Bar associations

>> Former single guy and Why Mr. Right
Can’t Find You author J.M. Kearns
on the best way to meet men

by JULIET WATERS

J.M. Kearns is not typical of today’s male dating experts. He’s not a psychologist, an evolutionary biologist or a scriptwriter for Sex in the City. True, he does have a PhD from the University of Toronto in the “Philosophy of Perception,” but his average-guy CV includes years working as a book and music critic for L.A. Weekly, and living and working in Nashville (since 1996) as an indie songwriter and producer. And then there’s the three years he spent looking for a girlfriend. My favourite answer to the question posed by the title Why Mr. Right Can’t Find You: “Because you’re not spending enough time alone in bars.” I caught up with Kearns on Valentine’s Day, just before he boarded a train out of town.

Mirror: When you set out to do this book, what did you think you had to say that went against the grain of most dating advice?

J.M. Kearns: Well, I think the biggest thing was that there were so many negative things being said about men in the dating books. Men are from Mars, they’re shallow, they’re harsh judges, like in a beauty contest, they’re all looking for the very same thing, which is either sex, or the perfect media creation, none of them are capable of commitment and they don’t know how to love. I just thought, this is ridiculous. There are a lot of good men out there—just like I was before I found my partner—who are mature enough to really want a long-term relationship, and are looking for somebody they can get along with long-term. They’re not shallow, obviously they want to be physically attracted, but women want that too. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing they want and it doesn’t mean they’re all looking for the standard modelesque woman either. I think of this image: If two friends are hiking in the wilderness and they get separated, they can find each other more easily if they both believe that the other person is looking for them and if they can just figure out a way to meet. That’s been proven by psychology studies and I think it’s kind of true in this situation.

M: Of course it helps if you’ve both agreed on a common landmark. Which brings us to your thoughts about bars.

JMK: Living and working in Nashville, I found myself in a lot of music venues—bars, in other words, and when I’d look around, I’d see a lot of men who were basically alone, even if they might be having a conversation with somebody, and I knew a lot of them and they were nice guys. And then I would see no women alone. Occasionally, you’d see another woman, but she was with another guy, or she was with some other women, and thereby [from a male perspective] much more difficult to approach... It just seemed a pity to me that there were all these gathering spots—and I’m not talking about meat markets where people go specifically to hook up—but nice neighbourhood pubs, or well lit, safe places where you can get a drink and hopefully something to eat—where single men were—and the women there weren’t really approachable.

M: Well that’s unlikely to change overnight. So what’s your advice in the meantime?

JMK: I think if a woman cannot persuade herself to go to a bar alone, even after I de-bunk “the six myths” that keep them from doing that, she can still go to a bar with friends in a situation that feels comfortable. But then I have my point of etiquette, which is the person that is with others should approach the person who is alone—I don’t care if it’s the woman or the man who is with others—that at least makes it a level playing field.

Why Mr. Right Can’t Find You by J.M. Kearns.
KWiley & Sons, hc, 270 pp, $29.99