Book Review: Get Over Yourself

Get Over Yourself!: How to Get Real, Get Serious, and Get Ready to Find TRUE LOVE
by Patti Novak and Laura Zigman

Patti Novak is another matchmaker who had a tv show recently and she's written a book on getting out of your own way when you're dating.

I'll summarize the important parts for us busy nerds.

* Need to be honest with yourself when looking for dates. You need to know who you are and know what you're looking for and basically if you're holding out for Kristen Bell to date you, you're going to be waiting a long time. While we all love us some Veronica Mars, maybe you need to settle for a less cute girl who has some good snark to her.

* Get over your past history. Ok we've all got baggage, bad families, relationships, attacked by bears, whatever. You gotta let it go to an extent. Don't be all crazy bitter about things. I know that bear hurt you, but you survived and now you know that when you're camping to not leave poptarts in your tent. People can sense when people have crazy issues and we don't want to be around sad sacks or angry bitter people generally. So learn from it, and move on towards something better.

* Really evaluate yourself. This goes back to my theory of, you need to know who you are. If you know what is causing your problems, get help, stop doing it, whatever it takes to move past it. If you're disturbing shy and awkward that is not going to help you in the dating world. Not everyone is going to meet someone who is willing to overlook the inability to look you in the eye. Find out what might have caused the problem and work on it. If you don't know what caused it, work on it. WORK ON IT.

* Her three keys to a healthy relationship: common sense, self-esteem, and kindness.
It makes sense, it's simple and if you think about it, these three things will get you really far in your dating life and work life and friendships. Basically I think these things are non-negotiables.

* Change what you can change that you don't like about yourself. Pretty simple.

* Internet dating, this is where I really disagree with her. She says that internet dating is not good. I think she's generally dealing with non-nerds though. I understand what she means when she says that people shouldn't stay in an internet relationship forever b/c if you're shy, it can be a crutch or whatever but it's a very good way to meet people and to help try and prescreen them.

*There's also quite a lot on not dating narcissists. From everything I've read on narcissistic personality types, they are the one type of people who won't change, and in their opinion, they don't need to change, there's nothing wrong with them. This is a list of things totally stolen from the super authoritative wikipedia.

"The following pointers may indicate the presence of someone with narcissistic personality disorder.

* They expect others to do the day-to-day chores as they feel too important to waste their time on common things.
* They very rarely talk about their inner life - for example their memories and dreams.
* There tends to be a higher level of stress with people who work with or interact with a narcissist, which in turn increases absenteeism and staff turnover.
* They feel that rules at work don't apply to them.
* Their sense of self-importance and lack of empathy means that they will often interrupt the conversation of others.
* They get impatient and restless when the topic of conversation is about someone else, and not about them.
* They constantly use "I", "me" and "my" when they talk.
* If you share the workload with them, expect to do the lion's share yourself.
* They lack empathy and this colours everything they do.
* They love to delegate work, and then interfere by micromanaging it. If it goes well they take the credit (plagiarism); if it goes badly, they blame the person they delegated it to.
* Blame others for their actions and misfortunes.
* During a conversation, no matter what topic is being discussed, they usually end up talking about themselves.
* They will always cheat whenever they think they will get away with it.
* Virtually all their ideas or ways of behaving in a given situation are taken from others (mirroring)

They just sound like awful awful people to be around, so if you think you're dating someone with this, run run away, b/c they'll bring you pain. (hey, I'm only a fake narcissist!)

Ok, that's my summary, now you don't have to read the book! :)

Your life is not a romcom

After a semi-drunk night of watching the rather terrible movie Couple's Retreat, I have decided to write a huge pet peeve of mine which is when people expect their relationships to be in like the movies, all romantic and crap.

So in Couple's Retreat (I'm totally going to spoil it for you guys b/c it really is a shitty movie) four couples go to some crazy couples counceling place and then discover that their relationships had massive problems and then at a drunken party at the end, everything is fixed and they get back together again. Now in the first place, a lot of these couples should not have been together in the first place, one couple consistently cheats on each other, another one, the guy doesn't respect the girl and always tells her what to do b/c she's doing things wrong. Yet at the end, it's all good and they stay together.

Ok, here's my chief complaint, life is not a movie. Generally if you start off hating someone you aren't going to realize later that you're perfect for each other. It's not going to be all cute misunderstandings with a chase scene at the end. Odds are, no wacky neighbor or relative is going to be pulling stunts to get you two together like faking heart attacks.

Here's the real deal, life is not necessarily exciting. There will be ups and downs and it's your job to get through them, not wait for chance or fate or luck to make things happen for you. Rely on things like communication and common sense and not irrational thoughts to determine course of actions. And don't wait for the manic pixie dream girl...they might seem cool but you're just in for a world of hurt if you do.