Soul Dating
COMPLETE WOMAN, JULY 1998
All of us have strong feelings about what we should expect from a truly intimate relationship. The kind of relationship that fills our deepest needs… satiates our most primitive hungers. Sure, we all love a great-looking guy who can be lost of fun to be around, but after we’ve scratched the surface we want more. Lots more, for life. How will you know whether or not a many you’re dating could be your soul mate? Here are some clues…
When it comes to lasting love, says noted relationship expert Basha Kaplan, Ph.D., a Naples, Florida, psychologist who’s run popular support groups for singles for years, the key is to distinguish between dateable men. According to Kaplan, author of a forthcoming book on finding a spiritual soulmate, some books say attract anybody, but what women really want is to attract the right person. They can find Mr. Right by learning to soul date for a soul mate. “Dateable men,” Kaplan says, “can show you a ‘good time’--but mateable men can give you a good life.” They are truly soul partners and soul lovers for life.
Ilene Diamond, a very popular Washington, D.C., area “relationship coach” and “introductions specialist,” agrees. Diamond hosts her own brand–new show, Heart to Heart, on Gaithersburg, Maryland, radio station WMET 1150 AM (Saturday mornings, 10:30–11:30). There are two kinds of daters, says Diamond, who has successfully matched 34 couples in ten-plus years in Boston and Washington: those who are great at relationship beginnings, but have no staying power, and those who are shy, jittery and awkward at the outset, but great at the beginning (men or women) love the newness of a relationship, they love the chase and the challenge. They love rockets, bells and whistles…but they get bored real quick. They love accumulating the phone numbers, getting the calls.”
These are not your world-class mateable folks. Mateables, however, are often shy and awkward in the beginning of the dating process, according to Diamond. They can seem aloof or even disinterested, but it’s mainly due to nerves, not emotional negligence. These are often intense, deep-feeling, quality individuals who “start slow” but finish well and are very good at moving on to the next levels of intimacy (once they get over their initial reticence ).
To find your spiritual soulmate, Kaplan asserts, you have to first do something very basic and unsuperficial that most books don’t advise: Develop a romantic friendship. To find real love, Kaplan says, you need to find the greatest friend, not the greatest lover. People with the best, strongest marriage will often say, “My partner is my best friend.”
Soul Dating to Soul Mating: On the path to spiritual partnership (perigee Books, Putnam, 1998), by Kaplan and co-author Gail Prince, offers a new and different set of “rules,” Ones that can lead to lasting love. “The Rules makes it all sound like a game, like simply being seductive is all that matters. That’s really manipulative,” Kaplan says. The key to finding lasting is to first find a best friend- --someone you’re both physically and spiritually attracted to. “Most people think they will just recognize the right person for them, “Kaplan says, “but there are skills to finding the right person it doesn’t just happen.” Following are Kaplan and Diamond’s rules for finding and keeping, lasting love.
Be your own best friend first.
“Know first who and what you are and what you values. Make sure you really love yourself and know how to take care
Think of past relationships as lessons, not failures.
“Everyone who comes into your life teaches you lessons,” Diamond says, “Anything that happens to you--if you look at it for what it has taught you----becomes a positive, not a negative.” It may help to think that you’re in life to learn lessons. “Past relationships,” Diamond says, “can teach you what works for you and what doesn’t work for you.” Don’t blame yourself, but learn from your mistakes. “To err is human,” Diamond says, “but to keep doing it over and over again is a shame.”
Don’t be afraid to try the unexpected, to break out of ruts.
Women often get stuck in preconceived patters of expectations about love---for example, that they can only marry men from cities, not the country, or only men with white-collar jobs. Don’t be afraid to break out of your comfort zone, to shatter preconceptions about who would make you happy. Besides, you might love living in the country! (Hey, even Eva Gabor grew to like Green Acres!). “Don’t just date your type,” Diamond advises. “A type is a list of attributes; you don’t date a list, you date a whole, unique person,” Many men and women don’t take the time to analyze what they want. They just opt for the easy road: they date their type. This is, according to Diamond, a form of commitment phobia.
Be yourself
Don’t act in a relationship. There is no pay-off for faking the dating and mating process (no, it is not a game!). There are not Best Actor or Actress in a Relationship Academy Awards. The sexiest qualities in both men and women, Diamond says, are this fearsome foursome: authentic, reliable, genuine and consistent. These are the most attractive qualities she has found, after years of being in the introductions field, to be the most sexy, appealing qualities in both men and women. Men and Women who keep their word, are always truly themselves, enjoy themselves and have fun in this wild process called dating and mating can find lasting love.