Dan Collins and Joan Allen, The Examiner
2008-04-26 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

Ever look out across a giant landfill and think, “It’s like looking into a mirror.” No, not because you collect garbage and seagulls, but because you’ve been dumped as regularly as the trash. Why does this happen? You’re a good person, right? You didn’t vote for Sanjaya on American Idol. You believe in truth, justice and liposuction, so you look good and are good. But you keep getting left in the proverbial love dust. This week, our two Titans of the Tryst explore the mystery of the perpetually dumped.

DAN: Happily, I can say I have not been perpetually dumped. Sadly, I can say that’s because I haven’t been in enough relationships to have had much statistical chance at the experience. But let’s take a look at what generally will get your butt punted through dating’s metaphorical uprights. The No. 1 reason a guy dumps a woman: fear.

This occurs when the woman comes on way too strong, i.e. three dates and she’s got a couple dresses in your closet and expects you to baby-sit her pet iguana while she’s exploring the subcontinent for six months. “But he seemed so interested, why did he reject me?” Well, lady, that’s because you’re No. 3 of the Four Horsewomen of the Dating Apocalypse: The Bitter, The Wounded, The Desperate and The Insane — also known as Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha from “Sex and the City.” There’s a reason why it’s called “the stink of desperation.” Not the flowery aroma. Not the morning dew scent. Stink, as in get it the heck outta here. It’s up, it’s good! You just split the uprights, you are gone!

JOAN: If you’re getting perpetually dumped, Mike Brenner, a mind-body therapist at Intentions in Reisterstown, says there’s good news and bad news. “The whole pattern is a reenactment of some basic experience in childhood. Until they find out what experience of betrayal, disappointment or rejection they carry into their adult life, it will keep happening over and over.”

He says the solution is to get help in self-discovery and to track back to how this got started. “The bad news is, if this is not addressed at its root, it will go on forever. The good news is, it can be remedied.”

DAN: It’s been said that a woman is a creature that wants what it wants when it wants it. So buck up, you’ll feel fine tomorrow, but lousy again on Thursday.

In all fairness, men are creatures who suffer from a strange form of duality, not unlike Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On the one hand, we’re pragmatic masters of the outdoor grill, but we also have this second nature, driven by testosterone, that makes us abandon our brains when a lovely female is near. It’s like you black out and then suddenly wonder why you’re cohabiting with this woman who hogs the bathroom and doesn’t seem to like anything at all about your clothes, haircut, mother, etc. It’s at this point we square up the tee, if you follow me. But don’t blame us, ladies. You jump in a pool, don’t complain if you get wet.

JOAN: WPOC-FM’s Country Road host Father Joe Breighner is one of my favorite people, and when I asked him about people who constantly get dumped he said the following:

“I go back to the traditional understanding [that] mostly we act out our unconscious in picking our mate. Fifty percent is genetic wiring; 40 percent is our unconscious; 10 percent is free will. If you’re stuck in the cycle of picking the wrong partner, you’re acting out a script. If you saw your parents struggle, or your mom wasn’t happy, then you think you’re not supposed to be happy. If they’re being perpetually dumped, they’re setting themselves up to attract these people. It’s like that [Rolling Stones] song — ‘You can’t always get what you want, you get what you need.’ We think we want a good partner, but some part of us thinks we don’t deserve a good one, and that’s what we get. We keep acting out the unconscious until we can heal an unhealed wound in ourselves."

Dan Collins is a terminally single 40-something writer and local PR maven. Joan Allen is a noted matchmaker extraordinaire and author of “Celebrating Single and Getting Love Right: From Stalemate to Soulmate.”