The other day I was watching an episode of Billionaire Matchmaker (for research purposes, of course), when matchmaker Patti Stanger was faced with an interesting dilemma: a man named Kevin had serious commitment issues, and had come to her looking for a wife.
Not one to sit back and let her billionaire client casually date, bed and then flee from her female clients, Stanger brought in Los Angeles-based relationship guru, psychologist and author of The Truth About Men will set you free but first it'll piss you off!, Dr Pat Allen to save the day.
Stanger's hope for Kevin? That Allen could cure him of his commitment phobia. That she could make him want to settle down. That she could make him want to actually find a wife. An impossible task? Not by Allen's standards ...
The billionaire in question is a 29-year-old photographer who only dates models and has never been in a relationship for more than two weeks. But while he seemed to have a gaggle of casual gals on his speed dial, Kevin wasn't exactly ecstatic about his situation. He wanted to find a woman to marry. He just couldn't seem to get past the first night shenanigans.
"That isn't commitment issues, that's intimacy issues!" claims Steph, a colleague of mine who is well-versed in dating these sorts of men. "It doesn't matter when you sleep with him; but if you don't take the time to connect beforehand; that's not commitment phobic, that's being scared to get emotionally intimate."
But Allen disagrees. She reckons men like Kevin have the entirely wrong view about women, and she was about to set him straight.
"Men want to get laid first and they want it as cheap as they can get it," she told him in a stern voice. "The problem is that a woman who gives you sex without commitment is not a virtuous woman. Vaginas are fun to play with, but you don't marry vaginas. You marry virtue."
Allen explained to Kevin that the problem was that the type of "relationships" he's been involved in is the reason he gets bored as hell. "There's no one to talk to. Vaginas don't talk."
Stanger chimed in by telling Kevin: "[These women] are like Chinese food. Two hours later you're hungry again."
While having two women berate him over his lack of dating prowess seemed to help him understand his problems a little better, he still didn't seem convinced that it was time to give up his casual booty calling ways.
All this got me wondering; can a commitment-phobic man really be changed? And why do women hang around with these men in the first place?
To get the answers, I contacted Allen in Los Angeles, who told me this: "When women go for bad boys, they want to break them. It's a power struggle. But bad boys are simply men who have figured out that women want to nurse them all of their lives. So women nurse them with sex and permissiveness. It's so sad!"
She says that this allows men to be brats, wusses and weak. So now what?
"You don't say yes!" she yells through the phone. "I've got news for you - a friendship - human-to-human respect, loyalty and love - cannot advance after the first lay. As soon as you give them sex, no friendship can follow. Remember that."
Her advice to women? Don't hook up. "It means that the men don't care who you are, he simply cares that you are easy to get into one way or another. And because so many women give it to them, men are being seduced out of their masculinity. You have no idea how damaged men are becoming."
Instead, Allen says that women need to know their worth.
"Men need us to survive. They live longer when they have a wife."
Let's hope Kevin believes her ...
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