We recently found some useful thoughts about dating from news.com.au. These folks from down under discuss a matchmaker’s suggestion that women embrace their gentle femininity in order to improve their chances of finding an ideal mate.

A PR agency is shopping around fresh tips for single women from ‘professional matchmaker’ Yvonne Allen. According to Ms. Allen, who has been in the dating biz for more than 40 years, Australian women are losing sight of their “gentle femininity” at work. Gasp! They’re foolishly focusing on frivolous things when they’re at the office, things like doing the job they are being paid to do. And this, Ms. Allen warns, is obstructing romantic possibilities.

This approach would be to

guard against the risk of becoming a sad, lonely spinster with only a stellar career and bucket loads of money to keep you warm at night.

Apparently this matchmaker wants modern women to revert to concept of swooning in the presence of gentlemen and presenting themselves as ravishing but vulnerable. Does being soft and feminine get you the guy you want?

Desirable Is Good

First of all we do agree with the assertion that people look for certain qualities in a person of the opposite sex. If they didn’t they would not bother with dating. So it is a good idea to make yourself desirable for dating.

Just how do you want to present yourself when dating? Do you want to dress provocatively in order to raise sexual desire in your dating partner? Do you want to present yourself as a competent, resourceful, and altogether enjoyable person as well? Be careful when you seek to make yourself desirable for dating that you keep in mind whether you are looking for a romantic and sexual encounter or a person with whom  to spend your life. When you make yourself desirable for dating, sexual attraction and other factors are not mutually exclusive. We usually look for more than one thing in the person whom we are dating. Just be clear with you dating partner why the two of you are going out together.

Being soft and feminine attracts some guys but overdoing it may get you the wrong guy.

True to Yourself

If you create a false impression when you start dating you may have trouble reverting to your true self and may lose someone whom you love. We once wrote about dumb things we do for love and included providing nude photos to a jerk who later published them on the internet.

It turns out that a young woman fell hard for a man. He manipulated her to the point where she would do virtually anything to keep his attention and the little crumbs of affection that he offered. Dumb things we do for love include the fact that he demanded nude photos of her as a testimonial of her continued love. Of course he promised never to show these to anyone else! Needless-to-say when she broke up with this jerk he published her nude photos, name, address, email addresses, and Facebook page on a web site devoted to letting people get back at ex-boyfriends and girlfriends.

This is perhaps an extreme example but being soft, feminine and utterly pliable is not necessarily a good idea. Be funny, sexy and smart when dating. And always be yourself as well.