I’ve received a number of emails lately from women asking how to get their reluctant boyfriends to marry them.

If you’re in this situation, if you’re feeling that scary, desperate feeling in your stomach that you have to ‘get’ a man to do anything, here’s the most powerful thing you can do: Exercise your option of refusal. Just say no to this nonsense.

Silence all the voices in your head (your mother’s, your co-worker’s, your married friends,’ your own) who are counting on you to get this guy to put a ring on your finger. Step back. Breathe. Keep breathing.

Then ask yourself, do you really think you were put on earth to convince anybody to marry you? Do you really think you were meant to work that hard? Ask yourself, do you want to get married and wake up three, five, eight, 20 years from now feeling slightly depressed that you had to twist somebody’s arm to spend the rest of his life with you?

Come on, you’re too good for that. You deserve better.

Ask yourself, wouldn’t you rather be alone than be with someone who you had to pressure to be your husband? Again, you deserve better. If you want to get married, I wouldn’t ever suggest you let go of that goal, but make it your goal to marry a man who can’t imagine spending life without you, who is excited about your future together, who wants to be the father of your children and actively raise them with you.

So…

If you’ve truly love a guy and have been with him for a reasonable amount of time (repeat: a reasonable amount of time — we’re not talking about a couple of months),  and he’s ‘not ready’ and telling you to ‘be patient,’ it could be time to open yourself to new opportunities. I’m not suggesting you dump him (unless that’s what you want), but I am suggesting that you make new friends, take those Latin (sewing, tennis, painting, etc.) lessons you’ve been putting off.

In other words, resume your life. And if this guy who isn’t ready right now decides to catch up and join you, great. But let it be his decision.

And take heart. If he never does catch up with you, you’ll be well on your way to getting over him. You’ll also have made it extremely possible you’ll meet someone who’ll be eager to spend every waking moment with you, someone who’ll be clear about what he wants.  

Never, ever beg anyone to marry you. You’re better than that.

Last week, Salon ran an interview with Lori Gottlieb, the author of Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough. We added our two cents here.

And the other day, The Daily Beast ran a piece by Anne Milford and Jennifer Gauvain, authors of How Not to Marry the Wrong Guy. You’ll be glad to read they take a considerably different view. 

Read it and smile.

Lilou Mace, a dual citizen of France and the United States, got the same bad news so many earnest, hardworking folk have gotten recently: You’re being laid off.

Her reaction was to fend off a serious funk  and turn things to her advantage by using the Law of Attraction. She kept a 30-day journal of her experiences and made it the basis for her new book, I Lost My Job and I Liked It.

One of the things I like about Lilou is that she’s not one of these bury-your-head-in-the-sand types who refuses to admit that the employment situation is scary, whether you’re in the US or just about anywhere else. It is, but she’s willing to work around it.

She’s not, however, willing to take the easy way out; i.e., move into her mother’s house in France or leave her flat in expensive London for a cheaper city. She also refused to take jobs she considered draining or soul-deadening. She wrote a mission statement:

“My mission is to enrol, create and produce positive forms of media that leave people inspired, joyful and fulfilled.”

To that end, she’s continued producing a series of extremely popular Law of Attraction videos on YouTube. She also takes great pleasure in organizing fashionable events for singles, one of which attracted 150 people to a rooftop garden in London.

Although she uses the Law of Attraction, she does run into obstacles along the way, which she resists being thrown by. It’s interesting to me how these obstacles ultimately bring her closer to her goals.

In my own experience with the Law of Attraction, I’ve seen this at work. Sometimes it’s like a wall comes up, and I can’t get over it or around it. The appointment falls through, someone’s stuck in traffic, the friendship I thought was rock-solid falls apart. And, in the end, it all works out (in the case of the rock-solid friendship, we spent entirely too much time together. I had been visualizing and affirming my perfect romantic relationship, but I hadn’t made space for it. The friendship temporarily — but very painfully — fell apart, leaving room for me to meet new people. I met a man and fell in love. The friend invited me to visit her afterwards, and we’ve been friends ever since).

Another interesting tidbit: At one point in her book, Lilou discusses wanting to talk to God. She writes:

“I don’t often use the word ‘God,’ but I really want to pray right now….”

Some people resist using the Law of Attraction because they believe it’s not “of God,” but I have found that LoA has brought me closer to God. It’s one thing to recite some begging, pleading, hopeless prayer and quite another to believe that I can talk freely to a loving force who has my back and wants what’s best for me. Using the Law of Attraction means stepping out in faith.

Lilou also writes of feeling conflicted about wanting money because she was brought up a Catholic. So was I, so I know what she means. But then at Mass one Sunday, it occurred to me that no priest is insulted when baskets of money are brought to the altar. Like every other earthly entity, the Church requires money to thrive.

I’m getting over my money guilt. If I have money, I can help others who need it.

Lilou’s a disciple of Esther and Jerry Hicks of Abraham-Hicks fame, but I prefer works by Catherine Ponder, Florence Scovel Shinn, Norman Vincent Peale, Joseph Murphy, and Shakti Gawain.

For more information about Lilou, check out her website. Her book is available at Amazon (better yet, order your copy from your favorite independent bookstore).

In the interest of casting my bread on the waters, the first US resident to comment on this post will receive my copy of I Lost My Job and I Liked It. It’s used, but I’ve treated it lovingly.

A native of Chicago’s South Side, Dominique Elise, 26, moved to New York in 2003 to follow her dream of singing and performing. After attending the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, she got a job with Theater Works USA, a children’s touring theater company and performed in the Off-Broadway play, If You Give a Mouse A Cookie, based on the popular children’s story.

Dominique, like many artists under pressure from families who prefer traditional career choices for their children (she thought she would be an architect), eventually found the strength to dedicate the time and energy to something that she loved, writing, singing, and performing.

“I would rather live in a cardboard box on a street somewhere and make art, than spend my life in a cubicle doing something I didn’t want to do,” said Dominique, who began writing at age eight. Her professional experiences in NYC helped her to redefine her notion of success.
“My whole idea was, success looked like Beyonce vs. [like] Shari Lewis, but [I realized they are] both are doing what they love to do.”

While singing backup for soul singers, Dominique met singer and producer Steve Wallace who encouraged her to write songs. Her first album, “Outside Influence” (available on iTunes and CDBaby), has a Gospel, Soul, and R&B infused sound, a reflection of the African-American music roots in Chicago.

“I think that the new things I’m working on now are definitely more of a reflection of being a single woman in NYC, as opposed to being a black girl from Chicago,” said Dominique. “I had to get those first layers of my experience off and into the world before I could start expressing my newer experiences.”

Those experiences include activism and social responsibility. This Sunday school teacher has done volunteer work in Guatemala, Europe, Central America and Mexico. She’s raising money for a trip to volunteer in Kenya this summer.  In the meantime, she’s writing, recording, and performing at a monthly music showcase produced by comedian Chewy Chiu.

“My goal in my life is to take my passion for volunteering and find a way to blend it seamlessly, peacefully, without conflict, with my being a singer and wanting to tour and perform,” said Dominique who uses a vision wall adorned with her goals and scriptures that reflect what she feels God is telling her.

Singer Dominique Elise

She also is a self-proclaimed “Yogi” and says that yoga has helped her release the engrained patterns of thought that would have prevented her from pursuing her dream.

“We live in a society that says if you haven’t made it by 21 you might as well give up. I feel the reward looks a lot different than what we’re told it is, the reward is the life and the experiences that you have,” said Dominique. “I will ride it till the wheels fall off, and if they do, I will pick them up and put them in the back of the wagon and drag it the rest of the way.”
**************
SWR New York Event
Join us to hear SWR member singer Dominique Elise, 26, perform on Sat., Feb. 20, 2010.
Broadway Comedy Club Cafe, on West 53rd Street between 8th and 9th Avenues in New York City. Doors open at 6 PM; show starts at 6:30 PM. (The Cafe is a separate door, next to the Broadway Comedy Club, which is on 318 West 53rd, NY, NY.) $10 Cover with 2 drink minimum.

Say SingleWomenRule.com at the door and get in for $5!!!!
We will meet at 6 P.M. by the bar.
**************

Dating expert Ronnie Ann Ryan

Last September, Keysha rolled out her brainchild, the first-ever Single Women Rule Blog Crawl, which featured some mighty fine bloggers, including Bella DePaulo and Ronnie Ann Ryan.

Dr. DePaulo writes for people who are single and have no intention of being anything but. Ronnie, on the other hand, is a coach to single men and women who want to get married. She writes a blog geared to women.

She was so delighted with the results of the Blog Crawl that she’s assembled a group of dating writers for her very own blog-a-thon (she won’t call it a ‘crawl’ out of deference to Keysha).

She asked me to contribute a post, which appears today, and addresses the subject of turning around your love life when you’ve established (as I once did) a stubborn pattern of dating serious duds.

Check it out here.

Salon interviewed Lori Gottlieb, the author of Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.

According to the article by Sarah Hepola:

As in the 2008 Atlantic essay that started it all, Gottlieb’s depiction of single womanhood can be practically monstrous, a misery parade of boring happy hours and appointments with the bikini waxer, nights staring at a phone that won’t ring. She uses her life as a cautionary tale: Make the right choices, little missy, or you could end up like me. As she explains in the book, “I’m trying to help. It’s kind of like those graphic anti-drunk driving public service announcements that show people crashing into poles and getting killed … It’s not until you see people ending up brain-dead, lying in a coma in the hospital and surrounded by beeping monitors, that the message has an impact.”

But Gottlieb, who readily admits she really wants a husband and understands some women just don’t, tells Hepola that her book is less about settling and more about not insisting that a man be perfect. (Note to all humans: Nobody is perfect. Not even me.)

And I can wrap my head around that, for sure. Unfortunately, I’ve met many women (and many men, for that matter) who did settle for a partner who had a loosey-goosey grip on the truth, resisted the idea of fidelity, spent too much time passing gas in front of the TV, and so on.

So I’m not buying into ‘get ‘em while the going’s good.’ Sure, the decent guy you dated in college may be happily married with three kids now, but, if you’re a realistic person, you probably didn’t marry him for a reason. Old boyfriends usually look better in hindsight. Chances are, if you caught up with him for a cup of coffee, you’d remember the quirks that made you doubt you’d ever live happily ever after together.

Take a look at the article and let us know what you think. And if you’ve read the book (we haven’t), we’d love to get your take on it, too.

I came across a fascinating article in The Daily Beast this morning about a phenomenon a priest mentioned last summer. He said he wouldn’t have to alter his weekend Mass schedule to accommodate weddings because they’re just weren’t enough weddings to warrant it.

“Nobody wants to commit,’ he lamented.

The Beast’s Hannah Seligson writes:

“The median age for a first marriage in the United States is the highest it’s ever been—27.1 for a man and 25.3 for a woman—and it skews even higher in many cities, giving way to more years of dating before marriage. In fact, 23 million adults are in unmarried committed relationships. Over 12 million unmarried partners live together, a trend that is being exhibited in a large part by the 25-to-34-year-old demo.

‘Dating is not what it was 50 years ago. Dating is evolving into this gradual process of moving in. It involves nights spent over at one or the other’s place. There’s the toothbrush, then a few items of clothing. All of a sudden, they realize they’ve moved in,’ says Pamela Smock, a sociologist at the University of Michigan who studies cohabitation.”

 Seligson thinks she knows why singles don’t perceive marriage as the great deal it once seemed to be. Check out her article here (and then come back and tell us what you think).

It amazes me that in 2010, women who marry still find themselves responsible for most of the domestic drudgery. Check out this sad article by Ann Friedman in The American Prospect.

I have a theory that if more women demanded a better deal, they’d get it (and, by the way, it also bugs the hell out of me that married women’s first names usually appear after their husbands’ on Christmas cards, but since women write the damn things , we have nobody to blame but ourselves).

I’m all for getting married, if that’s what we want, and as long as we’re not caving into society’s low expectations for us. If marriage is on your mind, read this article and decide what you’re willing to put up with and what you’re not.

Think about it.

If you tend to attract men who disappoint you (by cheating on you, not showing up when they say they will, or just refusing to get off the couch), you may be confusing love with pain.

So many of us have been brought up to believe that pain is normal, even expected, in a love relationship. Without it, the relationship seems flat, boring. We crave drama. (Why is it that so many women have great sex after a fight with a significant other?)

A happy, loving relationship eludes us because we don’t recognize it when we see it, or because we simply believe it’s not possible.

According to the media, men are incapable of remembering birthdays, being monogamous, getting through a weekend unless they’re transfixed before a marathon of football games.

Women mistakenly internalize these messages: That’s the way men are. That’s the way life is. Get over it.

And while the media is happy to sell us the myth of the unattainable happy relationship, some of us have come to believe in it because of our own experiences.

Some of us:

(a) Had parents who treated each other indifferently,
(b) had parents who outright hated each other,
(c) had fathers who ignored us as children,
(d) had a parent who suffered from alcoholism,
(e) had mothers who would rather have been doing something else, or
(f) had a parent who suffered from a mental illness.

And so, we learned to associate love with pain. It’s all we knew.

Others among us grew us in happy homes with parents who loved each other and delighted in us, but we still managed to:

(a) Internalize negative messages we heard from our friends’ parents who were unhappily married, or

(b) Internalize negative messages we saw elsewhere (I know a woman who, during her impressionable teenage years, babysat for a couple who gave each other the silent treatment and expected her to relay messages. She also babysat for another family, where the father once came home early and started reading Screw magazine).

As a result of this programming, we set low bars for the behavior we’ll accept from boyfriends or husbands. Hey, it’s better than being alone, right?

Wrong.

If you’re putting up with substandard behavior from men, make decision to stop. Refuse to date anybody until you attract a man who makes your happiness a priority. Keep in mind this quote from the legendary writer Somerset Maugham:

“IT’S A FUNNY THING ABOUT LIFE; IF YOU REFUSE TO ACCEPT ANYTHING BUT THE BEST, YOU VERY OFTEN GET IT.”

When (not if) you attract a better man, treat him as you have come to expect him to treat you, which means with affection, respect, and consideration.

Does this sound boring to you? If it does, please examine your feelings about relationships and see if they haven’t determined the kind of men you attract.

You see, once you stop dating men who disappoint you but excite you, you can make room for a guy who loves you the way you deserve to be loved–and who excites you. Love and excitement are important, but if they’re accompanied by pain, something’s wrong. You’ll never be truly happy with a guy who lets you down.

Ask yourself, “Where did I ever get the idea that love has to hurt?”

Give yourself time to come up with the answers. Take stock of whether your relationship is worth saving. If you speak up, will it make a difference?

At SingleWomenRule.com, we encourage you to revel in life’s magic and feel truly fulfilled, whether the knight in shining (or newly refurbished armor) ever arrives.  We share stories of people, women in particular, who are doing just that.  Meet SWR Member Nicole Clark-Somerville who is in Japan pursuing a M.A. in in Public Administration/ Conflict Resolution. In her new monthly column on SingleWomenRule.com, she’ll be sharing her life’s magic with the SWR family.

Nicole, a Connectciut native, left the U.S. in 2006 to work as a Human Rights Observer in Guatemala.  Nine months later she returned to the U.S. and landed a job working as a PK4 teacher at a bilingual (English/Spanish) school while pursuing a post-graduate certificate in the Science of Early Childhood Development at Georgetown University. In June 2008, she left D.C. for a job offer teaching 1st and 2nd grade at the British English International School in Cotonou, Benin Republic. She worked in Cotonou until May 2009.

We pick up with Nicole in July when she first arrives in Japan.  All photos are by Nicole Clark-Somerville.  - Keysha

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July 18, 2009
After the first day of my Intense Japanese course, I quickly understood when Japanese say intense, they mean it.  The Japanese language consists of three alphabets: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. The three alphabets are mixed when writing and reading, so it’s not good enough to just memorize one alphabet.  (For those of you who are not too familiar with what these may look like, take a look at this helpful website: http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/jlp/basic/). 

Think of English’s 26-letter alphabet; now imagine each letter having five sounds, that’s Hiragana. Next, imagine a second alphabet that has the same sounds but written differently, that’s Katakana. Finally, a third has 1000 characters that mean a host of different things when alone or paired with other characters, that’s Kanji.  

Thankfully, the mind is a wonderful and amazing machine and under pressure it performs above and beyond what you can even imagine. After just three weeks, I am reading and writing Hiragana and Katakana. Kanji is a lifetime commitment in my opinion. Ahhhh, how easy life would be if it were just filled with Hiragana!!!

July 25, 2009
In Japan, there aren’t garbage cans on every corner like in most Western cultures; instead people have to hold their garbage until they can properly dispose of it.  If you don’t, you’ll be fined.  The garbage categories are: combustible, non-combustible, plastic items, waste paper, second hand clothes, pet bottles, and empty bottles and cans.  Wheeeew!  A different garbage category is collected each day of the week. My roommate and I stood in front of the garbage one evening in the house debating which one should the Q-tips go into.  Uggghhh!

July 21, 2009
I attended a traditional tea ceremony demonstration.  The presenters explained that a tea ceremony traditionally was a form of rebellion during the Imperial Period of Japan. The small entrance to the room symbolizes no matter what social ranking you may be, all have to bow down and become the same level when entering the tea room. The 4 Most Important Principles: Harmony, Respect, Purity, and Tranquility.

How to drink the tea:
1. Bow when you receive the bowl
2. Take the tea bowl with your right hand
3. Turn the bowl clockwise twice, then drink.
4. When finished, make a sipping sound so the host knows you have enjoyed the tea.
5. Wipe where your lips touched and turn the bowl counterclockwise

July 23, 2009

“Ohhhh. I just need to go #1 and FAST!!! Somebody HELP!!!! Where is the paper? How do I get the seat up?”  Some of these toilets are operated by a keypad on the wall or on the arm of the toilet seat top. The toilet can heat the seat, play music, and makes a flushing sound to cover the embarrassing body sounds. It sprays, dries, and perfumes! The flushing is tricky and most embarrassing if you can’t figure it out while there is a line outside waiting. Sometimes there is a sensor and will flush automatically when you move. Others have a sensor pad on the wall where you must wave your hand over it. As I’ve learned, when all else fails, just push all of the buttons! LOL! FYI: How to use the toilet needs to be a part of every orientation to Japan!

August 8, 2009
I met frickin’ Billy Blanks! Tae Bo guy; remember?  What’s funny is this: he’s selling DONUTS!!!! How odd! Maybe this is so that once the buyers of his donuts get fat; they will buy his Tae Bo DVD!!!!!!! LOL!

Mothers! Don’t you LOVE this! I took this pic while in the restroom stall. You can easily sit your toddler in this seat while you do what you need to do. Now this is THINKING!

Read more »

***Read and win: A pair of tickets to the Live the Life You Love event on Tuesday, Nov. 3 at SAKS in New York City goes to the first five people to read and comment. Check back on Friday for more with two of the panelists and another chance to win!***

Sherri Langburt, founder of www.singleedition.com

Don’t take for granted your friendships and definitely don’t put your life on hold for anyone. That’s the message entrepreneur Sherri Langburt shares through her company Single Edition and on Tuesday, November 3, Single Edition and Spark Networks (which produces a number of online dating sites including: JDate.com, BlackSingles.com, and ChristianMingle.com) is bringing that message to single women with the third installment of the Live the Life You Love event series at 6:30 p.m. in Saks Fifth Avenue, 611 Fifth Ave. in New York City. Tickets are $25 online, and $35 at the door.

Tuesday’s event features four expert panelists who will speak and answer questions: author of The 21st Century Guide to Bachelorhood, Brad Berkowitz; human resources consultant and career coach Alyson D’Anna; Karine Bakhoum, a frequent judge on the Food Networks hit “Iron Chef America, and entrepreneur Beth Schoenfeldt, founder of Collective-E, a “unique hybrid of an Entrepreneur Agency with a community twist”.

Respectively, their topics include: how and where to meet Mr. Right, including how to stand up for yourself early in the relationship so you get treated well; self-promotion and marketing tactics for single women in Corporate America and business; cooking for one – how to enjoy the process and make your kitchen environment cook friendly; and how to start out as a solo entrepreneur in slump economy. After the panels, attendees can enjoy after-hours shopping at Saks with exclusive discounts, personal shoppers, and free make-up consultations.

Like Single Edition (which is marketed to men and women), the event is an opportunity for women to discover new resources, an opportunity Langburt didn’t have in 1996 when she moved to New York.

Originally from Montreal, Langburt grew up in a “conservative, old fashioned” home with Polish and Russian parents that would have preferred she marry and have kids in her early twenties. “Something in me kind of said, I can’t do this, there is more in this world and I started building my life and realized that single women can do things on their own,” said Langburt.

But it wasn’t easy.

“When I first got here, and being a Canadian transplant, I was really left to my own devices,” said Langburt. “Getting across the borders with working papers was a nightmare. Getting a bank card was a nightmare. There were really no resources; there was nothing that supported single people.”

“One point I was robbed of everything I owned,” said Langburt. “I was moving from one apartment to another and they stole the truck. I was told that as a single woman from Canada, no board was ever going to approve you [to buy an apartment].”

The void in resources prompted Langburt to develop the concept for Single Edition, which ten years later became the “premier lifestyle destination for singles: women and men of all ages who have never been married as well as those who are divorced, solo parents or suddenly single.”

“I had the idea, [but I knew] I wasn’t going to be able to support myself. For ten years, I was like this is my dream - to launch this business,” said Langburt, whose now been featured on numerous media outlets including the Gayle King Radio Show, Good Morning Australia, and in the New York Times. 

She didn’t take money from investors when she started Single Edition, and consulted part-time to avoid spending her savings. “To me [with] investors, you are giving a part of your dream and if you can’t make a business float they will just take it away.”

Langburt, now married for almost two years, met her husband online while she was building the site. “He opposed,” she said, but she persevered, as she’d done and continued to do after arriving in New York. Her perseverance and patience landed her jobs and connections that enabled her to fulfill her dream.

“I didn’t listen to the voices at home, I just didn’t listen,” said Langburt. “I was fearless, if someone said no. I was applying for every job under the sun; I didn’t say no to any interview, I always took a ‘no’ as a yes.”

Langburt, who still lives in New York City, recognizes it presents unique challenges for people, especially single women.

“The best part about the city is the anonymity; that you could do anything and be anyone and everyday on every corner there is hope,” said Langburt. “The hardest part of the city is the isolation. There is a perception that everyone has a social life, but it’s hard to build a circle of friends here.”

Live the Life You Love is a chance for single women to overcome the isolation.

“It’s a change to meet connect and have smart conversations and learn. It is a unique event that has never been done before, you need to celebrate and empower yourself,” said Langburt. “Men come and go, but women [friendships] don’t. Women kind of take their friendships for granted when men are in the picture. It’s really about not putting your life on hold. That is the major message. “

Friend to SingleWomenRule.com and author of the blog First Person Singular, Wendy Braitman, shared this funny and candid list, 40 Reasons to Be Single, on her site.  (It was also published in Double X, a new site for women by Slate.)

Here are a few:

Temperature in the house (and car) is exactly as you like it
Flirt away!
No one to tell you not to wear that sheer blouse
Music selection (and volume) is your call
Your good mood isn’t at risk because of someone’s bad day at the office
More time for hobbies
No reason to account for those expensive shoes you just bought
Closet space for those shoes
Deciding what movie to see, what time to see it, and where to sit
Knowing those cookies you’re looking forward to, will still be there when you want them

Read Wendy’s full list here.  Feel free to drop your own reasons in our comment box.

A wonderful little book crossed my desk recently, and I wished it were around during the days I read bedtime stories to my two daughters (I nearly had an aneurysm once reading The Princess and the Pea to my older daughter; I did not repeat the mistake with the younger one).

But this book, Princess Bubble, wrtten by Susan Johnston and Kimberly Webb and illustrated by Maria Tonellis, tells the story of a “beautiful and blissful” princess who graduates from college eager to travel and meet people in other lands. Her career allows her to buy a palace of her own, where princesses from other kingdoms gather for all sorts of fun and frolic. But the party comes to a slow end when the others drop out to get married. And then everybody keeps asking why poor Princess Bubble hasn’t found a prince of her own.

The queen, getting desperate, starts a search for her daughter’s Royal Mr. Right, and Princess Bubble goes along with this. For a while.

A Fairy Godmother clues her in:

Living happily ever after is not about finding a prince. True happiness is found by loving God, being kind to others, and being comfortable with who you are already!”

The kid wises up. She realizes that she’s living a wonderful life. She revels in her achievements. She loves her family, and her friends.

And she lives happily ever after.

If you’re in the market for a children’s book that teaches girls to live by their own lights, and that there’s more to life than getting married, take a look at Princess Bubble.

At Single Women Rule, we encourage you to revel in life’s magic and feel truly fulfilled - whether the knight in shining (or newly refurbished) armor ever arrives.  This event series is right in line with our mission, and we are pleased to share it with you, plus offer you the chance to win tickets.  See you there!  - Keysha

Single Edition Launches Three-Part Event Series To Address Lifestyle Topics From A Single Woman’s Perspective

When will he call? Do you think he’s into me? Single Edition Media thinks single women have more important things to think about than trivial dating questions such as these.

A lifestyle company that delivers programming, content and tools exclusively for singles, Single Edition Media has partnered with Spark Networks, the number one provider of niche singles communities such as JDate®.com, AmericanSingles®.com, ChristianMingle®.com and BlackSingles.com® to launch the “Live the Life You Love” three-part event series this fall at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York.

The women’s only event series will address a range of lifestyle issues from a single woman’s perspective – from real estate and personal finance to health and career topics. Each event will feature an expert-led panel discussion, Q&A, after-hours shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue; as well as complimentary manicures, make-up applications, cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Sponsors include New York Sports Club, Vitamin Shoppe, Vitamin Water, and Spark Networks.

As more individuals wait longer to marry, nearly one third all of Americans identify as “single” today, and yet single women are still waiting to make important life decisions. According to Sherri Langburt, founder of Single Edition Media, “Single Edition recognizes that life presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities for singles. Just in time for National Singles Week, the ‘Live the Life You Love’ series offers a fresh perspective, genuine advice, and some hands-on assistance to show single women that they shouldn’t have to wait to make important life decisions.”

The first event, held on September 15, addressed single-specific issues including: how to buy a house as a single; how to choose a smart insurance plan; if singles should have a will; and how to invest single-salary savings.

The second event will occur on October 6 and will cover sex, health, nutrition, and fitness topics; while the third event takes place on November 3 and will cover entrepreneurship, career, entertaining, and relationships topics. Tickets cost $25 online and $35 at the door; tickets to all three events cost $45. To reserve a spot, please visit www.spark.net/livethelifeyoulove

****** SingleWomenRule.com is pleased to give FIVE readers the chance to win tickets to the October 6 event.  Be one of the first five people to comment on this post by 8 AM EST on Mon. Oct. 5, and you will win a pair of tickets to Live Your Life, courtesy of Single Edition and Spark Networks!!!******