TV psychologist, presenter and writer Emma Kenny is currently busy launching her latest venture aiming to help people find the balance in their busy lives.
Famous for her TV appearances and work on shows such as Big Brother and Chanel 4’s The Joy of Teen Sex, Emma took time out of her busy schedule to share her views on dating with us.
We met up with the lovely Emma Kenny for a coffee in London and I admit I wasn’t sure what to expect. All my research online hadn’t told me much about this lady’s personality, but she was so friendly. I instantly knew it was her as she walked in, waving animatedly at me as she made her way across the coffee shop. Dressed in a long black dress paired with simple gold jewellery, she looked elegant yet ready for anything.
We ordered coffee and cake – she insisted, and I asked her what had led her to where she was today… she explained that she would run 6 miles every evening and had a really good social life, but when she became a single mum that all changed; she was faced with finding her own balance.
"Being single can be fun but,
for most of us, meeting the one
is something we all want to
achieve eventually."
What do you think of online dating?
Well today much of our search for the elusive Mr. or Miss Right happens online - on dating sites like Flirtify, and it makes sense because we all have such busy lives.
So, how do you start searching for the ideal date?
Very often people make some school-boy errors when setting their search criteria. There are a few no brainers, such as age and gender, but often people get too picky and start cutting out vast amounts of potential matches.
Would you recommend leaving the search criteria off then?
No, all I’m saying is if you don't have kids, you may not want to take someone else's on. Or if you hate smoking you’d be sure that you didn't want to date a smoker, etc.
But kids grow up and smokers can kick the habit, so why exclude them from your searches, I say? I understand why; people want to find the perfect person, but what if your perfect person is as imperfectly perfect as you?
"What if your perfect
person is as imperfectly
perfect as you?"
So there is no Mr or Mrs Perfect?
In a way - you see that's the beauty of us humans, we are all flawed and we could all list traits about ourselves that would make a stranger take a wide birth.
Trying to create the perfect match by closing parameters and making negative assumptions about people due to their 'baggage' actually limits our chances of happiness. Think about it for a minute - when you meet someone new outside of the cyber world, you don't stand there with a questionnaire and have them answer a pile of questions before deciding whether they are deserving of your company! Real life isn't like that.
"We meet and like people,
irrespective of their history
- that's attraction"
A good exercise is to reflect on all the different people you have been attracted to in the past. Look at the diversity and think about both the subtle and more obvious things that attracted you to them - it's amazing how varied these will be.
So, next time you search for your ideal match online remember that very often what we think we want may not be what we need after all.
Emma x
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