Dating Confidential: A Singles Guide to a Fun, Flirtatious and Possibly Meaningful Social Life

by Hedda Muskat

Overview

With almost 50 million unmarried Americans over the age of 25, why do so many singles lament, "All the good ones are taken"?

It's because successful dating is not the same as a successful relationship. Before you can find the love of your life, you have to get past the first date. Here's all the advice that your best friend should have given you, including:

• Learning to make the first move
• Knowing what to do (and not to do) on a date
• What to do when a good date turns bad
• How to turn a bad date into a good one
• How to bounce back into dating after a break-up
• Looking and feeling hip, sexy and fabulous
• Seventy-five proven places to find a date
• Taking advantage of hot new dating alternatives like speed dating, online services, matchmakers and singles' vacations
• Defining sexual boundaries

It's not that there aren't singles out there; it's just that you have to know what to do with one when you've encountered him/her! Here's how to make dating more fun, exciting, easier and more relaxed, so you can get exactly what you want—that great relationship you're looking for.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402236235
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	06/01/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	315 KB

About the Author

Hedda Muskat, formerly a producer and writer on television's longest running dating show, Love Connection, is co-author of Dating: A Single's Guide to a Fun, Flirtatious, and Possibly Meaningful Social Life. Hedda is the Human Interest Producer on the hit show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show. She was previously a producer on The Montel Williams Show, Howie Mandel and Martin Short. She holds a BA in Communications from Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. Hedda is also the author of a successful book from the '80s, The Yuppie Cookbook. She resides in Los Angeles, California with her husband and daughter.

Hedda Muskat, formerly a producer and writer on television’s longest running dating show, Love Connection, is co-author of Dating: A Single’s Guide to a Fun, Flirtatious, and Possibly Meaningful Social Life.

Hedda is the Human Interest Producer on the hit show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show. She was previously a producer on The Montel Williams Show, Howie Mandel and Martin Short. She holds a BA in Communications from Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. Hedda is also the author of a successful book from the ’80s, The Yuppie Cookbook. She resides in Los Angeles, California with her husband and daughter.

Read an Excerpt

As the writers on numerous television shows, from talk shows to dating shows including Love Connection, we have had the opportunity to meet and interview hundreds of singles in the last few years and to get to know their most intimate thoughts about their dating lives.
Dating is a loaded word. It conjures up images of a serious time, filled with unknown expectations.
Who pays for what? Do we kiss? Am I drinking too much? Talking too much? Am I too boring? Some might even argue that going to the gyno is less stressful than going on a DATE.
So why all this dating phobia? It's because people haven't really dated since the 1950s. The 60s were filled with love-ins and sit-ins and enough LSD to give one the illusion they may be out on a date, even if they were alone in their room banging their head against the wall.
There were even fewer dating rules in the 70s. Singles just hung out at discos, dropping ludes and going home with whomever. This continued until the early 80s, as boomers graduated to coke parties and screwing each other in night club restrooms.
And then AIDS hit with a bang! Singles freaked out. The discos closed down, the drugs calmed down, and now people suddenly were faced with something they'd only seen in movies--DATING! The kind where Moondoggy picks up Gidget and they have a picnic on the beach, under the moonlight, and get to know each other. They might even hold hands.
And that's how dating should be. Relaxed, fun, and friendly. Dating in the new millennium has a different approach. The term "date" itself becomes synonymous with "getting together," "hanging out," or "joining friends." By keeping the term "date" less formal, a lot of the anxiety and pressure formerly associated with the dating experience can be eliminated.
No matter what we choose to call the term, dating always will have some anxiety attached to it. We put this book together based on stories and intimate thoughts of hundreds of single people who told us about their dates.
This is a single person's bible to the dating life. Yes, it's scary, yes, it's hard, yes, it can be depressing. But we will show you how to make it less scary and more exciting, how to make it easier and more relaxed, and most of all how to have a good time.
According to one successful dater, "Dates are like streetcars... One comes along every five minutes. You just have to be standing at the corner."

What is dating?
Webster's dictionary defines dating as "...to go out socially."
A relationship is defined as "a connection, association, or involvement; an emotional or other connection between people."
The most important thing to remember when you embark on dating is that you shouldn't confuse the meaning between dating and a relationship.
Successful dating is not the same as a successful relationship. This book is solely a guide to successful dating.

How we got our statistics:
We talked to 505 daters in an independent survey we conducted in three states at various clubs, bars, malls, and grocery stores. While we realize this doesn't cover every single dater in the universe, it does give us a good random sample from which to deduce what daters like and don't like. We called this our "Love Connection Dating Survey."

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION-
CHAPTER ONE
How to Make Expectations Work for You-
CHAPTER TWO
How to Get Psyched UP for Dating -
CHAPTER THREE
53 Ways to Reel in the Fish -
CHAPTER FOUR
Learning to Make the First Move -
CHAPTER FIVE
The Phone Call -
CHAPTER SIX
How to Prepare for the Date -
CHAPTER SEVEN
The First Date: Where to Go -
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rejection-Proofing Your First Date -
CHAPTER NINE
Sexual Etiquette for First Dates -
CHAPTER TEN
Non-Conventional Ways to Find Dates -
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Getting Back into Dating -
CONCLUSION -