"Well, love me the way I need to be loved."
"How do you need to be loved?"
That opened the floodgates. Dana spent the next two hours telling me her dream of how someday, in some club, hewould be there. They would make eye contact while she was singing. He would just stare at her the entire time, never taking his eyes off her.
After the show, he would invite her to his table. He would tell her she sings like an angel and listening to her was like hearing the voice of a
sirenthatcoulddrivehimtodestruction.Thephrasess,ing slikeanangeland sirenthatcould
drive him to destruction came up several times during Dana's melancholy monologue. These were obviously phrases that triggered a strong reaction in her.
I began to realize that Dana's description of being loved was very specific, and quite unusual. For Dana, being loved was having a man adore her almost to the point of self-destruction because her singing voice was so entrancing. Dana was indeed beautiful, but her singing voice left something to be desired. To insist that a man love her primarily for her music was a tall order, but that's what she wanted.
Dana and I explored further and it came out that, as a child, her mother used to tell her the story of the sirens, the singing sea nymphs who charmed sailors to their deaths. Dana
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told me she used to sing in the bathtub imagining that her toy ducks were drowning sailors spellbound by her beautiful voice. Strange? You bet. But, according to the testimonies I received at The Project, many women have an equally unusual twist to how they want to be loved.
Hunters, you may have met beautiful, accomplished women—women who could have anybody—yet are still alone. They tell their friends, "the right man hasn't come along yet." For them, this statement is true because their definition of "the right man" is very specific. It is important for a
womantobelovedinthewaysheneedstobeloved .
Recently I decided to add to The Project's research by asking my girlfriends how they envision being loved.
I was stunned by the diversity of their answers.
Another friend, Katharine, is forty-two years old and has never been married. She told me she wanted a man who would make her number one in his life, a man who would have no other people in his life who were more important to him. That included even past wives or current family members like children.
Katharine told me she realized hers was a difficult request, because most men her age had been married before and many had children. She told me she had broken up with her previous lover, Bill, because she felt he was too attached to his children by a previous marriage. Katharine knew her craving to be number one was unfair, irrational, but she couldn't let go of it.
We talked more, and Katherine told me she had come from a turbulent, broken family. Katharine remembered one fearful moment standing in the living room, gripping her mother's hand. Her father was shouting at her mother as he walked out the door for the last time, "You are not thenumber onepriority in my life anymore. Good-bye." While telling me this, Katharine put her hands over her ears as to shut out the horror of her father's words.
Seeing how moved I was by her story, Katharine shared an embarrassing secret with me. She said, when she was dating Bill, she had an image of herself and Bill's two daughters by a pre-Page 293
vious marriage on a sinking raft. In her nightmare, Bill would come racing out in a small boat to rescue them, but there was only room for one other person in the boat. Whom would he rescue?
In fact, she told me she once blatantly proposed this question to Bill. He rightfully said, "Katharine, that's not a fair question. There are different kinds of love.
You're the most important person to me in the woman category, but how can you compare tha t to love for my daughters?" Bill was right, of course, and Katharine knew it, but as ashamed as she was of her illogical need, it didn't go away. The fact that Bill wouldn't tell her she wansumber one was a big factor in her breaking up with him.
Katharine is now very much in love with a man named Dan, but Dan is more astute than Bill. He knows enough to say, "Kathy, you'renumber one in my life." Those words are like sexual trigger words to Katharine. She is hoping Dan proposes to her.
Some women's relationship fantasies are even more masochistic than Katharine's. Have you ever known a woman who always winds up with a bastard who treats her badly? This is such a common phenomenon that some men fear nice guys finish last. With those women, they do. Fortunate women are more realistic and have no strange twist on their relationship fantasies. They simply want a man who is loving, good, kind, and supportive, a good husband and father who will adore them, never look at another woman, and be faithful forever. (Come to think of it, how realistic tihsat relationship fantasy?) Love Her as She Needs to Be Loved
Women are more demanding than men in the qualities their partner must have. The recurring cry
"There are no good men out there" does not literally mean there are no good men out there. It means there is a shortage of men who fill that particular woman's definition goofod. Hunters, keep in mind that definition is very subjective.
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How close reality matches our relationship fantasies plays a big role in our lifetime happiness. One intriguing study explored how dating couples thought their partners loved them compared to how they wished their partners loved them.54
Let's say John and Sue were a couple who participated in this study. From their questionnaires, three scores were calculated: how John felt about Sue; how Sue would like her ideal lover to feel about her; and how Sue thought John felt about her.
When Sue believed that John loved herin the ideal
