Patti Novak - Get Over Yourself!: How to Get Real, Get Serious, and Get Ready to Find True Love

My name is Patti Novak and Im a matchmaker.

Ive been matching hearts and bringing people together to help them find love ever since I can remember. Some people can draw, some people can sing, but I can read people. Give me half an hour with someone and Ill find out their background, their love history, and what their issues are, and before you know it Ill be thinking about who I can match them with. If there were actual qualifications for what I do Id say I have them all:

I have a sixth sense about people.

Im nosy.

And Im always on the job.

Heres my rsum:

I started making matches when I was ten because I didnt have boyfriends and I lived vicariously through all my pretty girlfriends, spending the time I wasnt dating solving their problems.

In eighth grade I was voted Most Likely to Be the Next Ann Landers.

And in high school I fixed up my brother, Jimmy, with my best friend, Jeannie, and theyve been married ever sincealmost twenty-four years.

Little did I know that my skills would someday come in handy and Id get paid to tell people what I think and how to fix their problems.

People always want to know how I make matchesthey want to know if I use computers or a twenty- page questionnaire, if I went to school to learn how to do it, or if theres a mathematical formula for it.

I dont, I didnt, and there isnt.

I match with my heart as much as with my brain because matching isnt an exact scienceand neither is love. So I do what I do best:

I ask a lot of questions.

I use my intuition.

And I listen to what people tell me about who they are and who they want to meet.

Sometimes the most important thing I hear when Im interviewing a client is what theyre not telling me, since thats usually where their problems lie and where were going to start. That partthe intervention partcomes later, after Ive gotten to know them a little better, which usually happens after Ive sent them out on a few dates and I start getting some feedback.

Dating isnt just about having things in common.

Dating is about chemistry.

And chemistry is physical.

But chemistry is also emotional.

Which is why I often think of chemistry as being energy that needs to exist between two people in order for something to happen between them.

What chemistry isnt is some kind of equationsimilar hobbies divided by differences multiplied by number of qualities youre seeking.

I do match clients with things in common, like two people who love golf and whose favorite drink is whiskey, or two vegetarians who would never in a million years vote Republican.

And yet, the fact that you both like water- skiing and stamp collecting and pizza with anchovies wont mean a thing if you cant stand someones voice or dont get their sense of humor or if theres no spark when you look at them across the table.

But before there can be chemistry and sparks and a table, there has to be something else:

Dates.

At least a first date, if not a second date and a third date.

And yet one of the biggest obstacles people have in finding love is not knowing how to behavewhat to say and what not to say, how to act and how not to actwhen theyre out in public with someone theyve just met.

Youd think theyd know not to talk about how they havent had a date in ten years.

Or how every single one of their past relationships ended because they cheated or were cheated on.

Or that theyre still a virgin.

Youd think theyd know that doing shots of tequila on a first date probably wont lead to a second date.

Or that holding their fork like a toothbrush and eating with their hands might be a major turnoff.

But youd be surprised at what walks through my door. After all the years Ive been doing this Im still amazed at the stories I hear when I debrief my clients about the dates Ive sent them out on. Many people have no idea about what they should and shouldnt do to find love. Hopefully, after you read this book, you wont be one of them.

Helping people find love isnt always easy.

The love business is a tough businessits the only one in the world where the customer is almost never right and its my job to tell them that. If theyre a 3 looking for a 10, if theyre one hundred pounds overweight but tell me they dont want to date a woman with curves, if theyre forty- five but dressed like theyre twenty- five, Im the one who has to tell them that their expectations are out of whack or that theyre going to have to act their ageor at least dress their age.

But the main thing I tell them is that they have to get over themselves.

Sometimes they have big things to get overa difficult childhood, a bad breakup, a messy divorce.

Sometimes they have smaller things to get over, like the fact that theyre not a size 4, or that theyre bald, or that while they might love their eighties hair or their fake- and- bake tan or the fifty rock concert T- shirts hanging up in their closet, those things are actually red flags the size of Texashuge warning signalsto potential dates.

Whatever it iswhether they have to lose the attitude or grow a set or learn to like themselvesthey have to be willing to face what they need to face and fix what they need to fix so I can help them move forward.

For the people who have been living in a dream world until they walk into my officeand lets face it, most of them have, otherwise they probably wouldnt be there in the first placemy advice is not going to make them very happy. It is what it is, though: Im a straight shooter and I dont sugarcoat the truth because sugarcoat-ing the truth wont help themor youfind the love theyre looking for.

I believe that everyone deserves love.

I also believe that if youre willing to do what it takesto get to your core and figure out who you are and why and to make some important changesyoull find it.

Finding love isnt about shoes.

It isnt about how flat your stomach is or how much money you make or whether or not you went to a fancy college.

Finding love is about being vulnerable and being true to yourself.

And about being ready for love.

I dont care if youve never been married or if youve been divorced twice, if you live in the middle of a big city or out in the middle of nowhere where God lost his shoe, if you have a smoking hot bod or are covered in chubyou could meet the perfect person tomorrow and if youre not ready for them, it wont work. Because finding love is also about looking your best and acting your best so you can get through a first date without annoying or repelling someone and make it to the next date.

I tell clients in almost every interview that I dont make the rules, I just follow them. And that one of the most important rules out there is that it takes tough love to find true love.

Thats why I do what I do and why Im writing this book.

Because I can help you. I dont know everything about everything but I do know this: If you take my advice about getting over your past, if you follow my rules about changing your present, if you let me put you through the same process that I put my clients through in my officesand if you learn a few commonsense tips, what some people call my Patti- ismsyoull be ready for true love when you find it.

And you will find it.

Sooner than you think.

Patti Novak