How to Be Single and Happy

Audra: They also know as Singles Awareness Day, it’s just around the corner. And if you’re one of the many singles out there, this state isn’t just a wake-up call that you’re indeed still single. Instead of sitting around, feeling sorry for yourself, just get up, take some action. Whitney Casey’s here to help you do that, she’s Better’s relationship expert and the author of The Man Plan. She’s got some tips on how you can be a productive single on Valentine’s Day. Welcome back, Whitney. Whitney: Yes, thank you, thank you. Audra: And the book is doing very well. Whitney: Starting out with buying the paperback version of the book, that will get you on track. Okay, so that’s one way to be a productive single. The next way is to be a cheater. Audra: By that you mean what, in terms of like a little conversation cheat? Okay, okay. Whitney: Yes, let’s try to be a little catchy there. But think of it as being a cheater, the two things that people complain about the most when they go on dates and they worry about and angst is what to wear and what to say. So rather than like having the standard where do you work? Where you from? Where are your parents from? All that kind of stuff, jump in to something that you’re actually going to learn more about the guy. Like what was the best meal you ever had? What was the best vacation you ever have taken? What childhood memory do you have? You know that’s the most salient, or something like that. You really going to get to know the person better. So create a cheat sheet of questions that you can ask. Audra: Coz it knows the other questions are going to come anyway, so you’ll forget the answers to those. And next you got to take a picture. Whitney: Yes, yes, you need to be recent and decent, and not indecent. Okay, so what I’m saying is if you are out there on the social stratosphere of Facebook and Match.com and stuff like that, you need to update your picture. Audra: But you suggest getting a good friend of the opposite sex to take the picture for you, why is that? Whitney: Just because I think that they are more objective. I think that they can, they know what the other sex wants. Your girlfriends are going to be more sympathetic to “oh you have such pretty eyes and such pretty hair.” Okay great, let’s find one pretty picture of you and let’s update it, you’re 16 times more likely to get a catch on the internet if you’re on one of these sites if you have an updated picture. Audra: And your book also suggests to take pictures of the outfits that you’re going to wear for Valentine’s Day too, so you can kind of have of different things to choose from, right? Whitney: Yes, you need to, okay because I said the two things are about what to say and what to wear, so have two got to outfits to get the look. If you have two go to outfits, like, if you have a dressy outfit and a casual outfit for your dates, then you’re not going to feel any anxiety before the date. The thing is to reduce the amount of anxiety before the date. So if you don’t have dates, you’re being a productive single by finding the outfits that you’re going to have like if you build it, it will come. If you have the efforts already, it’s an effortless thing to go on a date and you can really be yourself. Audra: Right, not stressing out on the outfit thing. Now this next one I got to ask you about, you say, find the key words to your heart and take time to think about what you want in a partner and write it down. But what if you’re not looking for a partner necessarily on Valentine’s Day, you really want to celebrate being a single person. Whitney: It’s funny, you would think that singles would be celebrating wanting to be single but really, and a new study just came out and this is interesting, in this kind of economy, 60% of the people surveyed said that they would rather find a new love than a job, and 16% they’re be looking for a new job. So, no matter what, and this is a study that’s done with singles between the ages of like 18 and 50 so, on match.com, so this is really good data. To know that people would want to do it, so find some things about somebody that you want write it down and envision that. Audra: And then your last tip to is to really do your research. You have to research the singles in your particular city coz it’s different everywhere to go. Whitney: Know the competition, get on Match.com, and see who is out there trying to get your man. There’re all out there, you can see them, go put your age group, look, you can say woman looking, a man looking for woman and you can go look to see what’s out there. See how they update their profiles, go out, know the competition. If it’s a game day, you know, coaches watch game tape. Audra: It’s true, in sports they do the same thing, you check out the competition, why not do the same thing for dating? Good tips, Whitney, thank you so much, good to see you again.