EXCERPT: Dating for Love Or Money
Chapter 11 The Vixen Manual
Karrine Steffans
The society we live in is so much more than a capitalistic society. It is a virtual reality where, for a new urban generation, money truly has become the root of all things. For women, in many instances, it's the basis for romantic and sexual relationships. Nowadays, if a man isn't ballin- making an spending money in grand display- he's considered by many women to be not worth their time and respect. This is very prevalant among women of my generation and even my mother's. All of them are looking for the same thing: they want a man to rescue them from themselves.
Dating or marrying for money is not a new concept. It's been a way of life for the elite and nobility around the world for centuries. Marriages were frequently prearranged, sometimes at birth. Families of so-called good stock and great wealth wanted to assure that their children married into a family of equal or greater stock, thus stabalizing or improving the family's overall social and political stature. So, "marrying up" isn't an issue. It means you're smart and practical enough to have a plan for the place you want your future family to have in the world. We should all want to financially improve our lots in life, not to diminish them. The real issue, however, is that it has to be a fair trade.
Even in those prearranged marriages of old, the bride's family always made sure they had something to offer the groom in exchange for him taking on their daughter. She couldn't jsut show up. She had to come with something. This something was known as a dowry- an offering which includes things like money, livestock, and/or land- and it was presented along with the bride. What, exactly, is your "dowry"? What do you have to offer? I'm not talking about money. I mean, overall. For instance, you can't be in your eighth year of nail school, living in your granny's basement with nothing substantial to speak of, expecting a man to come and rescue you!(see book for continuation)
"When a man knows you don't need him to live, he won't want to live without you." KS
Dr. Phil Mc Graw
from Love Smart: Find the One You Want-Fix The One You Got
Trust me, there is someone out there who wants you precisely for who you are an what you have to offer. You just have to figure out what that is first. Then you can begin to develop aspects of your personality to complement the kind of partner you’d like to wind up with. For instance, if you decide yo want someone who lives on the edge and is a bit unpredictable, you may need to scale back on your desire to schedule every last minute of your day. That’s not a quality that will serve you well in a relationship with a guy who’s all about living in the moment. I’m saying you let a man control the course of the entire relationship. I’m saying that once you’ve decided on what you want in a guy. I don’t decide it for you, the guys you meet won’t be deciding it for you, it’s all you. Either you’re going to do what it takes to mesh with that guy or you won’t.
The realm of personality also encompasses your style of companionship. Those characteristics that show him, and you, what kind of team the two of you can be. Everything from your hobbies and interests to your skills and strengths to your life goals falls into this category. Good companionship is built on more than compatible interests; it is also based on complementary strengths. When it comes to presenting yourself as a life partner, you had better know what your strengths are because you may very well have to use them to fill in for your partner’s shortcomings.
Dr. Phil says that we as women always compare and judge ourselves based on other women. The what does she have that I don’t syndrome. He lists these qualities that you want to admire in other women.
The 7 Qualities of Women You Want To Be Around
1. They see the strengths, not the limitations, in others. They make you proud to be yourself because they tell you why you’re special.
2. They trust you so fully that you feel compelled to meet their expectations. Consequently, they make you feel like a better person than you normally are.3. They respect you for what you have done and where you have come from.
4. They are authentic and don’t need you to lie to them to feed their egos.
5. They live by their rules but don’t expect you to follow them.
6. They are at peace with themselves, so they don’t have to prove anything to you.
7. They’re good listeners and sincerely interested in you, so you feel important. Because they’re available for honest and genuine discussion, they make you want to share yourself
QUOTES from famous women
"Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake whole relationships."
Sharon Stone
"Honesty is the key to a relationship. If you can fake that, you're in."
Courtney Cox
"Things you'll never hear a woman say: My, what an attractive scrotum!"
Patricia Arquette
"Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is." Barbara Bush
"Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month that I can be myself." Roseanne
"When the sun comes up, I have morals again." Elizabeth Taylor
I have held on to this article for 4 years because it touches on such a truth about beauty. Dalma Heyn, in her brilliant article on beauty, helps us to ponder who is the most natural beauty of all.
Glow Your Own Way
by Dalma Heyn (September 2001)
The women at the party were chic, trim and well groomed. They whispered excitedly about Botox shots and laser resurfacing. They were, even by the severest urban standards, lookers. I found myself wondering, as i do every now and then, about real beauty-what it is, what cosmetics and treatments can add, and what they can't.
I was looking for someone who exuded not flawlessness but that charismatic quality we call inner beauty. A mysterious attribute that transcends age, triumphs over shape, has a depth that renders the usual criteria for beauty trifling. The women at the party while pretty as can be, were somehow too interchangeable, too anxious about meeting a single agreed upon standard of beauty, for any such transcendence.
Amid talk of weights and herbal remedies, Reiki and Pilates, I listened for what? Confidence? Contentment? The smallest trace of satisfaction? What I wanted to see was one woman with crow's feet, crooked teeth, a belly, even. The kind of woman that prompts you to think, She isn't even pretty, really, but she's beautiful.
That kind of inner beauty is like a beam of loving light, revealing something so undeniable about a woman's core that it brightens her entire self, introducing its beholder to a definition of beauty broader than anything that preceded it.
Is is goodness, this light? Some would say so. Is it innocence? Maybe. But then only children would have it. Sexuality? Certainly, but not the airbrushed kind. I believe its pleasure more than any other quality. Pleasure in her work, in her kids, in her food; pleasure in her stressful impossible life. Isn't it a person's unconscious pleasure in herself, and her out right pleasure in others, that allows her to lean forward and let go and makes the rest of us want to lean in toward her, wanting to connect? "Here I am", she seems to say, "with all my flaws, passions, vices." And everyone around her says, "Wow".
So, if real beauty comes from the core, where do looks come in? Should we be nurturing, honing, and supporting our inner selves and just forget about our outer shells? Are the two, as we sometimes fear, mutually exclusive? Are there two kinds of women- one with smooth skin, the other with an inner glow- and is it impossible or forbidden or unbecoming for one woman to pursue both? Will we forever be guiltily battling between the exterior and the interior, presuming that one is bad, the other good, and forgetting that both are integrally linked?
They are linked. We make a mistake if we see inner beauty and outer beauty as somehow antithetical, demanding that inner loveliness stand on its own without even moisturizer. Self-nurturance doesn't negate self-worth but rather bolsters it.
The woman with inner beauty knows this. She is resolute, even defiant. Most likely she has made tough choices to become who she is. Show me inner beauty and I'll show you an unconventional woman, someone who has winnowed out the superfluous- outside and in- kept what she needs, refusing the rest, and regretting nothing. This culling, often called centering, is at the heart of every system of spiritual enlightenment I know, and the result is what finally accounts for inner beauty's insistent glow.
Several coats of black mascara won't interfere with your spiritual life, though I promise. Even the most evolved among us still has to face the day.
