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Ready for a pop quiz?
OK, name the No. 1 characteristic that single women say they are looking for in a man.
If you are a single woman, the odds are you know the answer. And if you are a single man, I bet you get it wrong -- and I'll give you three guesses.
Well, the answer is "sense of humor." Ask 100 single women to name the type of guy they are seeking, and I guarantee that a majority will immediately blurt out "I just want a guy who can make me laugh."
And I also guarantee that a vast majority of single men, when posed that same question about single women's priorities, would not include "sense of humor" in their top three answers!
Unlike many other dating priorities, a woman's desire to meet a man with a sense of humor rarely changes with age. At a recent workshop I taught titled "Understanding the Opposite Sex," I relayed to the class this very fact: that women place a higher priority on meeting a man with a sense of humor over any other factor.
A 27-year-old man immediately spoke up saying that he totally disagreed with my claim and, if it were true, it probably only applied to older women. When I asked him what he thought women wanted, he quickly responded "good looks and a good income."
I heard some laughter from the back of the room and two young (and attractive) women, 24 and 28, retorted that I was absolutely correct, and that they and their single friends are always complaining that guys their age are much too serious on dates -- unless they are drunk, and "then they just act stupid."
And that is why so many men fail miserably when they meet single women.
If I could pry open the brain of every single man (of any age) about to go on a first or second date and insert just one thought, it would simply be "to stop trying so hard."
Just relax. Throw away that cologne, stop swooping your hair, and don't tell her within the first 10 minutes what kind of car you drive. Stop trying to imitate James Bond, and (I know this sounds really trite) just be yourself.
In the 23 years I ran a dating service the most common complaints I heard from women had little to do with what their dates looked like or how much money they made. (Like the guy in my workshop, this is what men think women want.)
Sorry, guys, you are not going to impress today's single women with bulging muscles or a casual mention that your Porsche is parked outside. In fact, more than one woman told me that "if a guy tells me what kind of car he drives while on a first date, I can assure you there won't be a second one."
You see, you are not meeting "your father's woman." This is not 1950, when women only took a job in order to "capture" a rich husband. (At least that was the focus of so many movies in which Doris Day or Marilyn Monroe would spend their time plotting a wacky scheme to get their boss to propose marriage.)
Women today have their own careers and drive their own cars. They are not looking for men to be their breadwinners. No, women today can bake their own bread, thank you very much.
Over the years some of the most frequent complaints I heard from women were the following:
"He was just so serious."
"He was so full of himself, he didn't ask me one question,""¦ or the opposite
"I felt like I was on a job interview."
"He was really boring."
"All he did was brag about all his material possessions."
"The only time he smiled was after his third drink."
Does this mean that guys should show up on dates having memorized half a dozen "knock knock" jokes? Not quite.
In recent years an increasingly common phrase that I hear from women is that they want to meet a man who is "comfortable in his own skin," who displays a light-hearted, relaxed sense of self confidence.
I am not a psychologist, but I have a theory that many women may subconsciously fondly recall when they were little girls and jumped into their daddy's arms when he came home from work. "Make me laugh, Daddy," was a phrase that my own daughter frequently would cry out to me when she was little.
Yes, we've come a long way from the days when first meetings involved a prehistoric man bonking a woman over the head and dragging her into his cave. But at least such a guy could never be described as "boring."
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