Why I Want To Find You A Real Man

I’m a Dating Mentor for six-figure women. This sounds both strange, impressive and intriguing enough that the first question I always get is, “How did you end up being a Dating Mentor?” When I sit down and get real honest about it, I know the answer: My Single, Working Mom.

My Mom and Dad divorced when I was four. As far back as I can remember, my idea of what all moms did was that they sold real estate during the day and weekends and went on dates at night. By the time I was seven, I was part of the dating routine. She would get ready, excited, for a date. Perfume. Make-up. Hair done. Red dress if she was feeling vivacious. Black dress if it was a very tasteful restaurant. Then she’d be out the door leaving me and the babysitter.

Around ten thirty or eleven o’clock she’d sweep back in. She’d rouse me from the couch in front of the TV and sit me at the kitchen table, where she’d then tell me all about the date. She’d relate every detail, what he ordered, how he talked, how long ago he last saw his ex-wife, that he was taking a business loan to buy property in Mexico. I could fill the Grand Canyon with the details these men were unwittingly sharing with a seven year old boy when they went on a date with my Mom.

Then, inevitably, came the questions. “Do you think he’ll call me back?”, “What do you think it means that he said that?”. I sat there, at seven years old, interpreting male dating behavior for her like I was a fragment of the Rosetta Stone. Her only road to comprehending what went on in the male head. It was sad to think she had no other, closer friends to call about this, but if nothing else it did give me a massive amount of dating experience as a single working woman. I like to say I’ve been dating as a single woman since I was seven. That’s a long time.

What really pained me, though, was seeing her loneliness. Her desperation. How this proud, powerful woman in her work life and family life immediately shrank, losing her self esteem as she passively prayed for these men to ‘choose her”. I tried, oh how I tried, to dispense as sage advice as I could squeeze from my young brain. But she never listened. I saw her march across the Rubicon over and over again, repeating her historic mistakes with men, deaf to my input, advice and entreaties. I just didn’t have the skills then that I have now. I hadn’t been in relationships. I hadn’t learned how to meet and date women. I hadn’t been with one woman for ten years. I hadn’t gone to school for Life Coaching training so I could change peoples beliefs and behaviours.

I was just seven, and her son, and I loved her.

The heartbreak of witnessing her heart being broken over and over again has not left me. It’s why I have ended up doing what I do. It’s the answer to the question “How did you end up being a Dating Mentor?”. The happy ending is that now I actually make a difference. The women who come to me are ready for change, ready to be happy.

And even though their sons and daughters wouldn’t say it, or don’t even know it, their kids are thankful. Thankful to not see their Mother reduced to tears not understanding why a man doesn’t love her as much as she loves him. Thankful to never again hear the words “He says he is going to leave her.”. Thankful to see their Mother, whom they love so much, love herself enough to deserve better from men. And every time I help a woman who doubts she is good enough for any good man, who feels like a shadow of her former self, who is beginning to question if she is ever meant to find love, I thank God, and my Mother for my childhood.

If you’re ready to change your relationship with yourself to change your relationships with men, sign up for my newsletter or look at some of my articles in the Articles & Inspiration section, because you deserve love.

Barry