5 Simple Questions To Find Out If He’s ‘The One’
photo courtesy of ebtheceleb.com
Guest Post from Chick Lit Cafe
Dating can be like business. You get it. I learned this sitting across the table from a cadre of new dates and being grilled like a king salmon. The endless questions from their “list” were fired in succession to determine if I had potential to become “The One”. In business we call this “qualifying” a sale. In a marketplace where time is money, it’s mission critical to quickly get to the heart of prospects and potential issues.
Like Max Hallyday, the main character in my debut novel, THE GUYS’ GUY’S GUIDE TO LOVE, I will function as your representative “guy’s guy” to help ferret out the truth about men. Here are my questions designed to get you the 411 on a new guy. I call this, my “unlist”.
THE UNLIST – OR FIVE SIMPLE QUESTIONS THAT GET YOU A CLEAR SENSE OF A MAN. (Note, I’m not suggesting that you prosecute the poor guy the moment he sits down. He’s not automatically on trial for stealing goodies and breaking hearts. Take things slow and easy, and listen carefully to his answers, or lack of answers, which will both reveal his DNA):
1 – What does he want to do? This is code for finding out if he’s a man with a plan. Women tend to poke around this area, but usually ask the same qualifiers like if he is working and where. I can still hear the wheels inside their heads calculating my bank potential although it did not necessarily reveal that much about my character. A job may tell you what a man does, and in most cases, if he is not fully employed the evening wraps up fairly quickly. But I suggest that the focus be on determining if the man has a dream. Men with dreams tend to make things happen. Unfortunately, many ladies that I met for the first time only seemed interested in dreams that had come true, not the journey itself. That’s too bad because in this guys’ guy’s opinion, it’s the journey more than the arrival that can reveal a man’s character. Bottom line, if he has a stated goal, check plus. If he doesn’t know, hmmm…you’ll have to poke around a bit more to see if he has any ambition. And if he doesn’t, you may want to move on unless he smiles like Clooney and has a Swiss bank account and a house in Mustique.
2 – So, what’s his plan? Dreams make a great start, but in this conscious world, you need a plan for grabbing that prize. When I decided I wanted to – make that – had to write novels, I kept my day job and gave myself ten years to hone my craft and get published. Fortunately, I’m right on schedule, but this was a real test of my character and it would have been easy to fold and place the manuscript in the drawer. But that’s who I am. But many women I met while I struggled to land a literary agent checked their phones and said goodnight once they found out where I was in the process of making my dream come true. That’s okay because that also let me know who they were. And I did have a plan and I was not only willing to discuss it, I looked forward to it because it was my passion. Yay, me.
3 – What’s his timing? With time our most valuable commodity, it is critical to set guideposts for reaching milestones on the journey forward. I know writers who have been working on their manuscripts for fifteen years. They may be on to something special, but as the pages pile up, the days of our lives are crossed off of the calendar. I am a grinder and grinders set goals and find the time to grind. If you write five pages a day, you can complete a three hundred-page draft in two months. Not easy, but with discipline writers learn to become prolific. The point is that you probably want a man who is realistic about getting things done. That way he has lots of time for you.
4 – What have been his greatest challenges and victories? This will give you a real sense of character and what’s important to him. If he has not been tested, that may be a red flag. He may be soft. Or he may be filthy rich. And his greatest victories may tell you what makes him tick. Was winning the fifty-yard dash in third grade really that important or was it the time he rescued the puppy from the burning home or raised all of that money for charity when he competed in a triathlon? You get the idea.
5 – Ask him what’s next? This will let you know if he is for real. We live in the now so you need to make sure he’s engaged in his life and not meandering or waiting to find out if the Giants make the playoffs before he decides his next move. You probably want a guy who is fun, but determined. He’s called a guy’s guy and there’s one out there just for you if you know how to qualify your prospect.
Are you prepared to ask the right questions that will get you the man you want?
