POTENTIAL

Do you often fall for the first man who smiles at you? His most redeeming feature is that he shows interest in you, and that’s a big factor.  You look him over and decide he’s good enough. That he has potential. Maybe you can shape him up or form him into someone you can live with or at least have a relationship with. Whoa, you are making mistake number one that most single women make. Choosing a man who MIGHT have potential. Rather like throwing an unknown seed in the ground and hoping for corn.

Would you have your tooth pulled by a man who someday if he made all the right choices might become a dentist? Of course not, you are asking someone to do a job they have no training or inclination toward doing. Often the only reason a guy comes on strong is because he has nothing to lose. It isn’t because you’re his lifelong love. He has probably been shot down already by a few other women in the room.

It is similar to picking up a shaggy mutt at the dog pound, and declaring he has potential to be a purebred Championship Doberman. It is easy to see how ridiculous that is. You can’t change the dog’s genetic makeup or physical form. Plenty of women have attempted to remake men’s physical forms into something they found more pleasing. It may have been successful if that is what the man wanted, and only needed encouragement or guidance to make it happen. Usually it is unsuccessful.

How would you feel about your guy telling you to lose weight? I used to manage figure spa similar to CURVES.  Often men would come in and buy a membership for their girlfriend or wife. These same men would drive their lady to the place and sit in the car while she exercised. Because it was in a strip mall, it had a glass front so the men could make sure their women were exercising. Almost all the clients lost weight, except these clients. I bet they ate a gallon of ice cream every night while their controlling mates slept due to feeling that they weren’t good enough.

Lori Gottlieb, author of MARRY HIM: THE CASE FOR SETTLING FOR MR. GOOD ENOUGH, argues that too many women fantasize about Prince Charming coming to sweep them off their feet, probably in his fire engine red Ferrari. While they wait and twiddle their thumbs, they allow perfectly acceptable men to pass on by. This is true for people who want that perfect, unobtainable man who does not exist anywhere, but I am not talking about him. I am talking about settling for a guy who is all wrong on so many levels, but you think he has potential. You have to believe it or you would drop him like so many of your friends have already suggested.

What is wrong with dating a man with potential? That determines what you deem potential. Mark Twain, one of America’s most popular authors, when complimented on his writing deferred it by saying that many other associates had much more talent and potential than he, but they chose not to use it. The difference between them and Twain is that he actually worked and produced a product. People with potential often remain at that stage and progress no farther.

Newsflash ladies: men do not want to change. Our personalities are set by the time we’re two. If you meet a party animal and he’s forty-two, there is no hope he’ll want to join you in the silent reading program down at the library. He may do it once or twice to please you, but don’t get your hopes up. To be fair to the men, it isn’t as if they don’t want to please you, but you are asking them to change who they are to please you, and that’s wrong, and well--impossible.

Here’s the major danger of molding someone who has potential. You do not like who they are right now. Instead you fall for who they can be. When they never turn into this person then you’re disgusted. Think you’ve been fooled somehow. The man after being told in so many ways he doesn’t fit your bill may have already left before you became disgusted.

People are who they are. If he is a skirt chasing player, then he will remain a player no matter how much you love him. Keep in mind players know how to manipulate you with stories about their damaged childhood, or not being understood by women. He makes you think that you’re the only one who “gets” him until he drops you like a hot potato.

So what is the answer? People date to discover who each other is. Okay, once you figured out the guy is not who you though he was or who you wanted, stop seeing him. Don’t talk about his potential or scour your memory for something positive about him.  Don’t become one of those women who put up with his bad behavior because he might have a moment of goodness.

Do things that interest you because it is easier to fall for someone with similar interests. We talk about chemistry all the time, but it takes more than chemistry to make a relationship work. Think back to the inappropriate men you may have found yourself attracted to; you had chemistry. You thought he had potential. He didn’t, or not the kind you wanted.

If you are looking for a thoughtful, kind fellow, make sure you are likewise. Opposites attract while those with similar interests and outlooks bond. Remember to look for who a man is, not who you think you can make him into.

Even though it seems like heresy on a dating blog; it is fine to be on your own instead of settling for men with “potential.” As a veteran of dating and marrying men with potential that potential never pans out.  Any of you ever try to remake a man ?