Key Principle
For the dating (not marriage) phase, dismantle the two filters that auto-reject good people before you ever know them: your "type" (a broad summary view — tall, intellectual, macho) and your requirement list (granular nitpicks). Both feel like discernment but are mostly a readout of your own inner world, not reliable data about who is good for you. Two snap judgments are equally untrustworthy and stem from the same broken "people picker": the instant "yes" of being smitten, and the instant "no" of "not my type." The default policy: go out with almost anyone once, gated only by safety. Drop the preference list to get in the door; the character list for choosing a mate is kept (Ch. 32).
Why This Matters
A "type" is data about you, not the people worth dating. It usually does one of two internal jobs: it medicates a wound, or it compensates for a deficit by chasing a symbol. The trap is self-sealing — the very trait that attracts you is the trait that will later frustrate you, because you chose the person to manage your own conflict, not because you valued them. So the loop repeats: "one shallow woman after another, wondering why it doesn't ever work."
Requirement lists are worse than broad types because granularity shrinks the pool: the more specific the screen, the fewer viable people. Lists can be logically unsatisfiable by design (someone "spontaneous and creative" AND "highly organized and structured"), guaranteeing the failure the dater blames on the market. They also screen out real holders of a value through projection — you test for a value (devotion to God) using your own ritual of it, so anyone who lives it differently fails, even someone who holds it more deeply.
Snap "yes" is just as bad: a racing heart is physiological arousal, not evidence of compatibility or durability. Being smitten = a trait that "completes" you or "defends" you against a feared part of yourself, so the pairing is engineered to sour once the projection wears off.
And a snap "no" produces false negatives. Your own openness is a variable in a date's outcome — a bad first date when you arrived closed off measured your stance, not the match. One date is a sample of one taken under noisy conditions (first-date anxiety, a bad day, prior wounding). The asymmetry is load-bearing: the cost of a low-expectation date with a safe person is low; the information value (about them, yourself, and relationship itself) is high.
Good Examples
- Wendy "loved the muscular type" because macho men made her feel softer (tracing to put-downs from her brothers). But those men couldn't relate to her hidden softer side, so she'd grow frustrated — the same inability that attracted her. She dropped the type, married a "non-specimen," and reported more sexual passion "from connection and emotional availability."
- A man with a "real, typed-out list with a zillion requirements" (leg shape, hair/skin color, clothing style) abandoned it and married a woman already in front of him: "I had a gem right there in front of me the whole time and could not see her."
- A man demanded a woman study the Bible "an hour a day, just as I do." His expectations were blocking him from seeing her real spirituality — "for all we know, she may have loved God a lot more than he did."
- Marti's first date with Tony "was awful... because I was not open to him. I had a closed mind." On the second date she "totally connected with him."
- A man married 25 years to "exactly the type I had in mind" — but only after dating widely first, so the type won fair and square.
Counterpoints
- This is not "settle" or "force attraction." Cloud calls trying to like someone you don't "stupid." The goal is still someone who "really turns you on in every way." The mechanism: symbolic attraction always wears off; passion built on connection endures and can run higher.
- Keep your preference, but make it compete. "Your type may win in the end. But make sure it has lots of competition along the way." Attack only letting the filter screen people out untested.
- Projection cure ("Year 1204") applies to differences in expression, not real integrity problems. Lying and duplicity are genuine character flaws, not harmless difference — don't conflate them.
- Smitten doesn't prove the person lacks value. The feeling is unreliable as evidence, not proof of incompatibility. Enjoy the rush, then get to the real person.
- Safety is the one non-negotiable gate. "Go out with anybody once" holds only for people who are not dangerous — "so I would not be out with the Unabomber." It corrects for first-date noise; it does not override genuine red flags.
- Scope caveat: dropping the list is for the dating/shopping phase only. Character and spiritual standards for marriage are reinstated in Ch. 32.
Key Quotes
"If dating is not about finding a marriage partner, why do you care about a particular type?" — Dr. Henry Cloud, Chapter 13
"But that macho inability was part of why she chose the guy to begin with. Her 'type' was part of what was keeping her stuck." — Dr. Henry Cloud, Chapter 13
"Your type may win in the end. But make sure that it has lots of competition along the way! If your type wins, it ought to win fair and square." — Dr. Henry Cloud, Chapter 13
"His passion for his life and for who he was, was much more inviting than a robot with a degree." — Dr. Henry Cloud, Chapter 14
"'Love at first sight' is a myth. It should be called 'brain damage'... It is a twofold sickness. You need to be sick to get it, and when you get it, it will make you sick." — Dr. Henry Cloud, Chapter 15
"A fast-beating heart has nothing to do with love or with anything that will last." — Dr. Henry Cloud, Chapter 15
"Real people are where the real things in life are. Go out with a lot of real people, not fantasies." — Dr. Henry Cloud, Chapter 15
"My motto was 'go out with anybody once.' Seriously, anybody — as long as I knew they were not dangerous in some way." — Dr. Henry Cloud, Chapter 16
"You can't really assume you have gotten a good picture of someone after one date." — Dr. Henry Cloud, Chapter 16
Rules of Thumb
- When you reject someone solely as "not my type," treat the discomfort as data, not a veto — "not liking something usually has some growth potential in it." Ask what wound the type is medicating.
- Throw away the requirement list to get dates; keep the character list to choose a mate. Drop preferences for the door; lead with values before the heart engages.
- Run the Year 1204 test on any value-based requirement: strip away the modern artifact that enables your ritual (no printing presses, no Bibles) and ask how the value would still show. If your metric is historically impossible, you're testing a form, not the value.
- When you feel smitten, treat the rush as a prompt — "what is this attraction doing for me internally?" — not a verdict on the person. Love takes time; anything instant is "exciting, even intoxicating, but it isn't love."
- Distrust the instant "no" exactly as you distrust the instant "yes." Believing you're open is not being open — "sneaky requirements" survive belief.
- Default to "go out with anybody once" and "go out with that loser again," gated only by safety (not the Unabomber). You don't know, and you'll never know if you don't go.
Related References
- Strategy and the Three Phases - how openness fits the dating phases
- Character Over Beauty, and Sexual Ownership - the character list you DO keep
- Get Your Dating Self in Shape - why your "type" is diagnostic data about you