“If you can’t seem to figure out why you are always having problems with the men you’re dating, consider the possibility that you’ve been mistyped… When you have been mistyped, every man you date seems like Mr. Wrong. He’s married, he’s got a girlfriend, he’s a workaholic, he’s a deadbeat, he’s a player, he’s a mama’s boy. You keep running into the same type of man… over and over because you’ve taken on a counterproductive dating personality that attracts that type…
If you know in your heart that you’re one type of woman, but you somehow feel stuck acting like the wrong type of woman, I am here to help… This book provides the tools you need to transform yourself into the type of woman you want to be, and therefore discover your true personality. – Excerpted from the Introduction (pgs. 3-5)
Every time I think I’m taking a break from reviewing the relationship advice genre, up pops another how-to which piques my interest. Ms. Typed comes courtesy of love guru Michelle Callahan, aka Dr. Michelle, whom you might recognize from her myriad TV appearances as a guest on everything from Oprah to Tyra Banks, to The Today Show to Rachel Ray, to Showbiz Tonight to ABC’s Primetime.
You know how an actor can become typecast, and get stuck playing the same sort of character over and over? Well, apparently a similar phenomenon can happen when looking for a mate. According to the author, whose impressive credentials include a B.A. in Sociology from Boston College, as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Michigan, females often present themselves with a false persona in order to attract a guy, a practice which invariably proves problematical when she tires of being erroneously pigeonholed.
Instead, Dr. Michelle suggests that her readers fill out the profile questionnaire printed in Chapter One, in order to determine exactly which type of woman you are. The ten self-explanatory categories range from Ms. Second Place to Ms. Sex Machine to Ms. Soul Mate to Ms. Drama Queen to Ms. Mom to Ms. Independent to Ms. Rose-Colored Glasses, with each having its positive and negative aspects.
However, the key is not to label any basic behavior as bad or good, but to identify which one fits you. And if you’ve been mistyped, then you might like to do what’s necessary to rewrite your romantic future. That three-step process, involving letting go of the past, creating a new vision, and implementing that plan, are all outlined in the makeover checklist delineated in the concluding chapter.
Ms. Typed certainly cooks up a sensible recipe for the prim and proper “Mom” who has unwittingly been masquerading as a “Sex Machine,” but I wonder whether it will work just as well in reverse, meaning improving the marriage prospects of the previously modest sisters who might suddenly feel the urge to unleash their primal urges?
A refreshingly-introspective self-help handbook which doesn’t dump on men, but rather merely calls for a little truth in advertising on the part of the objects of their affection.
Ms. Typed: Stop Sabotaging Your Relationships and Find Dating Success by Michelle Callahan, Ph.D.
Three Rivers Press
256 pages
ISBN: 0307408019
To order a copy of Ms. Typed, visit: 0307408019
