “get to sex” equation is to be “swept off your feet” by a confident guy who looks like the “man of your dreams.”

But that guy is often just playing you.

Trying to “get in your pants.”

Then he’ll love you and leave you wondering what just happened.

Again!

I can tell you what happened.

Though you don’t want to hear it.

But somebody’s got to let you know.

You took your dating advice from the WRONG person. Because that person has NO CLUE how real romantic love works.

How can you tell if your dating coach is good?

Do they have REAL relationship experience?

Do they help people with real relationship CHALLENGES?

At least this dating coach friend of mine was being HONEST about all this.

She KNEW her limitations and was clear about her “fine print.”

But you need to think twice about who you’re taking your advice from.

So what do you do then? How do you find someone who can REALLY help you find love in your life?

That’s easy.

Just reverse engineer what you’re after.

Then see if the dating advice you’re receiving matches up.

How do you do that?

Start with the relationship.

What does a healthy long term relationship look like?

Does a real relationship consist of two people who are constantly “attracted” to each other and flirting and playing hard to get?

Of course not!

Then why would you want to start your relationship THAT way?

Aren’t you just setting yourself up for dissappointment?

What happens when you find out your partner REALLY IS that shallow?

Yes attraction is shallow.

For guys its primarily skin deep.

It’s a lot less deep with you girls too, despite your delusions to the contrary.

It’s not that attraction has no place at all. But it is never center stage like your dating coaches imply that it should be.

In a real relationship such things are PLAY TIME.

They are sprinkles on top of a much closer connection.

One where you deeply know and value each other.

You don’t just give each other “thrills.”

This enjoyable play will be in the midst of taking the good with the bad.

Giving each other slack.

Asking each other for forgiveness.

In other words in a real romantic relationship you come more and more to a deeper and deeper knowledge of each other.

You attain intimacy which has been called “into me you see.”

If that’s where you should be headed, the dating advice you’re receiving should be headed there too.

From the start.

It should be creating ways for you to spend quality time together.

To really come to know each other.

It should be about finding out what makes each other tick, not whether you can make each other’s hearts pitter patter or flutter.

Attaction is a distraction.

But attraction is what most dating advice today is focused on.

Which is why most dating advice isn’t worth the digital media it’s marketed through.

Don’t get distracted by the promises of love and excitement.

Find somebody who will help you connect.

Someone who’ll teach you to meet a real person.

One who is really wanting something more.

How about you? Any horror stories to share about your experiences with these “used car” dating salespeople?