By Lori Gottlieb

The author of a provocative new book reveals why you’re wrong about Mr. Right.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a magazine article called “Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.” In it, I confessed that, having found myself still single at 40, I’d come to an eye-opening realization: Had I known when I was younger what would make me happy in a fulfilling marriage, I would have made very different choices in my dating life. It was a hyperbolic essay with a serious message: Look for the important qualities in a partner, and let go of the stuff that won’t matter five, ten or 20 years down the line.

I’ve never believed that we should stop looking for Mr. Right (we shouldn’t!) – but I do think that by changing our rigid idea of who Mr. Right is, we’re more likely to find the right Mr. Right. You can’t just order up the perfect husband á la carte – I’ll take a little of this, a little of that, less of this and more of that. A guy is a package deal, as are we. Recognizing that isn’t settling. It’s maturity. The key is to focus on the qualities that lead to long-term romantic happiness.

In my new book, I asked experts, including marital researchers, sociologists, neurobiologists, couple therapists, behavioral economists, matchmakers, clergy and even our mothers (God help us!) how to tell the difference between smart compromises (which lead to happiness) and settling (which doesn’t). The answer is complex — and different for everyone. But here are five basic things I learned I should cut a guy some slack on before I assume he’s not The One:

1. His height. Let me say upfront that I’m 5’2″. With one-inch heels. And yet I always preferred to date guys who were taller than 5’9″ (and so I could kiss them while barefoot, shorter than 6’0″). But one expert explained how limiting this was: “Let’s say there’s a 50 percent chance you could be with a guy who’s 5’9″. That’s a height you like, but it could go either way depending on what else he brings to the table. There’s probably a five percent chance you could be with somebody who’s 5’4″ – but there’s a chance. Maybe if you spent an hour with Danny DeVito or Robert Reich, all of a sudden you would say, “You know what? This is somebody I could actually spend my life with” – even though the height is never going to be ideal. On the other hand, take somebody who’s unkind. There’s a 100 percent chance you won’t want to be with him. So I’m saying, what are the real irreducibles as opposed to the unlikelies?”

2. His Match.com profile. A Northwestern researcher who studies online dating (yes, there are scientists who make a living doing this) told me that I shouldn’t get too specific about my search parameters in online dating because in his research, he found that “there was a lack of correlation between what people said they wanted on a questionnaire, and what they actually pick when they meet a real, live person.”  Moreover, he added, don’t rule out a guy because you think you know what it means that he misspelled a word or likes Madonna. You have no idea who this person is until you meet him. An online profile, he said, “is like reading the ingredients on a box of food and trying to imagine what it would taste like.”

3. His occupation. Yes, alpha males are sexy and charming. But they aren’t always the best partners for me, especially if they travel for work all the time, need to be the center of attention and don’t have the same ideas about how to run a household that I do. As a dating coach explained to me, many women are attracted to super-ambitious and charismatic guys who are leaders — but it’s hard to find a person who has that kind of personality and also makes time for you and is able to put you first when it counts. Now Joe, the cute elementary school teacher, on the other hand … you get my point.

4. His age. The thing about being picky is you have to know what to be picky about. Apparently, I wasn’t picky enough on the things that matter (shared values, reliability, “getting each other”) and was too picky on the things that don’t (his age). While I wouldn’t want anyone to mistake my husband for my father, it’s foolish to decline a set-up with a guy just because he’s got less hair and more wrinkles than I do. This might sound beyond obvious, but many women end up dating guys with a chemistry of “9″ and a compatibility of “5.” The happiest couples, though, have both a chemistry and compatibility of “7.” Would I be more naturally attracted to a guy who’s my age? Yep. Would it matter that much in the scheme of things if he was 12 years older but still handsome? Probably not. Am I going to be more wrinkled one day and thrilled to be with a man who finds me attractive anyway? You bet.

5. How he compares to “my type.” One expert told me that when she first met her husband, she had no interest in him at all. He wasn’t her type. He didn’t fit her image of the kind of guy she imagined herself with. She was Ivy League-educated, and he was a potter. At first there were no sparks. Nada. But the more time she spent with him, the more she liked him. And then the sparks flew. They’ve been married for 20 years. “In America,” she explained, “when a potter makes a pot, they put a glaze on it and put it in the kiln and know exactly what it’s supposed to look like when it comes out. But when the Japanese make a pot, they put it in a wood-fire kiln that could be any temperature, and when they take the pot out, it’s not always exactly like they thought it was supposed to look like. And they say, ‘Oh, wow, this is what the fire did to the pot and it’s gorgeous!’ They believe there’s no beauty in perfection. So instead of knowing what the person sitting across from you is supposed to be like, the question you have to ask is, ‘Do I like it?’ instead of ‘How does it compare to what I thought I wanted?’ People can surprise you.”

Indeed. I ended up falling hard for a 5’6″, balding, bow-tie-wearing guy I almost didn’t e-mail on Match.com. He wasn’t who I had in mind, but he was who I wanted to be with. And that, of course, is the thing that matters most.

Source: wowowow.com

By Susan Seligson

Why should your sex life dry up when you reach middle age? Susan Seligson says hers just keeps on getting better

I came of age sexually at the start of the 1970s. These were the sexual salad days of a generation, in that rose-coloured window between the appearance of the pill and the onslaught of HIV.

I was 16 when I started college. Along with an Indian bedspread, a plug-in teapot and a copy of On the Road, the trappings of my new life included the pill, dispensed like candy at the local clinic. Abortions, too, were easily available. At the campus clinic, doctors and nurses treated nuisances such as crabs and genital warts without a trace of moral judgment.

And so we did it whenever, wherever, with whomever; the act’s justification rarely more compelling than a shared dance, or conking out after a party in a house in which the people happened to outnumber the beds.

With libidos fuelled by recreational drugs, beer or just youthful hormones in overdrive, we suffered few regrets and little guilt. Our limbs were supple, our skin was unmottled, our bellies were flat. Though my friends and I routinely poured our hearts out to each other on a range of matters, a constant refrain was, “So, how was the sex?”.

How was the sex? Not so good. I know this now, in middle age, because I and many of my peers are having the best sex of our lives. Really. In fact, people my age and older seem to fall into two distinct categories: those who crave sex, feel entitled to it and thrive on it, and those who couldn’t care less if they never did it again.

Above all, good sex requires confidence. And confidence comes with age. When I was 18, 19, 20, I was too shy to discuss my desires with boyfriends, never mind one-night stands. None of us wanted it to be slam-bam, but slam-bam it mostly was. We pored over the book Our Bodies, Ourselves and concurred that we should taste our own menstrual blood and contort ourselves in front of a mirror, speculum in hand, but we didn’t truly inhabit our bodies. Mostly, we obsessed about being fat, which, ironically, few of us actually were.

When it came to sex, I followed my partners’ lead. My sexual behaviour reflected my general cluelessness. I couldn’t count the times I would force a faux-satisfied murmur while some guy worked furiously on a spot miles away from any serious nerve endings. Now I have carnal GPS — turn there, stop here — and men are grateful and not at all shy about directing traffic themselves.

Good sex requires a well-honed sense of the ridiculous. This, too, comes from experiencing love, loss, parenthood and random infirmities since the summer of love. Though as youths we considered ourselves ground-breakingly ­hilarious, we steered clear of laughing at ourselves.

Then again, when we were young and lacked a sense of power and self-awareness, unfunny stuff happened and we let it happen. What grown woman doesn’t harbour icky memories of boys smashing our heads into their laps like cops stuffing suspects into the back of a police car? No 50-plus woman I know would put up with such nonsense. Among consenting, mature adults these antics are irrelevant.

As a widow who has dabbled in online dating, I have awakened to a world crowded with unattached, 50-plus men and women who aren’t merely looking for sex, but for great sex. I know single women my age who simply won’t abide bad sex. If their efforts to improve the situation aren’t successful, they move on, telling anyone who asks that the sex was lousy and, as such, unacceptable. So much for the stereo­type of the postmenopausal sexual retiree.

Women’s magazines are awash with prescriptions for reinvigorating, or reviving, marital sex in the waning years: light candles, wear seductive lingerie, unplug the phone, uncork the K-Y, pop the Viagra. That drug and its ilk may have fewer women tiptoeing around the delicate matter of erectile dysfunction. However, these recipes for romance don’t address a big problem: many women over 50 are ashamed of their naked bodies.

Yet it isn’t a regimen of Pilates or eating like an air fern that makes you feel sexy. Sex makes you feel sexy. Fewer mirrors, more laughter, I say. Of women who are self-conscious about their flab, I ask, have you seen a guy over 50 without a spare tyre, or at least an undisguisable paunch? I know a man who looks like he’s 12 months pregnant and he gets all the sex he wants. It’s because he adores women, he’s full of mischief and he has been around long enough to know that sex with a smart, confident, cellulite-covered woman in her sixties is much more fun than watching a bony Victoria’s Secret model mesmerised by her own reflection.

What a shame that marital sex can be so fraught, even burdensome, that many of us allow sex to recede until it withers and dies. Maybe because I’m unattached and count myself as one of those women who wants a man in her life but not in her house, these days I sometimes view sex as akin to a spa treatment.

It’s invigorating, it gives me an all-over glow and it makes me feel attractive. It leaves me feeling peaceful and whole. At 50 and beyond, good sex reminds us how miraculous our flawed bodies can be. And it helps that you’re not gnarling the bed sheets with an Olympian poster boy. I suppose we should also be grateful that our near vision is failing to the point where the unsightly is invisible.

There’s another reason sex after 50 can and should be the best sex of our lives: our keen awareness of our mortality. Schopenhauer declared sex to be the “greatest affirmation of life”. Think of how sexually charged life ­becomes in a war zone. In advancing age, we are in a war zone of sorts.

A voracious, unbridled bout of sex is the best hedge against death, and it’s recession-proof. If we can still move, sex can make us feel better. Mysterious aches and pains evaporate. We sleep better. Postcoital food somehow tastes better, and we can eat it with the guiltlessness of an athlete.

Not long ago, I read an ­article about sex in old-people’s homes. The news was, not only does it exist, it is fairly common, and not only among committed couples. I find the notion ­inspiring. Nice to know that if we use it, we don’t lose it. And it sure beats ­doing the hokey cokey in the day room.

Source: timesonline

By: Kirk Honeycutt

(Pic)-Cast member Meryl Streep arrives for the world premiere of ‘It’s Complicated’ in New York December 9, 2009. REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - “It’s Complicated” is a middle-aged sex comedy but with more rom-com urges than farcical ones.

It’s from writer-director Nancy Meyers, who has found a comfort zone in gentle, even warm comedies about older adults facing complications that re-direct their lives into pleasantly unexpected emotional channels. “Complicated” forges ahead with these themes. Because no one else in Hollywood seemingly makes movies for middle-aged moviegoers, especially women, Meyers inevitably scores box-office successes, and this one should forge ahead in that area, too. Universal releases the film Christmas Day.

What Meyers doesn’t do is take chances. She sticks to formula and predictability. In “Complicated,” this is as much a matter of casting as writing.

Meryl Streep, apparently not wasting any cooking lessons she had for “Julie & Julia,” plays a divorced owner/pastry chef of a successful Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant. She is only now coming to terms with her divorce from Alec Baldwin, who dumped her 10 years earlier for a much younger woman. Even so, shopping for plastic surgery and building an extension to her rustic house indicate a certain restlessness despite her apparent equanimity.

The graduation of one of their three grown children on the East Coast throws her together with her ex at a time when his wife (Lake Bell) isn’t around. Wine flows, sparks fly and — you would never guess, but then again, you probably will — the two launch an unplanned, drunken affair. Suddenly, Streep is the “other” woman.

But the casting foreshadows most of the dramatic turns. Baldwin has developed a second career in films and television by more or less spoofing his macho image. So his character, a comic exaggeration of male befuddlement with womankind, is never a credible life choice for the restaurateur. Then, too, Steve Martin has just walked in: He’s the architect who is going to change her life with that home extension, and you know, even though he’s more subdued than you might expect, that he isn’t in the story to discuss the importance of retaining walls.

In the movie comedy world dominated by Judd Apatow, Meyer’s idea of naughtiness is charmingly quaint. The older adults — hide this from the kids — smoke pot! Yes, they do. Streep drops her bathrobe to expose her over-50-year-old body just as Diane Keaton did in Meyers’ “Something’s Gotta Give.” (No, of course you don’t see anything.) The film’s really racy moment comes when Baldwin’s private parts are accidentally Skyped to an unwilling viewer.

The near-farcical maneuvers by the parents in and around their kids (Caitlin Fitzgerald, Zoe Kazan and Hunter Parrish) and one prospective son-in-law (John Krasinski) and the shocked/delighted reactions to the affair by her gal pals (Rita Wilson, Mary Kay Place, Alexandra Wentworth, Nora Dunn) get milked for all possible laughs they will yield.

What Meyers has going for her in all the films she has directed from her scripts is her ability to evoke a fantasy world where grown men can cry and realize their mistakes while grown women love them for that. Cynicism — real cynicism, not the catty, superficial kind espoused by this First Wives Club chorus — is banished, and true love still is a possibility.

To whatever degree the writer-director is rewriting her own life story, crucially she is doing so for countless middle-aged women, and probably more than a few guys who need to swallow all the pills Baldwin’s character does to get through the day.

This is a comfort zone for such viewers even if the characters are no more real than the models in Vanity Fair ads. Streep is a vision of mature loveliness, a smart, sexy mom who always knows the right things to say to the kids and how to extricate herself from embarrassing situations. Far from the real world, she lives in a multimillion-dollar home, can — after a suitable number of comic mishaps — make sense of her life and even get Skype to work without having to consult younger family members.

Source: macondaily.com

Cosmo uncovers the secret body-language clues that reveal your guy’s deepest desires — almost instantly.

Source: lifestyle.msn.com

By Beth Whiffen

Mention the words sharing and feelings in the same sentence and most guys — yes, even if they’re super comfortable with you — will run to the nearest sports bar, where they can avoid using modern language entirely. “Men are taught to stifle emotion, so they often have trouble verbalizing their thoughts and feelings,” explains psychologist Alon Gratch, Ph.D., author of If Men Could Talk.

But lucky for you, even if your guy won’t open up, his mug will give him away. “The face is considered the most expressive body part because its muscles are linked to the emotional centers in the brain,” says anthropologist David B. Givens, Ph.D., author of Love Signals. “The slightest shift in mood registers as a specific facial gesture, making it extremely difficult to conceal one’s true feelings.” Learn to decode these unconscious cues and you’ve got a window into his soul.

Here’s how to tell when…

1. He Needs Some Space
Maybe you brought up a sensitive subject or said something that ticked him off. It could even just be that the dude had a crummy day at work. But one thing is certain: When your guy turns his head to the right or left midconversation so you’re talking to him in profile, he’s in no mood to chat. “He’s using this head turn to increase the physical distance between the two of you without actually stepping backward and moving his entire body away from you,” says Givens. “In effect, what he’s doing is creating a silent barrier to shut you out and create a safe haven for himself.”

Handle-him help: His Lone Ranger stance may not have anything to do with you, but something has clearly upset him and the man needs some time alone. “Men require space in order to maintain their sense of independence, which is a central component to their identity,” says Gratch. “Often, they want to feel as though they’ve dealt with a particular issue on their own without any assistance from a significant other.”

Translation: Getting in his face will only serve to push him further away. So unless you want him to retreat to Siberia, do a disappearing act until he seems to be in a better mood … whether it’s for a few minutes or a couple of hours. “It may take the average guy 20 minutes to an hour to relax and fully process a situation; however, it’s crucial for you to allow him that time period to think,” says psychotherapist Jonathan Robinson, author of Communication Miracles for Couples: Easy and Effective Tools to Create More Love and Less Conflict.

Then when he does seem more like himself, approach him and say something like “What was going on before? You seemed kinda bummed.” Maybe he’ll spill his guts, but if not, let it go. As long as he’s not giving off any “I’m pissed at you” vibes, it was probably nothing anyway.

2. He’s Ready for Romance
Say you’re at a party or out at a bar with your guy and you notice that when you lock eyes with him, his peepers seem a little sleepy and droopy. No, he’s not ready for a nap, but he is ready for bed. “When people feel a strong sexual urge, they lapse into a more restful, dreamy state,” explains Givens, “which is why this expression is commonly referred to as bedroom eyes.”

Handle-him help: You already know he’s hot for you, so while you’re out in public, work him into a state of arousal with a little hands-off foreplay. “Whisper some sexy compliment, or lean in and blow lightly in his ear to stimulate the ultrasensitive area near his eardrum,” says sexologist Logan Levkoff. “Then go back to mingling with your friends as if nothing happened. This type of teasing will only heighten his anticipation.” Once you’re alone, make sure you follow through on those thrilling overtures you made … and throw in a few surprises.

3. He Has Something to Tell You
If you’re chatting with your man and you notice him pursing or puckering his lips several times in succession, take note. “This mouth motion shows that he’s trying to verbalize a thought,” says Givens. “When a person has something to say, the brain sends a message to the lips and tongue to start shaping the sentiment. You’re seeing his thought expressed before he even has a chance to come out with the words.” continue reading