Before I became a dating coach I had a job in medical sales. Ironically, at the time I landed the job, I had zero medical experience. I didn’t know anything about hospitals, let alone the cardiac monitors I was selling. But I was always a firm believer that a good salesperson could sell anything. So even if I didn’t know the product that well, I thought I could still get by.
After being at my new job for only a few months, I thought I was ready to take my first big client meeting alone. My boss always accompanied me to big presentations, but this time he had a scheduling conflict and couldn’t make it. I told him it was no problem because I could handle the meeting on my own.
When I arrived at the hospital I was excited. If my meeting went well, and the client liked our equipment, I was going to make a huge commission. I started setting up the table as the hospital staff began to trickle in.
I began my demonstration by thanking everyone for attending and started going through my pitch. I felt good. It flowed. People were paying attention and nodding in agreement. The usually stoic director of nursing was actually smiling. The head doctor was, too. I thought I had nailed it. But then something happened that I wasn’t prepared for.
The staff started asking questions.
I don’t know about you, but before that day, I had never heard of ST Analysis. I didn’t know how to answer when the director of nursing questioned if the 12-lead report was derived or diagnostic. And when the CEO wanted to know what bandwidth the telemetry system ran on, I wanted to crawl under one of the hospital beds. Just as foreign as this is sounding to you now, they might as well have been speaking Chinese to me back then.
I lost the deal. I left that hospital wondering how I could have been so unprepared. When I told my boss what happened, I expected him to be furious with me. Instead, he said, “I hope you learned a good lesson today. I know you are great at sales, and I know you are great with people. But those things don’t matter if you don’t know your product. If you don’t know your product, Jess, you’ll never survive here.”
He was right. I didn’t know my product well enough to sell it. I tried to make up answers and skirt around issues. At one point I just agreed with one of the doctors when he said he thought our monitors ran on a 608 frequency. I had no idea what he or I was talking about. And let me tell you, everyone in that room knew it.
It is imperative to know your product in sales. Can you imagine going into a meeting and not knowing how to answer simple questions about the product you are selling? Sadly, it’s not that unbelievable. There are many salespeople who try to win deals using 100 percent personality and zero product knowledge. I know because I’ve tried it. However, not knowing how to answer simple questions about your product will leave your customers confused and frustrated, and eventually drive them into the arms of your competition.
In the dating arena, you are your product, and in order to really attract a great guy, you have to know yourself inside and out.
Kayla, who is twenty-nine, has always lacked product knowledge. She hasn’t had a long-term relationship since high school. Kayla’s biggest problem is that she doesn’t really know who she is. She hasn’t yet figured out the kind of person that makes her Kayla. She spends ample time perfecting herself on the outside, but no time developing herself on the inside. If you asked her if she was a Democrat or Republican, she would say she’s not into politics. If you tried to discuss religion, she would tell you she just loves God. If you asked her what restaurant she wanted to go to for dinner, she would say she’s up for anything you want. She hardly has an opinion about anything. I remember one date asked her, “What do you think about the war in Iraq?” To this she replied, “I try not to.” Yes, she knew there was a war going on, but that only proved she hadn’t been living in a closet for the last few years. She had no opinion on the subject. She thought she was being easygoing by staying neutral, but instead she came off looking like she wasn’t smart enough to form her own opinion. Men find her boring because she cannot carry on an interesting conversation. She reminds me of the princess Eddie Murphy was betrothed to in Coming to America. He tried to get to know her by asking her what she liked, and she kept responding with “Whatever you like.” And as we all know, the entire movie is based on him chasing a sassy go-getter from the Bronx so he wouldn’t have to marry the annoyingly passive princess.
I know it’s an unusual concept to grasp. Most people never stop to think about who they really are. But seriously, how can you expect someone to get to know you if you don’t even know yourself? You may be able to fake it for a while, but believe me, you will eventually be found out. No one wants to date a Stepford wife, so you better start doing some soul-searching and figure out what makes you you. You should be able to answer questions like, “What are your goals in life? What motivates you? Are you passionate about music, politics, or sports? What makes you happy? What really drives you nuts? What would you be doing if you could do anything?”
If you can’t answer these questions off the top of your head, now is the time to really think about them. Men like happy, positive women that have something interesting to say.
Letting Him In
One of my clients, Cameron, is almost forty and has never been married. She is very attractive and has a great job, yet she doesn’t get asked out very often. When she does, she typically goes on two or three dates before the guy completely loses interest. At first I didn’t know what to think, but then as I got to know her, I realized that Cameron does not like sharing personal information with her dates. She is afraid to let a man truly get to know her. She is much more comfortable talking about neutral subjects, like traveling, current events, music, and movies. Those are fine topics of conversation and you definitely need to find common ground, but it’s imperative that you share information about yourself so that men can get to know you. If you are guarded because you are afraid of getting hurt, you will put up a wall that no man can climb over.
You have to be willing to open up and share personal details about yourself. Likewise you have to be able to ask your date personal questions as well. Sticking to safe subjects becomes boring after two or three dates, and your guy won’t feel like he’s getting any closer to you. How much info should you share? You don’t want to tell your date the good, the bad, and the ugly, but you do want him to know a few key things that make you who you are. Tell him about your family. Tell him about your past relationships (when he asks). Tell him about your passions in life or your funny habits (just leave out the weird ones). The key is to tell him just enough about yourself to keep him interested, but not so much that he should send you a bill afterward for three hours of therapy. We will discuss how to balance the self-talk more in the chapter on the KISS Principle, but make no mistake about it, a man will lose interest if he doesn’t feel like he’s learning anything about you.
Building Your Brand
If you are one of the many women out there who only likes talking about shopping, celebrity gossip, and your coworkers’ love lives, you may have a hard time connecting on your dates. Your girlfriends may be impressed that you know how many times JLo’s been married or that you can name the entire Jolie-Pitt clan, but that’s not going to show a guy how intelligent and funny you are. With men, you need to have more substance to talk about.
I’ve never been one of those girls who has tried to learn about sports in order to relate to guys, so I am not going to tell you to go out and research his favorite team in order to impress him. I think forcing yourself to take an interest in something that you don’t give a hoot about is pointless. If you are not genuinely interested in a particular topic, you will struggle to understand and retain information about it. However, if you open your mind to exploring new things, you will inevitably discover more interests and have a greater chance of finding a guy who shares them.
As much as you want to be with someone who is well rounded, most guys want to find a girl that is as well. So if you are sitting home most nights, texting your friends, checking Facebook, and playing “Draw Something,” how do you expect to “wow” the next guy that comes along? The best products on the market are those that communicate a strong sense of what they are. Companies spend time and money researching how to be the best so consumers will buy their merchandise. You, too, have to build your brand. Spend your free time adding “bells and whistles” to your product. Take up a hobby, read a newspaper, try something you have never done before. Invest some time into really developing yourself into an interesting person. The more cool things you can add to your repertoire, the more impressive you will seem, and the more you will have in common with your dates. Just remember that men won’t stay interested in you if there is nothing interesting about you!
Once You Know Yourself, Be Yourself
There is no better advice from Socrates than “Know thyself.” But once you do know yourself, you need to be yourself. You have to be confident and comfortable enough in your own skin so as not to cater to a man. Some girls are afraid to voice their opinions because they don’t want to “rock the boat.” They are so afraid of the guy not liking them that they would rather stay quiet about things that they don’t agree with. But men don’t want to date a mindless bimbo who doesn’t have her own opinions. If there is one thing worse than a woman who doesn’t know herself, it’s one who’s afraid to be herself.
My father dated a woman who was so afraid to offend him that she never voiced her opinion about anything. She thought if she ever disagreed with what he said, he wouldn’t like her. For instance, my father is a die-hard Democrat, and she was a known Republican. Yet whenever they got together and my father started talking politics, she kept her mouth shut. He’d argue a point, and she would just smile and agree with him. Even after a year she was still afraid to speak her mind for fear of offending him. She didn’t stick up for her needs in other areas as well. She was never particularly fond of motorcycle riding; in fact, you could almost say she hated it. Yet every weekend she’d smile and get on the back of Dad’s bike for a three-hour ride. She figured she was making him happy by always doing the things he wanted to do. But eventually my dad dumped her and told the family that he couldn’t stand to be with someone who didn’t know how to stand up for her beliefs, even if they were contradictory to his own. He’s now engaged to someone who couldn’t be more different than he is, and he loves it!
Men aren’t offended by differences in opinions. Just because you don’t agree with a guy doesn’t mean you aren’t a likable person. If you don’t like something, you can and should say so. You have to figure out if you are compatible, and you can’t possibly do that by pretending to be something you know you are not.
Get to know your most important product—you. If you don’t know your product, you will find yourself constantly struggling to sell yourself. Whether it’s expanding your interests or gaining more knowledge for ones you already have, figure out what makes you the person you are. Because if you don’t know, you will have a hard time retaining any interested men.
After the disaster with my first sales meeting, I was sent to New Jersey for follow-up training. All the new sales reps were crammed into a little room and given a chance to ask questions. Most inquiries were regarding standard product knowledge. However, one newbie decided to ask something rather unorthodox. His sales were down, and we all knew that something had been plaguing him since the day he was hired. Whatever it was, he kept to himself, but it was severely impacting his performance. He sat quietly for the entire training, hoping someone else would ask his question for him. When it was apparent that no one was having the same problem, he slowly raised his hand and asked it.
“How do you become successful at selling a product that you don’t really like?” he asked sheepishly.
The rest of us sat in silence. How would the teacher answer that? What kind of advice would he give? And what did he think of this rep who basically just announced that he thought our product sucked?
The teacher smiled, walked closer, and put his hand on the rep. “How do you become successful at selling a product you really don’t like?” The teacher repeated. “The answer is simple. You can’t.”
You would think with all the different techniques a salesperson has, liking the product wouldn’t be a huge roadblock. Well, I’m here to tell you that if you don’t like your product, you haven’t hit a roadblock. You’ve hit a dead end.
In dating, you are the product. If you don’t like your product and you aren’t confident in it, you cannot possibly be successful at selling it. There is a direct correlation between how much you like your product and how much someone else will like it. You will never get anyone to love something you, yourself, do not love.
My friend Ebony doesn’t like herself very much. She doesn’t eat right or exercise, and she smokes and drinks quite frequently. She complains that she’s not in very good shape and that her skin is starting to wrinkle. She is so unhappy with her lifestyle that she beats herself up about it constantly. In short, Ebony does not love herself. When she goes on dates, this poor self-image comes shining through. If a guy is nice to her and actually treats her well, she doesn’t like him. Why? Because subconsciously she thinks, How can this guy possibly like me so much? I’m falling apart. I have nothing good to offer. He must not be very smart. He must be even more worthless than I am. It’s impossible for Ebony to be with someone who treats her better than she treats herself. On the flip side, if she meets a guy who treats her like garbage, she loves him! Why? Because he can see who she really is: someone who does not take care of herself; someone who makes bad choices, is unmotivated, and unhappy. He must be smart. He must be worthy. She chases him and tries to get him to love her. But it doesn’t work. You can’t get someone to love you until you completely love yourself.
Be Confident in Your Product
Being confident in your product is absolutely essential in sales and in dating. However, if you don’t love your product, there is no way to be confident in it. Many women believe that having a man will make them feel better about themselves. They think that getting into a relationship will boost their self-esteem. The problem is that you cannot attract a man when that is your motivation. The smart guys will sense your need for validation and run from you, and anyone else left who is interested will be rejected by you, just like Ebony.
The best thing to do if you are lacking in self-love is to work on yourself before looking for a man. If that means radically changing something about yourself or your lifestyle, do it. If the reason you don’t love yourself is because you are engaging in activities that hurt your body, like eating poorly, smoking, drinking, or having casual sex, figure out how to stop. Until you treat yourself well, and feel happiness from within, no man will treat you well either.
If you are simply insecure and worried that you aren’t as smart, pretty, or funny as your female friends, men will be able to sense that, too. It’s lack of confidence that holds women back and really nothing else. Most of the time men never even notice what it is we are so self-conscious about. They do, however, notice the insecurity we exude because of it.
Back in college I was very insecure about my small chest. I thought I had the body of a fourteen-year-old boy and no guy could possibly like it. I went out with my friends to parties and watched as they all got hit on. I remember standing there, wishing that I had bigger boobs so someone would talk to me. Then one day I told my mother that I wanted to get implants. She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Honey, it’s your head and not your chest that needs fixing.”
She was right. It wasn’t my flat chest that was keeping me down. It was my insecurity. The more I dwelled on the negative, the more people felt my negativity. The more I convinced myself that no one could find me attractive, the more people agreed. I didn’t love my product, and therefore, no one else did either.
Then I realized that I had a choice. I could dwell on something negative about my body, or I could dwell on something positive. I may not have been blessed in the breast department, but I was tall, and I did have nice legs. Anytime I began thinking about my lack of boobage, I immediately switched focus onto my legs. I told myself I had two of the best stems out there. I repeated this over and over. Eventually I began to really love my legs—and the rest of my body. Soon I was walking taller and acting more confidently. Once I started loving myself and believing I was a pretty girl, the guys started noticing me.
Everyone has positives and negatives, but most people tend to focus on what they don’t like about themselves instead of what they do like. The truth is that we have many more good attributes than bad. Our mind may frequently focus on our less perfect features, but that is only because we allow it to. If you have two things that you don’t like about yourself but ten that you do, don’t you think it is better to be grateful and spend time concentrating on the good qualities? Chances are men don’t even notice what it is that you don’t like. They just notice that you’re a Negative Nelly, and believe me, no one wants to date her! If it helps, write down a list of all your good attributes, and whenever your mind drifts to your dark side, think about them instead. Combat your negatives with your positives. They may both be truths about you, but why not spend more time thinking about those that make you feel good about yourself and actually help you attract men?
Turning Around Negatives
For some women it’s incredibly hard to be confident, especially when there is something they really dislike about themselves. Maybe no matter how much you work out, you just aren’t happy with your body. Or perhaps you’ve been given some genetic gift you wish you could return. Most people spend hours upon hours thinking and wishing that something they don’t like about themselves were different. However, all that wishing doesn’t change anything, and if it’s something you cannot control or change, you are only adding another negative on top of it. No one likes being around someone who thinks about themselves too much, and that’s just what you are doing when you obsess about your lesser qualities.
If what is getting you down is, in fact, something image-related (you hate your nose, your arms, or your butt, for example), try focusing more on improving your insides instead of the outside. Instead of trying to subtract what you don’t like about yourself, try adding something that will make you feel better. Having a pretty face or a nice figure may get you noticed, but the physical you is not the only thing that turns a man on. Lots of men think other traits are just as sexy. Can you surf? Cook like Giada? Salsa dance? Guys have even said that seeing a girl drive a stick shift makes her twice as attractive. There are lots of things you can do to up your hot factor and make yourself more confident. You do have to spend a little time developing the skill, but once you get it down, you’ll have it forever.
Confidence Is Contagious
When you are out with a guy, be aware that confidence (or the lack thereof) is contagious. During the course of the evening your date may ask you questions that you might not like answering. Maybe he will ask where you live, and your answer is that it’s at home with your parents. Maybe he will ask if you work out, and until last week you thought Gold’s was the name of a popular jewelry store. You can answer these questions with a scrunched face and a worried look, and your date will immediately know you are unsure of yourself, or you can answer these questions with confidence. Look him in the eye. Don’t flinch. Give it to him straight. If he sees you have no problem with yourself, he won’t either.
Just remember: you cannot expect anyone to like you more than you like yourself. So if you do not love your product yet, it will not matter how many sales techniques you learn. You will not be able to close the deal. Focus on your strong points. A salesperson never enters a meeting thinking about the chinks in his armor. He thinks of all the positive things about his product. He answers even the toughest questions with confidence. He truly believes he’s got the best thing out there! And if you truly believe you are great just as you are, men will agree with you.
A few years back I took on a new client who was having a very hard time attracting men. Even though Adrienne was on four different Internet dating sites, she was not being asked out very often. When she went out with friends, she was hardly ever approached, and when someone did ask for her number, they rarely called. Before I even looked over her online profile, I knew what the problem was. Because she was losing men even before “hello,” the issue was image-related. Her pictures online were not flattering, and her appearance in general did not send the right message to available guys. Adrienne was attractive, but she wasn’t accentuating her positives. In fact, she was hiding them! She had really great legs but never wore skirts. She had a very pretty face, but didn’t wear any makeup. She was very modest by nature and didn’t like attention, however, when you are looking for a boyfriend, getting attention is necessary!
I told Adrienne that if she wanted to date and find the man of her dreams, she would have to dress for the part she wanted. The part she wanted, of course, was someone’s girlfriend, but she was currently dressing for the role of “soccer mom.” She wore tennis shoes or flats every day, along with an old pair of jeans and a loose top. She often threw her mousy brown hair into a ponytail and applied just a dash of mascara before heading out the door.
I convinced Adrienne that we needed to give her a full image makeover. As much as she wanted to hold on to her comfortable and familiar appearance, it was just not helping her meet guys. Her only two choices were to change nothing and nothing would change, or take my advice and spruce up her packaging.
We went to the mall for everything we needed. In full Pretty Woman fashion, we soon had every store clerk helping to select new wardrobe choices. We bought skirts, fitted shirts, and three pairs of high heels. When Adrienne walked into a room, we wanted men to know she was single and looking for attention—something a pair of flip-flops just couldn’t do!
We also stopped by a few of the makeup counters, and then ended our spree at a nearby salon. Adrienne had never dyed her hair before, but she confessed she had always wanted to try highlights. With just a little tinfoil and peroxide, her bland brown locks came alive with color, and so did her face! She looked like a new woman; but even better, she felt like one, too.
Clothes do not just make the man. They also make the woman. How you dress communicates a lot about you. First impressions are made from your physical appearance. With that in mind, remember that if you want to get noticed, be taken seriously, and eventually get married, you need to communicate that with the way you dress.
Men are visual. When I say that, I don’t mean that they don’t understand something unless you paint a picture for them. I mean they are visually turned on or off by what they see. Women are different. Attraction can grow for us. But men know in three seconds if they find someone attractive or not, and, unfortunately, what a woman thinks is attractive is usually very different from what a man thinks is attractive. Women will often overlook things that men cannot get past. It seems shallow, but it’s the reality. Sure, there are men who don’t place as much importance on appearance, but they are not the majority.
If you are having trouble getting noticed, whether in person or online, you have to take a good, hard look at your image. Is it saying, “I’m single and available” or is it saying, “Don’t look at me, I have not showered today”? In Chapter 5 we will talk about “Buying Signs” and how to tell if a man is interested in you. Buying Signs, however, work both ways. Men also need to know that you are interested in having them approach you and ask you out. The very first way you do this is with your appearance. When you dress for the part of an available single woman, you will get noticed. That means wearing the right clothes every day of the week! You may often dress to impress when you are going out on the town, but what if you are just making a stop at the quickie mart? What if you see a cute guy in the checkout line? Or what if you get stuck in an elevator with the office hottie? If you typically leave the house afraid of bumping into someone you know, or roll to work with your hair wet and face bare, then you need to put more effort into your appearance. Remember, you can meet a guy anywhere, so you have to be prepared. I remember a time before I was married when I ran to Kinko’s to pick up some business cards, and I didn’t do my hair or put on any makeup that day. I was tired, so I threw on a pair of sweats and an old T-shirt. When I got there I was the only one in the store, until an extremely good-looking guy walked in. I wanted to smile at him, but I felt like I wasn’t looking my best. So I didn’t, and I missed my opportunity to meet him.
I know on Sunday morning it’s annoying to shower and dress up just to go out and run errands, but if you are single, it is something that you will have to do. If you only dress your best on Friday nights when you hit the town, you will only have one chance in the entire week to meet anyone. Every day is a potential day to meet your future husband. If you don’t look your best the day you meet him, then someone else may end up marrying him!
Do You Need a Makeover?
The best way to figure out if you need to renovate your image is to look at your online profile. If you don’t have one, get one. You don’t even have to pay to be on some of the sites. Many of them have free trials or allow you to browse without signing up. Dating sites are not only a great way to meet men; they will also do a good job of indicating whether your image needs a little tweaking. If you post a few pictures and are not getting many bites, chances are there is a problem. Most women on sites like Match.com and OKCupid will receive at least ten e-mails the first day they sign up. Traffic will wind down from there, of course, but you should have a number of men wanting to meet you right off the bat. If you don’t, that is a strong indicator that your photos and your image need improvement. If you are on a site that makes matches for you, like eHarmony, you should be getting at least three to five e-mails a day for the first week. Anything less points to a problem.
Where Should You Start?
If you know you could use a new look, do not be embarrassed! It’s not like they teach What to Wear classes in high school. Chances are you are dressing the way you were taught from your mother or your friends. That’s fine, of course, but unless Mom is perusing for a date herself, and all of your friends are successfully meeting men wherever they go, they may not be the best style sources. Start with flipping through magazines to get ideas for new looks. Then head out on your own and ask the people who are absorbed in the fashion industry. When you go to a store, reach out to the salespeople for help. They stand there all day asking people if they need another size. You don’t think they would be thrilled if you asked them to recommend some styles for you? Tell them you are looking for “date” clothes—because you are! Not all of them are going to be good at picking out the right look, so ask the women who seem to be sporting an eye-catching style themselves.
The good news is that most appearance issues are fixable. You just have to first admit it needs fixing. If your wardrobe is sending out the wrong signals, change it. Telling yourself you are too tired to put on any makeup or you are too busy to go to the gym will only hurt one person—you. Don’t make excuses for a shoddy appearance. If you want to attract a guy, you have to stop doing what’s easy and start doing what’s smart. If it means getting up an extra half hour before work to straighten your hair, do it! Stop pretending it doesn’t matter. It does. No matter how great a product you have, poor packaging can destroy its salability. Men absolutely judge books by their covers, so you need to make yours as spectacular and noticeable as it can be.
The Wrong Look
When my friends and I were in college, we used to go clubbing a lot. Wednesday through Sunday we were out on the town having the time of our lives. We would buy fun clubbing clothes every week so we always had something new to wear. We loved our miniskirts and midriffs. Didn’t matter if it was twenty degrees outside; we’d dress like it was the middle of August. We danced with a lot of guys and got a lot of numbers, but we were never taken out to dinner, never called at a decent hour, and never treated with very much respect. We dressed like party girls, and we were treated like party girls. No one took us seriously.
It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized that how I was dressing was severely impacting men’s perception of me. I was a single girl, but I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be someone’s girlfriend. I was dressing proactively to get attention and to get noticed. It was working, but not in the right way. I was dressing for the part I had, not the part I wanted.
I have nothing against skimpy attire. If you’ve got it and want to flaunt it, be my guest. But know the kind of perception you are giving men. You definitely want to be treated with respect, and a bad first impression is hard to recover from. It’s a mistake to think all attention is good attention. If a man notices you because your cleavage is staring him in the face, he will be less interested in who you are and more interested in what your cup size is. It’s important to package your product appropriately so that you communicate to men that you are available, but not easy.
If you want to attract a man, you have to be willing to dress to do so. It sounds like a fine line to walk, but it’s really very simple. Remember that less isn’t necessarily more when it comes to clothes. Guys don’t have to be able to see your boobs to know you’ve got them. But also make sure that you are making yourself as attractive as possible. Put effort into your appearance. Men are visual. You want to give them something nice to look at while still leaving something to the imagination!
Attracting Attention to Your Product
When I accepted my job in medical sales, I knew it was going to be challenging, not just because of my lack of product knowledge but also because the company I was working for only had a 7 percent market share. We were the underdog. There were two other industry-leading companies whose monitors were bigger and slightly better. I wondered how I was going to possibly compete with them. How could I attract attention to my product, even though it wasn’t as good?
Then I realized that “better” is in the eye of the beholder. Sure, my opponents had a few sleek features that I thought would be nice to have, but my product performed just as well and was equally as reliable as theirs. And in the long run, that’s what truly mattered. Although the competition was stiff, I was able to make my quota that first year and even break a new record for the most blood pressure monitors sold by using a simple technique that allowed me to effectively attract attention to my product. Instead of attempting to be better than my superior counterparts, I pitched my product as being different. Being different, in the eyes of many customers, automatically made my monitor more attractive.
There will always be someone out there who is taller, prettier, or thinner than you. So trying to be the most beautiful girl on the planet is a lost cause. I’m not saying you don’t need to be the best-looking, most attractive you that you can be. I’m just telling you that in order to stand out, you don’t have to be more attractive than everyone else in the room. Instead, you can create a style that gets you noticed. Don’t try to fit some supermodel mold. Just accentuate the unique person that you are, and you will attract the attention you deserve.
Remember my client Adrienne? After she and I went on our shopping excursion, we put together a few key looks that were sure to get her noticed. She already had a pair of cowboy boots that she often wore under her jeans, but now we decided to pair them with either a cute skirt or a pair of shorts. She pulled her newly dyed locks into a long braid and accessorized with some of the fun jewelry we bought. I sent her out on the town for only two months before she met someone special and started dating him. Then just six months later, she called to tell me she was engaged! She was always a very quality girl, but with her improved new look, it was easy for her to attract the attention she always deserved.
You know yourself very well, and you may easily be able to see what separates you from every girl out there. Unfortunately, men won’t know that until they sit down and have a conversation with you, and they can’t do that if they don’t notice you to begin with. I am not going to lie: in some cities, the competition is fierce. You have to be on your A game when you are single, and that means making sure you always stand out in a crowd.
When I was single I used to wear something different, something eye-catching, every time I went out. Sometimes I wore a hat; sometimes I wore my hair in two braids. I went to my high school reunion in jeans and a funky shirt, while everyone else there was wearing a black dress. When it got warm out, I started wearing shorts with heels instead of a dress—anything I could find to set myself apart from the crowd. I tried on headscarves, jewelry, and funky belts. Sometimes I would dress up if I knew everyone else would be dressing down, or I would dress down when everyone else was dressing up. There was no right or wrong. All that mattered was looking different.
Repeat Your Best Outfits
Whenever Adison goes running, she wears her Yankees cap. She usually stops for coffee when she is done working out, and someone almost always comments on her hat. Knowing this, I told her she should incorporate the hat into her daily wardrobe.
You need a couple of staple outfits that are sure to grab a guy’s eye. The great thing about trying to be different is that you not only get noticed because you stand out, you also have a conversation starter. Men love it when you give them a reason to come talk to you. It takes the pressure off of them for coming up with something to say.
I used to have five outfits that were always able to get me noticed, and I wore them a lot. My girlfriends would call and ask me what I was wearing that evening, and I would tell them “outfit number four.” It doesn’t matter if your friends have seen your favorite blue dress a hundred times, they aren’t the ones whose attention you are trying to grab. If you know that certain things in your wardrobe drum up a lot of business, wear them often! Don’t buy new clothes that will only make you blend in. Try new styles that are a little unusual, and see what kind of reaction you get. If you notice another female while you are out, ask yourself why you noticed her, and then copy what she is doing. I once noticed a girl running in front of my apartment because she was wearing a hot pink running suit. Now I own one as well.
Keep What Makes You Unique
These days, plastic surgery is on the rise. It seems like everyone wants to fix that little imperfection that has always bothered them. Maybe that bump in your nose annoys you, or you’ve always dreamed of fuller lips. But unless you have some truly irregular feature that is severely impacting your social life, I recommend embracing the things that make you, you. The more you try to change yourself to look perfect, the more you will end up blending in with everyone else. Heidi Montag, anyone?
Cindy Crawford was and still is one the worlds’ most popular and beautiful women. However, Cindy did not always see herself that way. Growing up, she was very self-conscious about the mole above her lip and contemplated getting it removed. Her first modeling pictures were actually airbrushed to hide the mole, and many thought she would never make it big with a mark on her face. But they were wrong. That mole separated Cindy from the thousands of girls aspiring to be supermodels. The mole became her trademark and took her to the top. She became a sex symbol that was revered and imitated by girls around the globe. It just proves that different can be sexy. Very, very sexy!
Don’t shy away from something that makes you different. Embrace it. My sister is blind as a bat, but instead of getting contacts, she got glasses. They make her stand out and seem very sophisticated and sexy. Fitting in and looking like everyone else is boring. You want to be different—doesn’t matter if it’s because of some characteristic that isn’t normally classified as attractive. Justin Timberlake was once quoted as saying, “I have a big nose, but I rock it!” Usually big noses are not a symbol of sexy, but last time I checked, JT was the one bringing it back. And you can do that too.