May 2003

Dear Dale: I was just browsing your website. In your December 2001 advice you talk about writing a book on how identity affects your matchmaking work. How do I buy your book? --Roger via e-mail from San Francisco

Dear Roger: Matchmaking the priority, my book is still underway. But I can overview how what I call "matchmaking identity" impacts relationship capability. I observe identity as having three stages: unprotected, protected, and integrated. In this month’s column I will describe the first stage, unprotected identity.

Unprotected identities view choices as flowing from outward in. They perceive that their obligations control them; they have no choices. They feel like victims, and fantasize about being saved. They feel trapped in co-dependent relationships, and become addicted to escape mechanisms that become neuroses. After escaping, they feel guilty for having betrayed those they perceive to be "in charge" of them. What they most fear is to align their feelings and actions with their true identities. Would this end life as they know it? Surely, they contend, I need to hold onto that which is familiar.

I’ll use a fictional character as an example. Lewis is a perfect son and exemplary employee. He is caregiver for his ill father, and visits him most evenings. Lewis also has a high-stress job managing financial reporting for a major corporation. He often works 60 hours per week. He occasionally dates men he meets at bars late on Saturday nights. But he feels trapped whenever a man desires more than an occasional sexual liaison.

Lewis lives for vacations. He can’t wait until his next trip to Honolulu, where he doesn’t know anyone, and can forget who he is. There he escapes in sexual activities with anonymous partners. Several times he has had affairs while away. He finds intense excitement and experiences deep safety knowing that these affairs always come to quick ends.

Flying home from Honolulu, Lewis feels guilty instead of analyzing his behavior. In fact, when free from the obligations that "keep him in line," Lewis feels only emptiness from which he compulsively escapes. Victimization/escape becomes the ever-repeating cycle.

In June’s issue of OutNow Newsmagazine, we will chart Lewis’ journey from the first stage of matchmaking identity—unprotected—into the second phase—protected. And in July, we’ll learn how Lewis ultimately grows into matchmaking identity’s third phase—integrated. Don’t miss the uplifting tale of how Lewis ultimately transforms his life.

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