Nancy Slotnick: Hot for Teacher

I love my job.  I get to help people find love.  But better than that. I get to help them enjoy it after they’ve found it.  As a dating coach, people hire me (primarily successful smart attractive single women) to help them when they are ready to find the One.  I don’t find it for them.  (That would be too easy, right?)   I don’t actually believe that it works that way. Matchmakers who promise that they can find love for you if you pay them thousands of dollars are often flim-flamming you.

That being said, I do have a matchmaking site on Facebook.  It’s called Matchmaker Café.  We don’t charge thousands of dollars- just the same amount as what online dating sites charge. And we set up the date for you- ‘cuz that’s the hardest part!  But I digress.

True love finds you.  You just have to be open to it.  That’s what I call “turning your Cablight on.” But that’s not the real trick of love.  (It’s not supposed to be about turning tricks, either.)  The trick is to be happy once you find it.  I have a lot of clients who think that once they find the “One” that they should fire me.  And they may be right, of course.  There’s a reason that Recovering Dater sounds like I’m part of a 12 step Program (more than a writer of a blog.)  That’s because once you find love, you shouldn’t be interested in dating anymore!  And you certainly shouldn’t need a dating coach.

However, even once you find that [almost] perfect person, you have a choice of being hopelessly miserable with each other or hopelessly romantic.  Or everything in between.

The beginning stages of dating are like precedents in the law.  Once certain patterns are set, there’s no going back.  And you will always refer back to that pattern.  It’s like when a river dries up but there is still the path.  Pour a big rainstorm back in and that water goes in the same direction that it always did for years.  Enough metaphors for you?  Sorry about that- here’s a real world example.

One of the hardest jobs I’ve ever done in my life was teaching Hebrew school when I was in college.  It’s hard enough to be a teacher and control the classroom.  But then try controlling a classroom of kids who have been in school for 8 hours that day already!  $12 per hour was a lot of money in those days- it had to be. So, in the event that you have been a teacher then you will know what I mean about this- the very first day is your only shot for establishing order and discipline.  The students can get to know you and like you later.  But if you are “soft” on the first day, you’re done for the year.  By the next year you have learned, but it’s a new class by then.

Also too with dating– to paraphrase Sarah Palin.  If you start out a relationship being too soft, that’s always how it will go.  So if you set a precedent that you’re always free whenever the guy asks you out, then he will start to get used to that standard.  And you will find it harder and harder to say no to him, even when necessary.  If you start out having unprotected sex, you can’t go back and say you never do that.   The list goes on.

Does this mean that in order to be happy in a relationship that you have to be an uptight school marm?  Not necessarily.  But there is something kinda cute about that Hot-for-Teacher thing.  And especially when you take off the glasses and let your hair down.