Is time running out for us?

So many women I talk to, no matter how young they are, have the sense of a ticking hourglass.  They feel, deep inside, that if they don't find the right man soon to marry and settle down, the bloom of their youth will have passed and all the single men will have been taken.

It is such a deep rooted fear for all of us.  In the most primal regions of our hearts, we believe that we will die if we don't find love.

It is only very recent in human history that men and women have been able to live alone.  In indigenous societies, complementary male and female roles are vital for survival.  Without a man to hunt, there is no food.  Without a woman to tend to the home, there is no safe place to return to.  A woman with no man has to rely on the goodwill of others to survive.

Even though we now eat take-out instead of deer, come home to houses instead of shelters, and wash our clothes with machines instead of river rocks, we are not that far removed from our ancestors.  Thousands of years of human history cannot be overwritten in a few generations.  We were meant to pair up.  It is such a strong conviction that mere sexual need cannot explain it.

For most of us today, marriage is a choice.  We make a living on our own without much difficulty.  We don't need men.  As a result, we can afford to be picky.  We can afford to wait until the perfect partner comes along.

Yet we still feel that ticking clock.  We feel the need to find love and partner with someone.  Even though marriage is a choice, even though the divorce rates are sky-high, we STILL get married in overwhelming numbers.  Most of us will marry at least once during our lifetime.

We need marriage.  Though some believe that marriage is merely a way to rein in promiscuous behavior and control reproduction, it is too widespread as a human behavior (in nearly all societies across history) to be merely a method of social control.

Harville Hendrix, author of Getting the Love You Want, believes that marriage has a crucial part to play in modern society.  Through marriage, he believes, we heal one another.  No other relationship teaches us so much about ourselves and being better human beings.  Commitment is not constriction or constraint: rather, it disciplines us to resolve our conflicts, express ourselves freely without fear of rejection, and increases intimacy beyond what is possible in a de facto relationship.

As much as we'd like to believe that we can live without men, we know we can't.  Masculine energy balances us.  Men need us to love them; we need them to love.

One of men's deep-seated fears is that women will decide they no longer need men.  Men cannot survive without women.  In fact, marriage is so healthy for men that they will live longer, stay healthier, and even earn more money as a husband than as a bachelor.

Men adore women who fully and warm-heartedly admit that they need men.  Although "needy" has become a dirty word, too many of us are tempted to the other extreme.  We try to be so independent that we don't leave the smallest space for a man in our lives.  When we do date, we suppress our needs so that we appear as un-needy as possible.  As a result, the men in our lives feel emasculated.  They feel that they can do nothing for us that we can't do for ourselves.  In many cases, they end up leaving us for a woman who is much more childlike and needy for his affections.

Can you admit to yourself that you need men without feeling ashamed or embarrassed?  I am not asking you to admit that you need "a man" — just that you need men.  It's not hard.  Yet it's amazing how that admission brings such a feeling of shame to the modern woman.

I love men.  I love them as friends and colleagues, as boys and old men, as strangers and lovers.  I am glad that men share our world with us.  Aren't you?

A friend recently sent me five simple rules to be happy, and I found them so beautiful that I wanted to share them with you.

1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

Although these five rules are simple, they can be so difficult to practice.  Take the first rule: to free your heart from hatred.

It can be so hard to release the angry feelings we have when someone we've cared about treats us badly or rejects us rudely.  I know so many women who hang on to angry feelings about their ex-partners.  Every time dates are discussed, the old stories are brought out: reasons not to trust men, the shortcomings all men have, and why being single is better than risking getting hurt again.

By being unable to forgive and let go, these women end up blaming or being suspicious of all men.  In their hearts, they've judged the male race and found them guilty.  Yet buried beneath that hatred is a part of them that wishes their judgment wasn't true: a part of them that longs for harmony and intimacy.

Alison Armstrong from PAX Programs teaches a seminar called Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women.  In the seminars, women are asked to make a vow.  No more men-bashing.  No more generalizing about all men on the basis of a few individuals.  No more making sweeping assumptions about "all men."  No more treating men as the enemy.

A friend of mine who frequently attends the PAX seminars told me that the vow is oddly liberating, yet challenging.  She said that she never realized until that day how often she spoke negatively about men.

Think about it.  How often have you said one of the following?

"Men don't have a clue what we women do for them."
"Women have to do everything for men; they're incapable of taking care of themselves."
"All men want is sex."
"Guys are just looking for a good time; they don't care about who they hurt in the process."
"Men are so stupid sometimes."
"Why can't men be more like women?"

When you prepare your heart for happiness, the first step you need to take is to free your heart of all lingering negativity towards men.

Forgive your exes.  No matter what they did to you, it is in the past.  Don't allow them to continue to damage your life by leaving you with a lingering suspicion or distrust of men.  Realize that your exes were simply human; like all humans, men and women alike, they made mistakes.  Forgive them and let it go.

Consider attending one of Alison Armstrong's seminars.  If you can't attend, then at the very least make a promise to yourself: you will stop men-bashing.  Even if a group of your female friends start talking about the 101 ways in which men fall short of perfection, make a vow to yourself that you won't join in.  Men aren't perfect, but neither are women.

As you learn to enjoy the company of men, appreciating the ways in which they are different from women, not holding a grudge against any man, you'll find that something incredible happens.  Men will start seeking out your company.  You'll find strange men striking up conversations with you.  Men can tell when they're in the presence of a woman who loves and appreciates men.  In fact, it's one of the most attractive traits women can have.

And if it makes you happier, why not give it a try? 

Today while I was at the gym, I was suddenly struck with amusement at the thought of how an outsider to our culture would see this.  Here is a room full of scantily attired people puffing and sweating as they work energetically to move plates of metal and run on spinning belts that take them nowhere.  I could just imagine a newcomer to Planet Earth stopping the nearest treadmill runner and asking them, "Don't you realize that you're going nowhere?"

Of course, the point of running on a treadmill isn't to get somewhere.  It's to improve fitness so that we stay healthy despite sedentary lives.

In some ways, I think that studying relationships and dating is a lot like running on a treadmill.  We can learn tons and tons about how to be more attractive, how to carry on a perfect conversation, and how to keep a relationship's fire burning, but we end up in the same place that we started: still single.

"But all these dating books and seminars and experts were supposed to get me a boyfriend!" comes the protest.

But learning about dating and relationships in isolation is just like running on the treadmill at the gym.  Unless you are out and about in real life, actually practicing what you've learned, you are not going to get anywhere.

That doesn't mean that all your research and study is going to waste.  Just as people have to go to school to become doctors or lawyers, so you are learning relationship skills that will serve you well in your future relationships.

I think that it's unfortunate that relationship skills are not taught in school; such skills are just as important for future happiness and success—if not more so—than knowing math and English.

Learn as much as you can about attraction, dating, and relationships, but realize that doing so won't automatically "get" you a man.  That isn't the point, anymore than running on a treadmill will help you reach a destination.

Instead, learn about dating and relationships to become a more fulfilled, healthy, and loving individual.  Do it to become irresistibly attractive in body, mind, and spirit.

But be careful to remember that such attractiveness is dependent on what you invest in yourself for your own sake, not for the sake of a man you hope to attract.

True attractiveness blooms naturally from a woman who is fulfilled, healthy, and loving for her own sake—not for the sake of a man.

So if you feel that sometimes you're spinning your wheels and getting nowhere, just remember that you are making progress.  You're investing in your own emotional fitness.

Like most women, I always thought that becoming more attractive to men was about improving my appearance.  As a teenager I was desperate to lose weight, get the perfect haircut, and wear the styles in the latest magazines.  I wanted boys to pay attention to me, and I knew that the girls to whom they DID pay attention had obvious physical assets.  It wasn't about being smart or interesting or nice: it was about looks.

What I didn't know then is that most boys grow up.  The hormone-driven stage of youth, made anxious by popularity and social validation, creates entirely different creatures than the mature workplace of later years.

Luckily for women, most men seek entirely different characteristics than boys.  They learn to appreciate emotional warmth, depth, and generous loving.  Although they still turn their heads to watch beautiful women pass, they're mature enough to appreciate a beautiful form without having to possess it.

Not all men grow up, of course. 😉  We all know playboys at the age of 40 who haven't yet learned the pleasure of settling down with one woman.   Those men still tend to be attracted to looks, seeking out what is new, different, and unobtainable.

Yet instead of realizing that immature men are the exception, not the rule, many of us women remain stuck in the high school mentality, believing that ALL men—not just the immature ones—seek nothing more than a pretty face.  We believe that we must dress sexy, look sexy, and act sexy for men to feel attracted to us.  And when our bodies rebel (as not all of us were made to look like models) we bury our heads in despair.  We think that we'll never be able to attract men.

Guess what?  The good news is that although you may be unable to attract immature men (who are focused on superficial appearances above all things) you may be just what a mature man is looking for.

Mature men seek women who are fun to be with, around whom they feel they can be themselves.  The mature man realizes that if he is going to spend the rest of his life with a woman, he needs to have more discerning criteria than good looks.  A woman who is in touch with her body, even though it isn't perfect, is preferable to a woman who goes into hysterics if her hair or clothes aren't perfect.  A woman who is uninhibited, passionate, and loves life is preferable to an aloof, cool woman who lives life on display.

For the man who looks beneath the surface, a woman is an entire package: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.  He must fall in love with all of those parts before he'll invite her to spend a lifetime with him.  What this means for us is that developing ourselves mentally, spiritually, and emotionally is just as important as perfecting our appearance.  What we look like is just a quarter of the entire package.

Best of all, if you start focusing on developing yourself spiritually, mentally, and emotionally, you'll find that you reap enormous personal benefits.  Your life will be happier.  You'll feel more content.  You may even find that male attention seems less important to you.

So the next time that you feel overlooked because of your appearance, or you're having an "ugly" day, just put on your most beautiful smile and realize that the only men who'll be ignoring you are the ones you don't want anyway. 

When I first started working at 000Relationships.com, I wondered who the women were who wrote in to thank Sarah Paul (author of "How to Be Irresistible to Men") from all over the world.  Were they teenagers wanting to have greater success with boys?  Were they women in their thirties getting ready to marry?  Or were they like my female friends: lovely, intelligent women of all ages and ethnicities who wanted to understand their relationship with men better?

Before I came to 000Relationships.com, I finished a master's degree in writing in the UK.  I'd spent my last summer there living in a flat with an English friend, Eve.  Eve was a mother, university student, and recent divorcé.  Mid-life, she was starting over again.  Yet instead of feeling filled with fear for being on her own for the first time since she was a teenager, Eve embraced her new life.  She tackled classes with the same youthful spirit she employed playing with her children.  She dated, went clubbing, started the gym, and worked with the elderly in her spare time.

The sheer amount of activity in her life staggered me.  I'd established a simple habit of working on my thesis, working out, and seeing friends, and that was enough for me.  But Eve met men everywhere: on her routes, at clubs, on the net.  Her bubbly, vivacious attitude warmed men tired of rejection on the clubbing circuit.  They could always count on Eve's laughter and smile.

I learned so much that summer about men and about the power of a positive attitude.  Even though Eve faced greater challenges than I did, she kept a positive outlook in public and let her joy radiate outwards even when inside she was feeling sorrowful.  I knew that her divorce and being away from her children while at university was difficult for her, but she never let that be an excuse to doubt her life or the importance of what she was doing.  She reached out to all of us in love and kept her anger at the divorce firmly directed at the person who was responsible for it, not at life in general.

Over the past year at 000Relationships.com, I learned that many of the women wanting more information on how to have better relationships and attract the right men were not teeny-boppers or inexperienced.  They were women like Eve.

Amazing, incredible women.

Women who knew that being good at relationships is not a skill we are born with.

Women who knew that the path to excellence in anything, including relationships, is research, practice, and living the message.

These women had had long-term relationships before, and this time around they wanted to know how to do it right. They had so much love to give men, if they could only get over the shields and defenses they'd built up from previous rejections.

I have a message for all those women out there who turn to us or to other relationship experts seeking the magic key to love.

There is hope.  Never ever believe there's not hope.  Happiness lies ahead for you, if you can only quiet that nagging voice inside that tells you to doubt.  That voice is wrong.  Don't doubt.  Believe in yourself.  Believe in your potential for happiness.

Women have found the man of their dreams at 17, at 29, at 44 or 75.  There is no age cut-off date for love.

There are so many men dreaming of love right now, just as you are dreaming of love.  They want you to love them as much as you want them to love you.  If you can learn to give the men in your life love right now (friends, family members, the bus driver, the postman, even strangers!), then love will be given back to you in abundance, as much as you ever dreamed of.

That's a law of the universe.  What you give is what you shall receive.  A person who is stingy with love (which I know you are not) will find that love rarely knocks on their door.

Have faith, hope, and love.  No matter what your situation, how old you are, how much time you have, there is always a door in your heart on which love can come knocking.  

When most of us go out on the town, we dress to entice.  We can spend ages selecting the perfect outfit to express ourselves.  Ultimately we end up with something stylish, sexy, and well-fitting.

From a young age, we're taught to dress in a way that makes ourselves look more attractive.  In fact, that's the purpose of clothes, isn't it?  Not just to keep us covered, not just to keep us warm, but to enhance our best features and make us look more appealing to men.

For years, I believed that only three choices were available to me: dress comfortably, dress professionally, or dress sexy.  I dressed comfortably at home.  I dressed professionally at work.  And when I went out, I dressed sexy.

It wasn't until I began to research the male pickup artist scene for a seminar talk that I realized I was missing out entirely on another category.

Dress to be noticed.

This isn't the same as dressing sexy.  Men will notice and feel attracted to a woman who enhances her curves and femininity with the right clothes.  But they will also notice women who play into different fantasies.

Women who dress goth.
Women who dress like prim and proper librarians.
Women who dress like schoolgirls.
Women who dress in Victorian gowns.

Not normal daywear, right?  But that's precisely the reason it stands out.

In the male pickup community, a pickup artist named Mystery pioneered a concept called peacocking. Just as a male peacock attracts attention by its garish fan of luminescent feathers, so a pickup artist will dress in garish, even tacky fashions to draw attention.  Think of platform boots, wigs, fake noserings, leather pants, gaudy shirts.  Think rock star fashion.

It's amazing how many people assume that a man wearing such outrageous fashions must be famous.  At the very least, people are intrigued.  They want to know more about him.  And that's one way the pickup artist attracts so many women.  Women are fascinated by the individual who's not dressed like everyone else in the club.

When I first heard the concept, I was stunned.  So it's not about being attractive?  The most important thing isn't looking good? 

Peacocking works for men.  It's been proven by pickup artists around the world.  The real question for me was: would it work for women? 

So I put it to the test.

I bought a pair of handcuffs and some knee-high black boots.  The first day, I pulled my hair back in a tight ponytail and wore the black boots, a pin-striped miniskirt, a black turtleneck, and the handcuffs clipped on the belt loops so that they'd dangle on my hip.

I got stared at.

I don't think I've ever been checked out that much in one day.

The next day, I wore skinny jeans tucked into the boots with a tight black t-shirt and the handcuffs again clipped on the belt loops.

Fewer stares, but more than a few comments in the hallways of my office building.

Does peacocking work for women?  From my brief experiment, it seems that it might.

Would you help me test this theory?  Try going out one weekend in something that you'd ordinarily never think of wearing.  Think of it like wearing a costume.  Try tight tank tops with camouflage trousers, or horn-rimmed glasses with a figure-revealing turtleneck and hair in a bun.  Pick a male fantasy and play into it.  Be fun and playful, and see what happens.

It might just start a trend. 

This weekend, I went to a "singles mingle" at a local bar known as The Grumpy Mole.  Now, the Grumpy Mole is notorious for being a meat market. It's decorated in a Wild West theme, with a stage at the far end that had played host to nude hot tub parties during the biggest singles bashes of the previous year.

This night, however, word about the "singles mingle" must not have gotten out. Despite being nearly midnight, the bar wasn't happening yet. The men and women milling about were older than the usual late teens/early twenties crowd that usually occupied the place. They nursed drinks, hunched their shoulders, and lifted their heads only to see who else was there.

I'm not sure whether it is the city or the culture, but slumping seems to be a national pasttime. I glanced across the bar and saw no one holding their body proudly. Heads were bent down. Shoulders were rounded. People kept their arms close to their sides. No one looked excited. Everyone looked, well, embarrassed to be there.

I noticed one girl in particular. She was wearing black hot pants and a wrap-around bra. Though she had a curvy figures, she held her drink closely to her chest and hunched her shoulders. With an outfit like that, she should have been displaying her curves with a chest-up bottom-out "look at me" stance. Instead, she simply looked uncomfortable and hopeful.

Conclusion? Keep your spine straight, throw your shoulders back, and look up for the world to see. Look at the mirror. Do you have a proud body? Don't keep your elbows close to your sides; let them relax. Gesture animatedly. Keep your head up.

Be the girl that men can tell at an instant has confidence in herself and loves who she is.

It was St. Patrick's Day, and I headed out to an Irish pub with my friend Daryn to celebrate the spirit of the Irish.

The pub was bustling. We made our way to the bar, and as Daryn waited for a space to open up to order, I noticed that the television above the entrance was tuned to the sports station. A game was in progress: the Cats versus the Crusaders, provincial rugby teams.

Now, I love rugby. My favorite Valentine's Day ever was spent in a pub watching the Six Nations rugby (France v. England) on a big screen, eating pizza and drinking beer in a pink-trimmed dancing dress. So I was content to stand and watch the rugby, ignoring the people streaming past me, while Daryn got drinks.

It was a rather awkward place to stand. Anyone entering the pub had to pass me in order to make their way to the back. I was too entranced with the game to move for passers-by.

When Daryn returned with the drinks, we decided to stay where we were. A fascinating thing begin to happen.

"All those guys are checking you out," Daryn said.

"What?" I hadn't even noticed.

"Seriously. That one guy just walked past and even turned his head back to look again."

"Naah." I laughed.

But over the next hour, it kept happening again and again. Guys would come into the pub and give me a sweeping gaze of appreciation before passing on to the bar or further back into the room.

Guys check women out. It's in their nature. But to be checked out so often in such a short period of time could only mean one thing.

I was standing in prime territory.

Every man who came into the pub had to look at me. I was standing right in his line of sight, facing him. Best of all, my gaze was focused on the game, which gave him the opportunity to check me out without my noticing.

Where you stand in a bar or club can determined whether you get noticed or ignored. There's a reason that wallflowers don't get asked to dance. The corners of a bar or club are often quite dark, hiding those lingering on the edges. However, the people standing in the middle of the bar, close to the flow of traffic, with their fronts (not backs) facing the door are the clever ones. They'll be the first to get seen.

Location, location, location. Think about it the next time you go out.