In Men WE Trust

In this ending, it seems as if Everett really and truly turned over a new leaf for Mariel. There's nothing like seeing the woman you don't realize you love as much as you do coming home from a date with another guy to make an honest man out of you. (A little jealousy goes a long way, especially when you didn't intend to make someone jealous on purpose!) Mariel explains how she ended up with Everett this way, "Sometimes you just have to jump and hope something or someone will be there to catch you. And if you're lucky, what you find when you land will be the stuff dreams are made of."

By Sherri Rifkin

Continue reading "Ending 3: Lover's Leap" »

After Mariel gives Everett the boot in this ending, she says, "The funny thing is when you settle, you always wonder what could've been. When you've made the right choice, you never wonder. Ever." Mariel is then rewarded for her wise, self-preserving decision by finally getting everything she wants--albeit surprisingly and unexpectedly--from Jack the Super, I mean, Jazz Pianist, who was literally under her nose for two years.

By Sherri Rifkin

Continue reading "Ending 2: The Payoff of Not Settling" »

In this ending, Mariel tells Everett what he can do with their "deal": "Second chances are for suckers and I'm done being one." Maybe Mariel is being harsh, but it's not like Everett forgot to pick up the dry cleaning one too many times or said that her favorite outfit made her look fat. He cheated on her--and fairly unrepentantly I might add.

By Sherri Rifkin

Continue reading "Ending 1: Second Chances Are for Suckers" »

In "Which End Is Up?", Jack the Super comments to Mariel that he thinks it's strange that women pay someone else to help them figure out what they want. Mariel points out, "We're bombarded all day long with ads telling us what we should want, it's hard to tell the difference after awhile."

By Sherri Rifkin

Continue reading "Turn Down the Volume" »

Are you an open book with new people?

By Sherri Rifkin

While Mariel is on her undercover date with Jack, the super of her building, she confesses to him that because of what he does, she feels as if she's never really "seen" him before. He says that at times he finds it hard not to judge a book by its nice cover. Then she says with a decided twinkle in her eye and flirtatious tone of voice, "If I were to look under your cover, what would I see?"

Continue reading "Undercover Lover" »

Mariel sure spelled out Everett's takeaway loud and clear to her shell-shocked Dating Boot Campers: "Don't date one more guy who doesn't make your heart race."

By Sherri Rifkin

Ah, the Curse of the Grateful Dating. As in: I'm so grateful to have a date that I'll go out with this guy again even though he bores me to tears or sort of smells or brags about himself or is kind of mean or is too short/tall/fat/skinny/bald/hairy and I just can't get past that particular fill-in-the-blank.

Continue reading "Just Desserts" »

Why do men behave the way they do?

By Sherri Rifkin

In "The Awful Truth," as Everett's penance for having been found cheating (I'd venture to guess he's not doing it because he's remorseful for the actual cheating), he comes to speak to Mariel's Dating Boot Camp class to share with them every dirty detail about why men behave the way they do. When the topic of love comes up, he says, "Love is simply the consequence of a man being tricked...into using his brain and his heart before he gets the keys to the Golden Palace." He goes on to explain that the way women trick men is to be the catnip, not the mouse, and that we have all the tools to get what we want.

Continue reading "Trick or Treat?" »

After having told her students that she is very pleased with the results from following her own dating tips, Mariel experiences the harshest irony of all: finding her boyfriend Everett in bed with "Candy." "This is an awful joke," she cries. "Not only are you cheating on me...but now I'm a fraud!" Talk about adding insult to injury.

By Sherri Rifkin

Continue reading "Out of the Fire, Into the Frying Pan" »

While it absolutely would make me cringe to have to talk to an "ugly" guy for fifteen minutes as Mariel assigns Emma, Liza, Grace and the other girls in their Dating Boot Camp class to do, I have to admit, I like the reasoning behind it.

By Sherri Rifkin

Continue reading "The Unforeseeable Future" »

Are you strong enough to find your man?

By Sherri Rifkin

At the end of the first webisode of In Men We Trust, "Men Are Like Mirrors," the dating coach Mariel asks the women enrolled in her Dating Boot Camp if they're "brave enough" to "do what it takes" to find the right relationship. But an even bigger question I have is: Is it up to us -- meaning women -- to be "brave enough" and learn all these skills, rules, tips and tricks for dating or is there also at least some responsibility on the part of guys to meet us halfway, or at least part of the way? Or is that too much like expecting men to ask for directions?

Continue reading "I'm Looking at the Woman in the Mirror" »