A Hit or a Miss?

While at an event, I met a guy that I ended up getting into a deep conversation with about relationships.  His ideals on the subject were very interesting as he took a very esoteric theory of dating and made it seem like “shooting fish in a barrel.”  Okay, I know you are probably thinking, “When is dating ever that easy?” At any rate, we really don’t have to make it that agonizing.  Sometimes we just have to listen to others that are wiser than we are in order to get a clear picture on things. 

So “Mr. Benton’s Approach” on dating is called “Target Market Dating”.  If we treated dating like we do business maybe we would be more successful, considering we do business correctly too.  Every business, as we know, thrives off good marketing.  Well, in his theory, it should be the same way in the dating world.  He suggested that most times we do not pursue people within our “target market”.  Now, that does not include our preference, because we all have a certain type of male or female we typically date.  Most times when someone asks “What is your preference?” it is referring to male or female, a model chick or the cliché “tall, dark and handsome” saying.  However, when speaking in terms of “What is your dating target market?” that would have to go much deeper.

Here’s 5 Target Market Dating Guidelines…

He said we must look for the following things:

• Status – Anyone who is married or in a relationship should not be in your target market.  Actually they are not in anyone’s target market because they are off the market. It’s common sense that people don’t seem to get. 
• Finance – It’s wise to find someone in the “class” you are comfortable with and stick to it.  I mean let’s  get real; are you going to see most people deviate from this?  Like do you expect someone like Kim Kardashian to ever marry a middle class man?  Not everyone is like that but my point is you need to determine this so you know where to start seeking these types of people. 
• Family – Does this person have kids?  Do you have kids?  Mr. Benton doesn’t believe things just happen.  If you know you don’t want your mate to have children then don’t fall in love with someone that has children.  That means don’t even think about pursuing someone with them.  From his experience, he has seen people work out better in relationships when both have children.  There is an understanding there.  Someone who doesn’t have children will have a hard time understanding the lack of time they have to spend with their new mate even knowing it is because of the children.  A person with children, if you don’t have any, essentially should not be in your target market unless you wish to have a ready-made family. 
• Occupation – If you work in the church, you really should have no business dating someone that works in the club.  That’s the best example I could give that I have actually witnessed.  It’s in a sense, a conflict of interest.  When finding a date, you should really at least have certain occupations eliminated that are not within your target market.  Trust me, I have dated outside of my occupational dating target market twice and it just was a MESS that I don’t wish to repeat and hope that no one else around me does, for that matter.
• Education – If education is important to you, then don’t date someone that doesn’t even have an undergrad if you have or are obtaining your masters. And especially don’t date someone that is just getting their GED.  There are plenty of very successful people that didn’t even finish college but if schooling is considerably important to you, being with someone that doesn’t feel the same might cause some resentment.  For example, the only reason I set out to finish college was because my fiancée was not going to make a wedding date until I did.  Well, it was nice motivation, but we are no longer together so basically I did something for him because he was so passionate about education.  But it was very conditional which was quite frustrating because I don’t share that same passion.

Mr. Benton graciously shared all this information on his theory and then recommended that I go on a dating site and answer the questions as an exercise.  It was then, I realized he told me this to really grasp the idea of “target market dating”.  In a sense, these sites don’t just help you find people within your desired preference but people fundamentally in your dating “target market.”

To sum it up, we can all agree that dating is not easy; nevertheless, if we have some sort of system in place perhaps it would be at least feasible.  Remember, a business is not successful without a plan or system in place and the same goes for everything we do in life and that includes dating, especially in this day and age. 

 All Content © 2012 Marika Dye

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