Simple Advice About Dating And Destiny
So, let’s say you’re out there on the dating scene.
(Never mind how you got there. Trust me, it never becomes any easier no matter how old you get.)
And let’s say that, surprise!, you’re having problems. What do you do? What do you do?
Judy Kuriansky can advise you. “Dr. Judy,” as she’s known to her New York listeners, is host of “Love Phones,” a syndicated radio call-in show. She also is a clinical psychologist.
Not to mention an author. Her book: “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Dating” (Alpha Books, 297 pages, $16.95 paperback).
Kuriansky offers step-by-step advice concerning every aspect of the dating process, beginning with the most important: compatibility. She breaks this particular step down to five simple questions:
Do the two of you have similar values?
Can you resolve your differences?
Do you have similar needs for closeness or separateness?
Do you have similar sex drives?
Do you have similar lifestyles and goals?
Kuriansky has lots to say, and she says most of it in a light style that seldom sounds preachy. But nothing she says gets any more basic than these five queries.
So heed this advice: No matter how much you may want something to work, chances are it won’t if the basic chemistry ain’t right. As Dr. Judy writes, “A ‘no’ answer to any one of these questions could spell trouble.”
To which we say, “Amen to that, brother.”
Not to mention sister.
The joy of … Let’s face it, say what you want about love, sex is what makes the world go round.
Many a fortune has been made and lost by over- or, more likely, underestimating the power of the procreative drive.
One of the latest attempts to make some money on people’s insecurities is a book titled “Secrets of Better Sex” (Parker Publishing, 274 pages, $19.95) by Joel D. Block, Ph.D.
According to Block, a clinical psychologist (shall we call him Dr. Joel?), “Often the difference between an adequate lover and a good one is a small amount of new information, a little shift in attitude and the learning of one or two new tricks.”
Tricks? Like maybe the Venus Butterfly or something?
Whatever, I’d read Block with caution. Anyone who would write a line such as, “Sexual passion has the power to lift our spirits unlike any other feeling, just as sexual frustration can dampen our spirits unlike any other experience,” is a master of the obvious.
, DataTimes MEMO: Common Ground is written on alternating weeks by Rebecca Nappi and Dan Webster. Write to them in care of The Spokesman-Review, Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615. Or fax, (509) 459-5098.