Write Your Own Fairy Tale: The New Rules for Dating, Relationships, and Finding Love On Your Terms - Softcover

Flicker, Siggy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451476239 ISBN 13: 9780451476234

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Siggy Flicker knows that happily-ever-after isn’t a guarantee. You have to work for it. Readers will get a tried-and-true comprehensive guide to the first six months of dating and Siggy’s exclusive plan to get over heartbreak ensuring you’ll get from agony to over it in just six simple steps. 

Smart and sassy relationship expert Siggy Flicker is your new fairy godmother. Having matched more than a thousand couples and embraced her own second chance at love, she knows finding a prince is no picnic. Now she’s sharing the keys to building a fairy-tale romance, beginning with an honest assessment of what you really want to be happy.
 
To help readers create the healthy, lasting relationships they deserve, Siggy is sharing her honest, empowering advice, including:
 
•  Define the relationship you want. 
•  Forget what looks good “on paper.”
•  Take a break from your dating rut with a Dating Detox.
•  Learn how to make the most of the first five minutes.
•  Happily ever after means forever.

Featuring practical exercises, real-life success stories, and lessons Siggy learned the hard way, Write Your Own Fairy Tale is a wake-up call for everyone looking for love—and a guide for making sure you get the happiness you truly deserve.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Siggy Flicker is a relationship expert, professional matchmaker, and TV personality whose professional opinion has been sought out by a variety of TV programs, syndicated radio shows, and publications throughout the country. She is a contributor to Marie Claire and appears regularly on The Wendy Williams Show, the Today show, Dr. Phil, and Access Hollywood, among others. Siggy is also a new addition to the case of Bravo’s Real Housewives of New Jersey. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and children.

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INTRODUCTION

Once upon a Time . . .

. . . THERE WAS you. A sassy, funny, kind, smart, beautiful everyday princess looking for love. After a lifetime of Disney movies, Meg Ryan rom coms and your friends’ adorable meet cute stories, you’re wondering if you’re cursed when it comes to romance. Maybe you just got out of a long relationship, or you’re exhausted from dating a string of men who just won’t commit, or you haven’t been on a date in too many months to count. If you spend one more Friday night ordering carryout and watching Law and Order: SVU, or RSVP solo to one more wedding or have one more person ask you why you’re still single, you’re going to lose your mind. You’re fixated on one pressing question: where is my happily ever after??

Poof!

Cue dramatic entrance of your very own relationship fairy godmother—yours truly! For essentially my entire life, I’ve been an advice guru, matchmaker and relationship expert. Even when I was very young, people sought me out for relationship advice. I wasn’t the prettiest girl in middle school or high school (just pull out one of my yearbooks to confirm that!), but I did have a certain X factor that made guys flock to me and girls (even the popular ones) want to know my secret. The truth was, there wasn’t much of a secret; I just always had a big personality and a knack for connecting with people. I intuitively understood how relationships work and how and why people connect.

Through the years I loved playing cupid but even more I enjoyed dishing out the best advice. I was the love guru throughout my college years at Monmouth University with people lining up for my advice, both male and female. I worked my way through college by waiting tables at TGIFridays and I became the on-site love guru for all of my coworkers, who came to me with their romantic problems on a regular basis. And my coworkers weren’t the only ones. My section at the restaurant would always be packed with regular customers who often ordered up my advice with their appetizers!

Along with dishing out wisdom, I would always set up my work friends. In fact, TGIFridays is where I set up my very first couple who got married—my coworkers Chris and Amy, who are now celebrating their twenty-first wedding anniversary.

Once I got married and moved to a new state and new town it didn’t take long for all the moms I met at Mommy and Me to start sharing their relationship troubles and seeking my advice. Soon, word was out and friends of friends would call me up and ask for my time and advice. I loved every second of it. I found myself not only good at giving advice but getting passionate about people’s stories and following up with those who reached out. Every single time, every single person would be amazed at how much I remembered and the fact that I was checking in. It became a side job for me but didn’t feel like one.

Then a few years later after my divorce, I met Lara, a recruiter at a company called Model Quality Introductions (MQI), a matchmaking service. I was living in Florida at the time, and she approached me one night at a restaurant with an offer to set me up with one of their clients. But I was much less intrigued by the offer to be set up than I was by what she did for a living.

When I moved to New York a year later, I learned that MQI was hiring a new matchmaker for the Tri-State area and I decided I wanted the job. Actually, I decided I HAD to have that job. I went to an interview at the Waldorf Astoria and—I remember it like it was yesterday—the room was filled with thirty-six other people being considered for the position. I sized up the competition, took a deep breath and went in to sell myself to Craig, the owner of the company, and his wife.

I explained to them that I had been matchmaking since I was in elementary school. I described my history setting people up and how I intuitively understood what makes two people click. I told them how passionate I was about helping people find love and how much I enjoyed it. I was even helping out my friend Jennifer, who at the time was director of a dating service called It’s Just Lunch, suggesting connections between her clients. I should have invoiced her for the free labor, but truth is, I loved doing it so much that I was happy to help her out.

The more I talked, the more excited I became and the more convinced I was this was the perfect job for me. I guess I convinced Craig too, because a few weeks later he called to tell me the job was mine.

From day one, my career at MQI was exactly as wonderful and fulfilling as I’d imagined!

People always ask me what my secret to success when it comes to matchmaking is and it’s hard to pin down because so much of it comes from a gut instinct. I describe it as almost like a sixth sense. But beyond that I believe it comes down to a few key things. I listen to people very carefully and can interpret what they’re saying and, even more important, what they’re not saying, when it comes to what they are looking for. So when a woman tells me, “I just don’t meet any guys,” I hear, “I just don’t want to make an effort to put myself out there.” I cut through the bullshit, but in a loving way. My clients always know that I genuinely care about them and will work tirelessly to help them realize their romantic goals. They understand I am rooting for them and that helps them keep the faith and have an open mind. That’s half the battle when it comes to love. Also, I am very, very specific and very, very honest about what people should say and do to make their relationship or love connection work. And my advice works. The stats prove it: more than one hundred marriages on my watch, and counting!

After leaving MQI, I continued to work as a matchmaker on my own and give advice to thousands of people every day through my advice column in Marie Claire, my frequent national television appearances, including a popular dating TV show I hosted, and my social media platform. And now I’ve written this book to help you change your dating destiny once and for all.

I can hear you right now, though: But, Siggy, I’ve tried everything. I’ve read all the books, I’ve followed all the rules, played the games, not played the games and still haven’t found the one. It’s so haarrrrdddd.

Yes, sweet pea, it is. You’ve just been a little brainwashed to think that it’s supposed to be easy. Thank you very much, Cinderella. First night out of the castle, she meets a prince and it’s love at first sight. If only!

Blame fairy tales, cultural expectations, and a dash of biology (women are by nature relationship-oriented creatures), but the idea of finding our very own Prince Charming has an incredibly powerful hold on us, from when we’re little girls. This really hit home for me recently when I asked a six-year-old what she wanted to be when she grew up and she said married! There’s nothing wrong with that, of course—I love being married—but it does show that from a young age we’re often on a mission. Fast-forward a couple of decades from this little girl and you have the legions of single women who come to me for help with the same goal: to find a husband or life partner, and they want nothing less than princelike perfection.

Take Robin for example. I met Robin at a wedding. She was one of an army of bridesmaids, and as soon as she heard that I was a relationship expert—in fact, the relationship expert responsible for this particular wedding—she made a beeline straight for me. I’m pretty used to people at...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0451476239
• ISBN 13: 9780451476234
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 241
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar