- Doc Love
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Doc Love (real name Thomas Hodges) is a relationship coach for men. He has devoted over 35 years in active research with over 10,000 women and has become an expert in dating women and relationships. He has authored several books on the subject of how to date women and how to keep them interested in a romantic relationship. He also writes a free weekly column, which is published on AskMen.com among other websites, and conducts a radio talk show The Doc Love Show: Understanding Women For Men Only on wsRadio with his sidekick Jeff M. Stevens, which addresses callers' questions on women and dating. He has appeared on a Fox television interview. The philosophy he advocates for dating is called "The System", which is laid out in his book, "The System: The Dating Dictionary."
The primary concept in his teachings is for a man to be a challenge to the woman he is interested in. Challenge, according to Doc Love, is the most important reason that a woman is attracted to and chooses to stay in a relationship with one man over another. Challenge is defined as "allowing the woman to do the pursuing". Doc Love is the only "love doctor" to talk about the necessity of a man being a challenge in order to achieve and sustain a successful relationship.[dubious ]
Other key ideas in "The System" include a list of Male Traits and Female Traits that are necessary for romantic love to exist. The Male Traits are Confidence (subdivided into Self-Confidence and Self-Esteem), Control (subdivided into Discipline, Patience, and Self-Control), and Challenge. The Female Traits are Integrity (subdivided into Honesty, Loyalty, and Trust), Giving Nature, Flexibility, and a lack of emotional baggage from prior relationships.
Interest Level is another of Doc Love's key concepts and encompasses the idea that the level of a woman's romantic interest in a man is not static, but is raised and lowered by the man's actions - specifically by the degree to which he is or is not a Challenge. Specifically, if a person's Interest Level (defined as a percentage from 0 to 100%) in another is above 50%, they feel romantically attracted to them, and the higher the percentage, the more intense the attraction is. He also believes that while men will leave a relationship if their interest in a woman drops below 50%, a woman will not leave unless her interest drops below 40% due to her bonding nature; in addition, a woman's Interest Level being between 40-50% is a serious problem since it will never go back above 50% and the relationship is doomed to fail, yet she will still stay with, date, or even marry men at this Interest Level despite the total and permanent lack of attraction on her part. He also blames this phenomenon for the fact most divorces and breakups are started by women, and says men need his System and to be more of a Challenge.
Doc Love's additional ideas from his philosophy include bringing salesmanship into the area of dating, namely by "closing the deal" with a woman by getting her HOME phone number.
Doc Love differs from the "pickup artists" of the seduction community in that his focus is on teaching men to have happy long-term relationships rather than to seduce women for one-night stands. Nonetheless, their teachings have some similarities and might be said to complement one another. Both have as their primary target audience the nice guy who tends to befriend rather than attract the women he is romantically interested in ("Wimpus Americanus" in Doc Love's terminology - the seduction community term is Average Frustrated Chump) and both criticize this man's approach for being too eager to please, claiming that his accommodating behavior is precisely what is turning women off.
Doc Love resides in Oceanside, CA, and he maintains a website that advertises his dating self-help material.
External links
Categories:- Relationships and sexuality writers
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