Books for women trying to find Mr. Right?

[ohairas]

Hi girls~ my friend has very bad luck with men. She just dumped this loser after two years of me telling her to do so, which followed a bad divorce.

She is very naive. Last night we went to the grocery store together and there was a guy who you could tell was only there to scout for women... which sometimes that's ok if you're NORMAL. He was a coocoo! Within seconds he had about 10 strikes against him in my book, and she's hanging on every word he said! She took his number down and after he left I thought she would say wow, what a weirdo and we would laugh about it. Nope, I think she would've called him if I didn't nip it in the bud. I told her everything I thought was wrong with him and she just couldn't believe I could gather all that and how could I tell?
UGH. She is just very trusting and likes to see the good in everyone. She's very friendly and outgoing.

So, are there any books or articles I could give her?
Nikki

[thebadmamajama]

"He's Just Not That Into You."

[ohairas]

Thanks bmj! I'll look for it!
Nikki

[dhermann1]

It's a great life's task to even start to understand how our neuroses interact with the neuroses of the people we're attracted to. The child of an alcoholic gravitates to the one alcoholic on the room full of a hundred other people. The first step is accepting that that's what we're doing, even if we don't understand how or why. One book I read that was very helpful was
Harville Hendrick's "Getting the Love You Want". He was on Oprah (I confess! I watch Oprah from time to time!)
You don't want to develop an attitude that your emotions are WRONG, just to understand that the emotions have lives of their own.

[Nashoba]

"He's Just Not That Into You."

that book is Fantastic Nikki. My best friend read it after I convinced her to leave this idiot she'd been seeing for 5 years. Put a lot of things into perspective for her.

[Doctor Strange]

I think you're on the right track that you have to make an effort to understand YOURSELF in order to understand how you interact with others. My suggestion for an interesting (and seemingly pretty accurate) method to self-knowledge is the Enneagram:

http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/

Understand that I have never been one to jump on the self-help or pop psychology bandwagon before - I am traditionally profoundly dubious about this sort of thing, and actively avoid it.

But a good friend pushed a bunch of books about the Enneagram at me during a particularly low period (my separation/divorce), and when I read the detailed description of my Personality Type, I was utterly astonished: There were things from so deep inside me that I had thought to be totally unique and mysterious, yet here they were, WRITTEN, as a means of classifying higher- and lower-functioning (that is, less and more self-destructive) behavior within my Personality Type!

So, I read on. It all seemed to make sense, and it's helped me size up other people (especially their motives and MOs) better than I could before.

Anyway, it's quite interesting and might prove useful. Start at the Website for free, and only move on to getting the books if you're seriously intrigued. (At the very least, it might come in handy as a parlour trick at a party - "Guess your personality type!")

Disclaimer: I have been divorced since 2001 and haven't made it into a lasting relationship yet, so having self-knowledge is obviously only PART of the equation!

[Paisley]

It takes experience to be a good judge of character. You have to make a lot of bad decisions and learn from them. But some people are eternally attracted to cukoos; my best friend likes that kind. I just figure she's never going to get married, and neither am I, so I don't have to share her with a boyfriend for long and I'll never have to share her with a husband or kids.

[texasgirl]

"Women Who Love Too Much"
It's more about getting your life together to be able to accept Mr Right when he shows up- and recognizing him if that makes sense.

Book description
This is the world-renowned, inspiring, practical program for women who believe that being in love means being in pain. Based on the multi-million-copy bestseller, Women Who Love Too Much presents a clear, comprehensive, 10-point recovery plan for women who are addicted to the wrong men for the wrong reasons. Among the vital lessons you will learn in this program are: How to change from loving someone so much it hurts, to loving yourself enough to stop the pain. How to free yourself from destructive loving and build a healthy, meaningful relationship. This step-by-step self-awareness program offers help, understanding and, above all, hope -- the pathway to making love the truly happy event it is supposed to be.

[LolitaHaze]

The Joy of Cooking and the Kama Su...

[Gary Crumrine]

Mrs. Crumrine has a couple divorced friends that have the same problem. Being able to "read" another person is an art, and I don't know if it can be easily acquired ... except, of course, by born cynics.

There's another issue, however. How do you recognize a potential mate even if you meet him / her? Due to her friend's situations, Mrs. Crumrine and I have had several wonderful discussions, and this is were our minds currently are. First, the personalities have to match. Both must be male, or both female. The difference is found in the "string of pearls" concept. A male personality will focus on the big pearl. A female personality will give equal or near-equal credit to each pearl individually. Comfortable communication between a male personality and a female personality is quite unusual. From a perspective of happiness, however, it really doesn't matter whether the personalities are male or female as long as they are both the same (not necessarily equal on the continum of male or female, but just on the same side of the centerpoint). Our personalities are both male, and we are blissful. We have friends that are both female personalitied, and they, too, are blissful. Obviously, we don't communicate well with the other couple, nor them with us, but we enjoy them for brief moments. I'm sure they feel the same.

Even after you've found a personality match, you're not through. Now you have to ask yourself "If I were a man (woman), is this the man (woman) I would wish to be?" You see, that's not the test of whether he (or she) has faults, for we all do. It's the test of whether or not his or her faults are bothersome.

So there you are. If you find someone you can communicate with (ie, with a personality the same gender as yours) and none of whose faults are bothersome, then you have a match. What you do with it is up to you.