Great persepective, but could use a little more for males

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	• How to Get a Date Worth Keeping Henry Cloud Zondervan, 2005 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 27 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Changed my life

I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, but this book really revolutionalized my thinknig about dating. I definitely recommend it; and so far it's been VERY successful.

This is one of my favorite paragraphs:
Are you content with your life? Are you seeking a relationship to cure loneliness? What are you expecting marriage to cure for you? Do you see marriage as a romantic fantasy or some kind of unending bliss? Do you want to get married to prove that you are ok? Bottom line: If you "have to get married" to feel good, have a full life, feel content, have a purpose, or fulfil any other reason, you better take a hard look at that. Get a full life first, Get healed first. Get your loneliness cured first. In short, learn how to have a full life as a single person.

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Insiteful and it works

I must admit that I was really skeptical when I heard about this book. It was given to someone in our church and passed to me to reach. Guess what, after reading the book, I had a different perspective on dating. Thank God that he has allowed me to meet many different men and I'm now engaged.... Yes I waiting and allowed me peer group to keep me grounded until I knew for sure. Thanks so much for writing this book.

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Breaks Down Myths and Self-Defeating Beliefs

Perhaps one of the things in a church culture is that there isn't enough mentorship from parents or from the church on proper dating.

One of the biggest and most misleading ideas implied in church culture or propagated in books are:

a) Just wait, God will provide for you a mate.

b) If you are spiritual enough, and seek God earnestly, God will give you the best. Don't settle for second best.

With that two statements, it misleads people who are seriously looking for a mate.

First, because of that a lot of people just sit around waiting for a life-partner to drop out of mid-air into their lives.

God certainly does provide, he provides the birds of the air food, but still the bird must look for the worm. God gave the Israelites the land, but they still had to go in and fight for it. It was not passive inactivity that won the day. God does his part, we must do ours.

Next, what is this idea of "second best"? If A was meant for B but instead marries C this will cause a chain reaction where B marries D which leads to E who was supposed to marry D to marry F and so on... So with just one choice, we cause the whole universe held together by God to crash? Even Microsoft Windows performs better than that!

So we end up with a lot of singles in church, waiting and waiting... and waiting... and waiting... just waiting... perhaps one of them thinks that she must serve God more or perhaps she wasn't spiritual enough.

So she volunteers... for the children's ministry. Good luck in increasing her odds of finding someone there.

Which leads to another thought. Before the invention of the automobile, most people married within a radius of 2 miles from where they lived. But with the invention of the car, people married within 100 miles from where they lived. Did God's will suddenly change because of the car?

Another wrong idea is that we shouldn't date around too much. It's like playing around we don't want to be considered a 'loose' or flirtatious. Dr Cloud says that, if you're righteous enough, you're not going to have sex, it's just getting to know people!

Dr. Henry Cloud in his book "How to Get a Date Worth Keeping"recommends that we change our view of dating:
1. See dating as a wonderful time to find out about other people and what they are like.
2. See dating as a wonderful time to find out about yourself and how you need to change.
3. See dating as an end in and of itself.
4. See dating in a way that takes the pressure off.
5. See dating as an opportunity to love and serve others.
6. See dating as an opportunity to grow in skills.
7.Perhaps promise youself that you will make no serious commitment for a certain length of time.

In comparison to "I gave dating a chance" and "I kissed dating goodbye" he gives really practical and workable advice instead of airy fairy principles that are impractical.

Dr. Cloud has counselled hundreds of people and is a qualified psychologist whilst the other two books are written by a youth worker and a young pastor mainly from their own experience at a young age and who have never had to endure many years of loneliness and self-defeating beliefs.

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Great persepective, but could use a little more for males

I first read this book almost two years and posted a glowing review for it. As time as passed, I met many women, lost one, and now got engaged, my view of this book has become more negative. My biggest issue of recent is that he tells people (mostly women) to play the field more. That's great. But he doesn't spend enough time talking about fear of commitment, which us men have issues with. I used his book to avoid commitment, and lost a lady I really liked. When I went back to this book two years later, I noticed I didn't even highlight or make any notes in that section. So I wish he had made a bigger deal of that issue, especially for men.

I also think he should say something about long distance relationships, and that the only way to make them work is by face to face contact. Avoiding face to face because you are dating around is a terrible mistake. One has to get IN or OUT, but not in the middle. I also wish he had spent more time talking about breaking up.

What follows is the rest of the review I wrote originally.

When I first read this book, I thought it was more for women than men. As I read more, I enjoyed how he dug deep into the root of our own dating issues. Within the Christian dating, I observe many bad habits that people think are rooted in the Bible. For example, waiting on God, to which Cloud says, he hopes you like the UPS man. Instead he takes the position that you need to meet 5 people a week and then lays out many of the excuses people make, excuses that cover up our own issues. He further shows the reader how to evaluate these people. His underlying thesis is that dating is not about marriage, but about learning what you like and don't like, and dealing with your own issues before you get married.

He has a chapter for males about reclaiming the testosterone. My only cristicism is that if you are a male, and you have those problems of being too passive and weak and "nice", you need more than this book. You need No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover and Way of the Superior Man by David Deida too. And, as Cloud points out, if are male of female and have these issues, you need to get the very well written book he co-wrote with Dr. Townsend, Safe People.

I recently read Jillian Straus's book, Unhooked Generation, where she inteviewed GenXers about their struggles with finding a mate, spent many chapters explaining why their strategies didn't work, and in the end, provided secrets of happy couples. She doesn't touch church or the Bible, yet she, through interviewing people, came to the same conclusions that Cloud did, meaning, don't judge to fast, talk to a lot of people, and just do it.

I also had an issue with his chapter on unleashing your libido. The focus on that was that women should dress sexy, but not have sex. He didn't say a word about men. The church has been always insisted on "no sex before marriage." But what about the guys, who are too bonded to their mother? They claim celibacy, but in reality, fear commitment, are emotionally unavailable, and raging with toxic shame. John Bradshaw writes about it in his books, and a lot of guys in the church are like that. As a guy, I was always respectful to women and never even touched them -- needless to say, I could dropped because I couldn't show affection. Cloud doesn't mention this at all. As I said earlier, I think men who read this book need to make sure they have read the No More Mr. Nice Guy too, and worked on their fear of commitment issues.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6

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