Saturday, November 30, 2013

Two secrets women need to know about men


 
Talk to any woman, and she will tell you that men don’t understand women. That’s because men can be clueless—and that’s no big secret. (I am a man, and I can say this in all honesty.) But I’ll let you in on a little secret women need to know about men. Many women don’t know that they don’t have a clue about men, either.

 
According to dating expert Kara Oh, most women don’t have a clue about two vitally important secrets about how to date and win the heart of a man. I call these the two secrets that women need to know about men in order to attract the right man—and keep him interested.
Is LOVE in the cards for you? It can be--but only if you know the rules of the game.
 

Secret #1: A Woman Must Use Her Feminine Ways


What does it mean for a woman to use her feminine ways? It means simply this: most men can’t handle a woman’s emotional power. Women must realize that their emotions are too powerful a force for most men to understand. This emotional power shorts out a man’s brain circuits and sends him running for cover.
 

As a result, a woman needs to keep her emotional reactions to herself, or share then with a trusted girlfriend. She SHOULD NOT reveal all of her emotions to the man she wants to romance. Truly, the power of a woman’s emotions is more than a man can handle. His mind is hardwired for logic and problem solving. Men don’t understand emotions and process life through their emotions the way women do.   
 

The answer for women? Learn to regulate your feminine power with feminine grace. Outsmart him by giving him just what his ego wants. At the same time, use your feminine grace to set the ground rules so he will know how you want to be treated. (Men appreciate knowing what “the rules” are—and they respond by trying to please you.)


Here are some more tips on how to convert your feminine power to feminine grace:

 
  • Be gracious. Grace leads to graciousness. Men don’t get a lot of graciousness from the men in their lives, so they crave it from women.

  • Speak from the heart, but don’t overload his brain with too much emotion. He wants to feel your emotion—he really does. He just doesn’t want to be overwhelmed by it.

  • Expect him to treat you with consideration and respect. That’s what you deserve, and you should not settle for anything less.
 

When you turn on your feminine charms, you will find that there is real power in controlling your feminine energy. Use this secret to behave from your source of feminine power and he will feel good to be around you. And that’s crucial in getting him to come back for more.
 

Secret #2: Make Him Feel Like a Man


Why is this secret that women need to know so secret? Probably because too few women know how important this secret really is. Sure, women may make a man feel manly in the beginning of a relationship because they are excited about a new man. But, unfortunately, once they become comfortable in their relationship, they tend to start making him feel like LESS like a man.
 

How big a mistake is this? It’s a deal breaker for most men. Instead of continuing to use their feminine power in the form of feminine grace, too many women start to chip away at a man’s masculine ego by criticizing him and trying to turn him into something different. (Something better, right ladies?) A man wants to please his woman, so he will go along with some of the changes. But after a while most men will realize that the woman he is with is starting to make him feel bad about himself—not wonderful. Trust me, a man wants to please the woman of his dreams. But what if she can’t be pleased? Then he feels like a failure. What man wants to be around a woman who makes him feel like he is a failure?
 

Here are Kara Oh’s suggestions for making a man feel like a man:
 

  • Let him know how good a man you think he is. Tell him with your eyes, your smile, and your kind words. Tell him he makes you feel like a lady.

  • Let him know how considerate he is—and let him know how much that pleases you.

  • Let him know how smart you think he is. Stroke his ego a little. It might sound a little manipulative, and maybe it is. But as a man, yours truly Chad Stone can speak on behalf of men. For more on this topic, check out my book Babe MagnetRules of Dating Over 50.

Let him know strong and capable he is. (It’s beginning to sound like men are just big, insecure babies on the inside. Well ladies, they are.) 

 

Basically, it comes down to this: a man wants to be his woman’s hero. We all want to be the charming prince who comes to a beautiful damsel’s rescue. Men want to live the fairy tale, too. And by the way, ladies, if he is not the kind of man you can honestly appreciate, then he IS NOT the man for you.
 
Would you rather be happy? Or would you rather be right--and not find the man of your dreams?


Does this advice sound hopeless old-fashioned? Does it sound crazy to behave like this in the 21st century? Not if you want the man of your dreams. Dating IS old-fashioned. Relationships ARE based largely upon centuries of old-fashioned behaviors. If you want to get a great man and live happily ever after, you’ve got to use your feminine power in a gracious and graceful way.
 

So, what do you think of this advice? Is it old-fashioned and crazy? Or is it classic brilliance that is just as true today as it was hundreds of years ago?
 

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Please comment and let me know if you think I’m crazy—or not.
 

Sincerely,
 

Chad Stone (affectionately known as the Middle-Aged Babe Magnet)

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Confessions of a Middle-Aged Babe Magnet acceptance speech



Last week, yours truly-- the Middle-Aged Babe Magnet-- had the privilege of attending the awards ceremony for the 2013 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. I was at the gala banquet because my dating advice book, Confessions of a Middle-Aged Babe Magnet, was a finalist for Best Book in the Self-Help Book category.


I was completely honored to be nominated. More than 1,200 books had been submitted for this year's awards. Confessions of a Middle-Aged Babe Magnet, which is a humorous memoir and a dating advice book, caught the eye of the judges and was declared a finalist.

 


My book was nominated for a major award, and I was excited! Could a Pulitzer Prize be far behind?




Because I have never won a major writing award--and because I was quite convinced that I was going to win, I wrote an acceptance speech. I knew that I wanted to say a few key things to the assembled crowd about Confessions of a Middle-Aged Babe Magnet, because not everyone would be familiar with my dating advice/self-help book. My speech would be a great opportunity to say Thank You!, but it would also be an opportunity to tell others about my book.

So here's the speech I wrote:


"Thank you so much for this honor!
 
"Confessions of a Middle-Aged Babe Magnet started out as therapy for me. I was newly divorced after a long marriage, and I did not want to be single for the rest of my life. But I was clueless about dating in the 21st Century. So I started keeping a journal, and I wrote down the good, the bad and the funny things that I experienced as a middle-aged single man.
 
"Whenever I discovered something I thought was either valuable or profound, I wrote this little bit of wisdom down as a Babe Magnet Rule. The first one came to me right after I had written down a list of the attributes I wanted in the Last Love of My Life. I read the list and realized that I had just described a Total Babe—someone who was completely out of my league.
 
"So I wrote down the first Babe Magnet Rule: To be a Babe Magnet, you must believe you are a Babe Magnet.
 
"I ended up with 92 Babe Magnet Rules, and they became the organizing framework for Confessions of a Middle-Aged Babe Magnet. These Babe Magnet Rules helped my book successfully become a hybrid of a humorous memoir and a self-help book.
 
"I would like to thank the judges for getting past the very tongue-in-cheek title of my book, and for finding a way to honor a book that doesn’t fit neatly into a traditional genre. But most of all, I would like to thank my lovely wife, Krista, for giving me the happy ending that my book needed—and for proving that it’s never too late to find your soul mate.
 
"Thank you very much!"
 
I would soon be putting WINNER stickers on the cover of Confessions of a Middle-Aged Babe Magnet book covers instead of FINALIST stickers!
 
 
 

That's a pretty good speech, if I do have to say so myself.
 
There was only one problem with my speech. I never got a chance to deliver it. They announced the nominees in the Best Self-Help book category, but when the emcee announced the winning book, he didn't say Confessions of a Middle-Aged Babe Magnet. He said the title of some other book.
 
I was stunned. Obviously, a horrible mistake had been made. I was supposed to be strolling up to the podium to make my acceptance speech. BUT MY BOOK HADN'T WON. I felt just like all of the non-winning actors on Oscars night. (Except I didn't have a TV camera on me while I tried to look happy for the winner.)
 
You know how everyone always says it's an honor just to be nominated? Well, it is. But the people who say it's an honor just to be nominated DID NOT WIN. The winners always say how great it is to win. Because winning is a lot more fun.
 
Oh, don't worry about me. I'm over it. It was an honor just to get nominated. But if you'd like to help soften the blow for me, you can give copies of Confessions of a Middle-Aged Babe Magnet to everyone you know this holiday season.
 
During my last radio show interview, I told the host that anyone who has ever been single would enjoy the book. And women like the book as much as men. So there you have it, Confessions of a Middle-Aged Babe Magnet is the perfect holiday gift.
 
You heard it here first.

 

Friday, November 15, 2013

Dating After 40: Why Do Men Want Younger Women?

One of the most common dating after 40 questions I am asked by women goes something like this: “Why are so many men who are dating after 40 looking for younger women? What’s up with a 60 year-old-man who clearly wants to date a 40-year-old woman?”

Well, why is it that so many men who are dating after 40 clearly want younger women? Or do we hear a lot about the over-40 single men who want younger women, even though the majority of men are happy to date women in their own age group. Which is it?

There’s no question that some older men do want to date younger women. One reason is simply because they can. Our society has long accepted the idea of an older man dating a younger woman. If a 45-year-old man can get a 30-year-old woman to go out with him, why shouldn’t he? Unfortunately, though, the tables are rarely turned. Society has not embraced the idea of an older woman going out with a younger man. When a 50-something woman does go out with a 30-something man, for example, we call that woman a “cougar.” And the term “cougar” isn’t usually meant to be a compliment.
 
So if society allows a man to date a younger woman, what’s the age difference that’s acceptable? Is it OK for a 60-year-old man to date a 40-year-old woman? How about a 65-year-old man dating a 40-year-old woman? That’s 25 year difference in their ages. How about a 30-year difference in age? Where does a single person draw the line? Or as one woman commented, “It bothers me when I see a man who’s in his 60s going after a woman in her 30s. What does that mean for me, at 53? Does that mean I have to date men who are 75 and older?”

I hope not. That would really suck, wouldn’t it?

 
I don't know, Heff. How many blondes DOES it take to change a diaper? I'm thinking-- three.
 

Let’s face it—getting older is no picnic for either gender. A typical man has concerns about his virility, while the typical woman tends to be concerned with her physical beauty. Many men who are afraid that they are getting older (as in “past their prime”) try to recapture the feeling of virility that they had as young men by dating a younger woman. Dating a younger woman makes them feel younger, and that often will give a man an extra shot of energy—and dare I say, testosterone.
 
But speaking as both a man and the Middle-Aged Babe Magnet, I can tell you that there are plenty of problems with dating a younger woman. For one thing, there’s the lack of common cultural experience. If the first band you fell in love with is the Beatles, and you remember their Ed Sullivan Show appearances in 1964, then you’re not going to have that in common with a younger woman who first got excited about Duran Duran (“the band so nice they named it twice”). You’re probably not going to like the same movies. The list goes on and on.
 
Another huge challenge in dating someone who is significantly older or younger than you are has to do with kids. Let’s say you’ve got older kids who are all out of the house—in college or even into their adult lives. Then you start seeing someone whose kids are still in elementary school. That’s a huge difference in your family situations. And anytime you date someone with kids living in the home it changes the dynamics of the dating situation.
 
So whether you’re a man dating younger women or a woman dating younger men, you’ve got to deal with a lot of age-related challenges.

That’s why, in my humble experience and in my own personal research, I’ve found it much more likely that long-term relationships blossom when the two people are close enough in age to have a common bond of mutual experiences. Being at roughly the same stage of life and coming from the same cultural experiences is a huge factor in finding mutual compatibility.

So, gentlemen, go ahead and date a few young babes if you need to get it out of your system. But I’ll bet you five bucks that the woman you choose for a long-term relationship is closer to your own age.

For more on this topic—and just about everything else concerning dating and relationships, read The Babe Magnet Rules of Dating Over 50: 101 Tips for Meeting, Winning & Keeping a New Love by yours truly, Chad Stone.