By Marnie Nir, Senior HG Coach
I make no bones about it. I love coaching people who are looking for love.
I wish I could say it’s because I’m one of those sugary sweet, lovers of love, angelic type of people. You know the ones. The ones who loved “The Notebook.” But, nope. If you’ve met me or heard me coach, you know that’s not really me.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m sweet. But, the sour gummy worms type of sweet.
I consider it wholeheartedly, my job, to get you to see The You in what’s not working. It’s as if you were complaining to me about how hard dieting is and I come over to you with a mirror and point out the chocolate cookie crumbs on your face. That’s my job. ‘Cause I believe if you can’t see the chocolate on your face, we can’t go prove something so much more fun than how “hard” it is having what you say you want.
I will help you, with love and laughter, suspect you. And, why that’s such damn good news is because together, we can fix you.
Why am I good at dealing with dating and love? It’s because, Ladies (and the two men reading this), I’ve been there. I’ve had more problems than you’ll ever have. I was the worst at relationships and even worse at dating.
Who am I kidding? I never really dated. I complained. And I just “knew” that it was the dating scene AND the guys I was interested in that were to blame. Heck, I even blamed the fact that I was short and brunette on why I was not in a relationship. Never for one moment did I think it was anything I was doing. As far as I was concerned I was trying hard. I was.
Sound familiar?
And then, one day it hit me. I was 28 years old and alone. Alone in my apartment and alone in my life. And, I had always said I’d be married and have kids by the time I was 30. And it wasn’t happening. Not even close.
I was sad and had given up. I remember thinking (and this is SO me) that it would be so much smarter of me to stop wanting love. Like, how stupid of me to keep wanting something that wasn’t going to happen. So my plan of action was to not want it any more. Genius, right?
And then, no kidding, I got a call from my sister, Beth. Prompted, without a doubt, by my worried (rightfully so) mother. Now you should know, I didn’t like Beth. She wasn’t my type. She was happy and married. Around her, I felt how down I was, so I didn’t hang with her. Of course, I didn’t admit to not liking her because she was happy, but because I decided she was phony. You see, I’d have to kill her figuratively if I didn’t want to deal with myself. And so I did.
But here she was. All smug-like, calling me. And, you’ll never believe what she said. She said, “ I promised Mom that I could get you married in a year.”
Ugh! How embarrassing, right? Me? Downtown, cooler-than-you, middle sister, Marnie. You have got to be kidding me!!
But you know what? Somewhere I knew that I had to concede. I knew that I wasn’t getting the job done alone. In fact, without a doubt, my dream of getting married and having kids was not going to get fulfilled.
I needed to fire my current social planner. Uh. ME.
So I did.
Oh yes, there were a couple of caveats to the deal.
- I had to quit smoking. Oh. Did I mention I smoked two packs a day? How sexy and come-hither of me.
- I had to promise to listen to what she said. Do what she said. Oy.
- And, possibly worst of all, dress the way she said. Again, as I bet you can start to imagine now, I didn’t dress all that approachably.
Uh. Three dates later. THREE. I met my man. It’s now 17 years and two kids later…
And the same can happen for you. You can have that relationship you have always wanted. I will help you get it.
I’m uh just coming after YOU. Like Beth did for me. Seems only fair that this turns out to be my job now.
LOVE,
Marnie