Relationship expert gives advice on dating, communication
Relationship communication expert and USU alumnus Abraham Shreve came to campus yesterday to offer the student body advice on personal development and dating. He opened up to The Statesman about grabbing attention from the opposite sex and his own love story.
US: How did you get started in this? As a child, you probably didn’t aspire to being a relationship coach.
AS: I did my undergrad (at USU) in human development, wanting to go into marriage and family therapy. I decided I couldn’t do that all day. I wanted to look at what’s right with us, rather than what’s wrong with us. It’s developed over time. I’ve done so many different things, and it’s kind of just where I’ve landed.
US: What’s your own love story?
AS: I found my wife here at Utah State. It’s weird to explain to people across the country that the only way to truly fit into your culture is to get kissed on an A. I was completely scared of Teresa. I was deliberately slow. I was going to spend the semester in Moab, when I blew my knee out skiing. It kept me in Logan, and we started talking on a deeper level. We dated for 18 months, she dumped me three times – but she says that didn’t happen. When you decide you have to go work on the friendship, I see that as a dumping.
US: What piece of your own advice do you take most into your marriage?
AS: Ooh, that’s really good. I think we say the Golden Rule is ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto you.’ I think that’s bad relationship advice. Really, you have to do unto others as they would have done unto them. I can say something, and you can hear something, and they can not be the same at all. Probably the best thing I’ve learned to do before I react to anything is to understand how (my wife) sees things. If I can do that, I can do a much better job talking about it.
US: When your daughters get old enough to date, what are you going to sit down and tell them?
AS: Where do I start with that? I’ve begun my automatic weapons collection for Maddie’s 16th birthday. It’s a day I hope never comes. I told her I was going to put her in a bottle and just keep her at this age, but she won’t go along with that. It’s inevitable, she’s going to date sometime. The realization that I’m going to want to take a human life is probably going to happen. I would love for her to have a lot of experience. I want her to go on dates with all kinds of different people and get to know a lot of great people. I would like for her to – here’s the dad in me – to control her circumstances. Also, if she needs to, she can use the Taser daddy got her.
US: What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?
AS: I’m a little embarrassed. I picked her up, and she was super sarcastic right out of the gate. I’m fairly sarcastic (myself), and she completely dwarfed me. It became apparent very quickly I would be no match for her little sarcastic onslaught. It was about 9 p.m., and I decided I would just take her home. We started driving, and she asked where we were going. I told her I was taking her home, and she asked why. I told her it just felt like we were done. She started to warm up to me at that point. You know how girls get real jabby when they like you? They start breaking that touch barrier and start punishing you. She got home, and she asked me to walk her to the door. She came at me, and I was completely unprepared, and we smashed our noses. Not only was it awkward, it was really painful. I literally had nothing to say, so I walked back to the car. I haven’t talked to her since then.
US: What are the biggest dating mistakes you see 18 to 24 year olds making?
AS: They commit social media suicide. Typically that’s in a photo. We think that we’re just going to post realtime everything that happens to us – good or bad. We start to tell our story, but when we meet somebody new, they go back and read all of that, and they’re not just reading the paragraph we just barely put out there, they’re reading the whole book.
US: Everybody is looking for that one thing to make them marketable – the secret to making people attracted to them. If there is one thing, what would you say it is?
AS: I really believe it’s your own personal development. We talk about how playing hard to get and how the whole idea behind it is that you’ll entice them to be more interested. I actually think the direct beneficiary of that is the person that’s doing it. Hard to get, as I’m using here, is not, ‘I’m going to be a little elusive.’ It’s that I think the more active you get in living your life and doing really cool things and exploring the world around you, the more enticing you’re going to be to other people.
US: What has been your most interesting experience as a relationship coach?
AS: I had a lady that came to me after 17 years of marriage. She just pounded through the door and (said), ‘I’m getting a divorce, he’s taken my role. I can’t stand that he’s doing this, and I’m done.’ She was completely hijacked. For 16 years he had a really great profession, and they decided to do a business together, and it didn’t work out. He became unemployed. At home he was doing the dishes, getting the kids ready and driving them to school. In her mind, she thought that it was now her turn to go out, get a job and make a living. Why would a guy do that? It’s possible he spent all those years being such a great caregiver and found himself unable to provide, so he was going to do all he could to be a positive influence in the house. She saw it as him taking her role. He saw it as helping her because he wasn’t bringing home a paycheck.
– allee.evensen@aggiemail.usu.edu