by BoomerYearbook

One thing is sure: there will always be lonely people. The reason is that too many people don’t know how to make relationships work – too many make bad choices that cause relationships to fail – and too many are doomed from the outset. We hope to change all that.

By Dr. Karen Turner Ph.D. for “Boomer Yearbook’s Lifetime Partners”.

I have long believed that the reason relationships are so difficult to maintain is that the wrong people are trying to make them work. The things that attract us one another are often things that are transitory and which respond to emotional needs of the moment. In that category I would put sex, money, and emotional duress (bad home life, personal trauma, financial difficulties etc.) These are not good building blocks for a lasting relationship.

Physical attractiveness among young people is probably the number one element of relationships. It used to be this was solely a male problem – any girl with a pretty face and a nice body was easy to fall in love with – but now in this age of sexual emancipation, the problem exists with both sexes. You hear it said all the time, “you have to have physical chemistry”.

What makes a good friend?.

You are a female and you have a girlfriend. You like to go to clubs on weekends but she can take it or leave it. You love to dance, she thinks it’s okay. You like sports, she isn’t the least bit athletic. For you a great day is one in which you are active, you play tennis, you work out, you love biking. On the other hand, your friend prefers a day at the beach, laying in the sun, reading a good book with maybe a long walk on the beach and a good movie later. Your friend is an introvert, but you are an extravert. She avoids confrontation, you say, “bring it on”.

Guys like her okay but they are all over you and you love it. Your friend likes guys too but she can take them or leave them. Your life’s goal is to be successful in your career. Her’s is to be useful to mankind and then find a husband and raise a family. For now, she is considering a year in the peace corp.

You are a “Type-A” personality while she is more of a “Type B”.

The point to all this is to show you that you couldn’t be a close friend to a friend like this. It wouldn’t work. You simply don’t have enough in common. Sure you can be ‘friends’ at a distance, see each other from time to time, but what you can’t be is “hang out, close buds”. That isn’t happening. Ask yourself, where would you hang out? What would you do together? You prefer a hot spot. She prefers a quiet spot. Everything that you would enjoy, she would not. What she likes to do would bore you. This relationship has no chance to ever be close. Yes, you can love one another and be there for one another, but you aren’t going to hang out with one another. You are just too different.

Which is the whole point. Let’s substitute a male for your female friend. Let’s say he is exactly what she is and you are you. Would a relationship between you work out? Well, maybe early on when the relationship is new and the sex is great – but both of those things will fade with time and then you will have to deal with one another in the real world and that’s where the trouble begins. You are simply too different to make it work. You have too little in common to share a life together. There is simply no central meeting ground where the two of you can become one. .

But – let’s nevertheless assume you are tired of being alone. And since you know this guy and you basically like him, he is a “relationship” candidate. At first blush, assuming he is perfectly average in all other aspects, you would not be attracted to him – and you shouldn’t be – because you two are totally different people. Your basic personalities would clash, your goals are different, your approaches to life are different. Everything is different.

But your friend is a young man, age 25, a real stud. He is 6’2”, 190 lbs. of sleek muscle. He likes to work out, to swim and to run, all of which he does alone as fits his stoic personality.  He still has all those other qualities we talked about but he is really hot.  And you could easily be physically drawn to him.

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate how easy it is to make a very bad decision on a relationship. Nothing this guy has, other than his hot looks, is what you need. The truth is, you two may be great in bed, but you are going to be miserable the rest of the day. And even though there are a few years – and I mean a very few – where sex is enough to overwhelm every other difference, there are many more years where it won’t be. After you get over that physical attraction and try to build a life together, you are going to find out it can’t be done. You are just two different people. Sadly, if it takes four or five or six years to reach that time and place, and you have a child or two along the way, you are looking at upcoming misery and unhappiness because this relationship was built on sand. And sad to say, sand crumbles over time.

Not only are you going to have to pay for that mistake, he is too. And so are the children if there are any. And if you do have a child, or children, you can not go back and start over. You are a changed individual, your life has changed dramatically, and you are never going to be able to go back. Plus your kids now have a claim on your time and it is said, men often don’t want women with that kind of baggage. You are still young but now you are a young mother and everything is going to be different. .

For the guy, maybe he can move on. He normally doesn’t have custody of children to tie him down. But for you – the girl,- if you have custody as most divorced women have, your life will never be the same. With each passing year, you are going to regret that bad decision more and more until one day, you may learn to hate your ex for something that really wasn’t his fault. .

How sad. The fact is no one was to blame or both of you were to blame for what happened. There was no good reason to believe that your relationship had any shot at all to succeed. In fact, if you had a friend and she analyzed the two of you before you got married, your friend might well have recommended that you two go your separate ways because you were so fundamentally different. And you would have ignored her. Sex is not enough to cement a relationship’ it is at best, silly putty.

And that’s why we have so many failed relationships. People refuse to listen when it comes to matters of the heart. At least they fail to listen when they are younger. They listen a lot more when they are older and it’s too late.

Now certainly this is an extreme example. Usually it isn’t this clear. Usually there are some areas where you are more alike and others where you are less alike. And usually your personality masks those differences.  So you simply pass over this and pass over that. But in time, if the differences affect important values or habits or desires or goals, it will catch up to you. That’s why half of all marriages end up in divorce and half of the other half wish they could get divorced. If you are good at math, you can see that all we have left in this equation is 25% who might be happy and I am not sure about all of them.

There is something very wrong in the way today’s couples pair up.

What a marriage needs is two people that have things in common, two people that can communicate with one another, two people to whom the same things are important and unimportant. .That’s why I said originally, if you could be friends with this person outside your marriage, than you have a good shot at making your marriage work. You don’t usually want to lose a good friend even if you are married to him (or her). There are eight rooms in an average house and if your marriage is going to have any chance of success, it has to work in more than just the bedroom. That gets increasingly truer as the years go by.

So, the secret of a successful marriage is for the partners to be like each other and to like each other. Certainly, a little difference here and there can “spice” things up; one person can provide a character trait the other doesn’t have, as long as it isn’t overdone. But it is far more important that you are basically and fundamentally alike than that you have these ‘spicy’ differences.

So, what now? You want a spouse and you want to marry one day and you want to believe your marriage will be successful. If you intend to bring children into this world, you know it is much better for them to have both a mommy and daddy than just one or the other. You want the best for your kids and for yourself and yes, even for your spouse. So how do you go about getting it?

That’s where “we” come in. “We” are “Boomer Yearbook Lifetime Partners, Inc.”. Our job is to find you a series of partners who share most of your hopes, dreams and values. Both the serious ones and the playful ones. Have you ever heard the old saying, “A family that prays together, stays together”? Well that’s true. But there is also this one: “The family that plays together, stays together?” That’s also true. The key word in both expressions is ‘together’.

If you do things “together” – praying or playing – it’s because you like being together and you both like what you are doing together and if you have that, your marriage is going to work and it’s going to be successful. And it is going to last forever.

So that’s the goal. Finding you that person with whom you can share a lifetime, the person who can be both friend and lover. A partner who wants what you want, whose dreams and aspirations are much like your own. Someone who wants to be for you what he wants you to be for him – a lifetime partner.

“Boomer Yearbook’s Lifetime Partners Inc.” is a business. It has two goals: (1) to find you a wonderful mate and (2) to make money. We are not a charity we are a business. We make no bones about that. But there is this difference between us and some others in this business: we are not ALL about money.

Stated simply, we want to do our best for you. And we will do all in our power to do that. To that end, we pledge to try to root out losers. If we detect that we have a player as a member – or if we receive information from our members that indicate we have a player as a member – and we can authenticate it – out that member will go. This is a serious site with serious goals.  We can, of course, only do so much, but we intend to do that as well as we can.

To be successful, we need successful pairings. We grow as the number of our guests that feel we have done all we could for them and done it well, also grows. YOUR happiness means our success and so, that is the desired end product for all of us. We are = to coin a phrase – in bed together. If you are happy, we are happy. And if both of us are happy, I assume we will have made a few bucks and you will have found happiness.  It works best when it works for both of us.

It is important that you understand that some of the “best” (make that “largest”)  online dating services have less than 4% of their members end up marrying someone they met on that service. That means for all their advertising, more than 95% of the members never do find a soul mate on their service. We think that’s because they lack an understanding of what makes marriages work. Either that or they are more interested in making money than in serving the needs of their members. We will do our best to be different, to keep our priorities in order so that your happiness is our #1 priority. To that end, we will always be up front and honest with you.

So here’s out it works: You join up and pay a non-refundable $100.00 fee. That gets you in the door. You then receive a form to fill out. It will be a very long form and it will take some time for you to finish it. The form will have approximately 200 questions that should take about 20 minutes to complete.

You can fill it in sections. Do some then come back and do some more later. It will remain a ‘work in process’ until you finish it. There is no time limit. When finished, you submit it. With the application, we require three recent photos. They must be recent. Trust me, honesty in any relationship is essential to future success. You don’t want to start off with a lie. Be yourself and be honest. After all, if  what you are simply won’t attract anyone you might be interested in, then you might as well know it as soon as possible and save your money. There is no advantage to fooling yourself.

Once the form and the photos are submitted, we will examine everything to be sure it is correct and move on from there.

The process is not complicated. Once everything is ready, we take your data and assign values to each category and each of your responses. Than we cross compare you with every member of the database from the opposite gender (we cater to heterosexual relationships). If we find your hopes and dreams and aspirations and your personality has a match, we mark that member down as someone you might want to meet. At that point, names and photos are exchanged with this priority: females first. The female is contacted first and the material is given to her so she can decide whether she wishes to pursue the matter further. We feel that’s the best way to proceed and serves everyone’s best interests. Following the introduction, the matter is in your hands.

As I said earlier, we have two goals (1) to make you happy and (2) to be a successful business. Both are equally important to us. There – I told you we intend to be up front with you about everything, money included.

Once you are notified that your data is ready to be entered into the databank, there is a second $100.00 non-refundable fee which covers a two-year membership. So now you are in for $200.00 but you are also a part of our databank and there will be no other fees other than a possible $50.00 re-activation fee which will be explained later.  Even then, this is never going to cost a lot of money and if you end up happy, no amount of money could ever be too much anyway.

Okay, so to this time, you have invested $200.00 in your future. We are now a team with a common goal. That goal is your happiness and hopefully the happiness of one other person.

We will also ask that all members consent in advance to routine checks we might want to run i.e. criminal or credit checks .Certainly we do not suggest that such information alone should be a measure of a person’s heart but it is information that should be available to us, if needed. Whether it is needed or not will be up to our discretion but approval is mandatory. We don’t want our members to get unpleasant surprises along the way. Better to deal with them up front. If your application is denied, any money tendered will be refunded.

One cautionary note: there are no guarantees offered or implied and no responsibility assumed for the moral character of any member. We will try as hard as we can to cull out anyone about whom we receive any complaints or concerns but in the end, you must always exercise due care in meeting anyone from this or any other online dating service. You are solely responsible for your decisions so better  to go slow and be safe than to rush ahead and be sorry.

But we don’t mean to frighten you. Keep in mind that the very same people you meet in everyday life are the people you meet on line. Most people do a lot of both. Therefore,  caution is a good idea in either case.

Finally, we cannot give you what we do not have. That means if there are no matches in your designated area (and the area is up to you), there is little we can do about that. But your membership is for a two-year period so stay patient. Every month we will re-run our computerized match-ups and send any new matches to you, the female. You can take it from there. At “Boomer Yearbook Lifetime Partners, Inc.” we want the woman to do the chasing. J  But don’t get nervous girls, we will help. As to you men, just be patient. We are working toward long-term relationships so we can afford to take a little time. Remember that old saying: “Act in haste, repent at leisure”.

To begin your relationship, we suggest the initial contact be by phone. Don’t rush things. You have plenty of time to get it right. Chat and make arrangements to do it again. If you feel sure the person is someone you might be interested in and he with you, then make a date for a daytime meeting in a public place. Maybe an after-tea or coffee break. Stay out of bars. Stay away from sex. (I guess we sound like a parent here but it makes sense and it’s good advice to go slow!)

Spend time getting to know one another and remember, and this is important, they wouldn’t be there if they didn’t have an awful lot in common with you. That means the better you get to know one another, the more you find in common, the better the chance that this is for real. Take your time and let things flow naturally.

Relationships that burst on the scene like a starburst often end exactly the same way. If you are looking for a lifetime relationship, take a while to develop one. In the long run, that will work best for both of you. .And remember, many the happily married woman that will tell you, “I didn’t really like him at first.”

“Boomer Yearbook’s Lifetime Partners” is not a game and it is not a ‘dating’ or ‘make out’ service. If we find our member is a player, we reserve the right to discontinue membership AT OUR DISCRETION and there will be NO refunds. So don’t join up for the wrong reasons. Member feedback is encouraged if there are any untoward events in initial meetings.

Still, we are not policemen. We are not guardians. We are not parents. Therefore, we accept no responsibilities for the conduct of our members other than to do our best to ensure they are all our members are properly motivated. Your feedback will help us do a good job for you. We are always here to listen to your comments.

If you do find a match and enter into a relationship, you should notify us and we will place you in our “Inactive and Dating” file.  If that relationship thereafter fails and you wish to be reactivated for the remainder of your two-year term, there is a $50.00 non-refundable re-activation fee.  (We do not recommend any member spending more than two years with us.)

Lastly, if it does happen for you – if you do find your heart’s desire and if you do make it to that final stage  of marriage – we would certainly expect bridal pictures for our company scrapbook. The more the merrier.

So that’s it. No matter how you cut it, we think this is a solid way to find that special someone and do so at a nominal cost. No, we don’t know if it’s going to work for you but so what? You still have to try. The very most you are going to spend is $250.00 and that puts you in the game.

As they say, God helps those who help themselves.

We invite you to  join us at: “BOOMER YEARBOOK’S LIFETIME PARTNERS, INC”

Karen Turner Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist

www.boomeryearbook.com is a social networking site connecting the Baby Boomer generation. Share your thoughts, rediscover old friends, or expand your mind with brain games provided by clinical psychologist Dr. Karen Turner. Join today to discover the many ways we are helping Boomers connect for fun and profit.