Deborrah Cooper Transcript

February 16, 2008

Announcer: Welcome, and thanks for tuning in to Sound Authors with host Dr. Kent. It’s for candid conversations about everything, from cuisine to culture, and from nature to nurture. Now here’s your host, Dr. Kent.

Kent Gustavson: Welcome to Sound Authors. It’s the day after Valentine’s Day, and hopefully we all had a good one by this point. It’s my honor today to have four very special guests.My first guest is going to be Deborrah Cooper with her website Sucka-Free Love. My second guest is going to be Amy Schoen with getitrighthistime.com. Both are relationship experts.The third guest on the show is something a little bit different. He’s an expert on politics. He wrote a biography of Ronald Reagan.My fourth guest is the very incredible singing duet of Neal and Leandra, singing the song “Old Love” from their album “Old Love”.So, let’s get started here. My first guest has a website called Sucka-Free Love as well as a book. Welcome to the show, Deborrah Cooper.

Deborrah Cooper: Hey Dr. Kent, how are you?

Kent: I’m good. How are you doing this Valentine’s Day?

Deborrah: Not too bad.

Kent: all right, so tell me a little bit about your book.

Deborrah: Oh, wow, where do I begin? The full title of it is “Sucka-Free Love: How to Avoid Dating the Dumb, the Deceitful, the Dastardly, the Dysfunctional, and the Deranged”, which pretty much covers every kind of sucka I could think of.

Kent: You have to define a sucka for me. S-U-C-K-A, what does that mean exactly?

Deborrah: That’s kind of a catch-all term for every person that becomes involved with you for any kind of reason other than love and respect.They’re there for what you can provide for them, for the benefits that you offer, which may be something as simple as sex, maybe money, other kinds of favors. They manipulate, they control, they cheat, they lie, they steal. They do kinds of things that ultimately end up hurting you.The goal for this book is to get people to recognize those games as they start coming along so they can protect themselves.

Kent: This is a totally new dating environment these days. There’s a million ways to meet people, but are there any good ones out there?

Deborrah: Any good people, you mean?

Kent: Well, that too, but any good method to meet them?

Deborrah: You know, I hesitate to say that anything is bad. I have to say that because you can meet some really great people in environments that are traditionally discounted as negative, say nightclubs, bars and singles mixers.Everybody is going to go into those environments at one point or another for whatever reason. What you want to avoid, though, is those that are there every single weekend and make it their home. You don’t want them.You can’t even say that church is necessarily 100% foolproof either, because knuckleheads go to church too.

Kent: You’ve heard a lot of stories. Do you have any stories to share with us to illustrate what’s in your book? Is this just woman talking about men, or can men also find a sucka woman?

Deborrah: Oh yeah. Unfortunately what we traditionally call the nice guys like yourself, I’m sure, might typically be caught in the web of a female sucka. I call those chicken-heads.In the first chapter of the book, entitled “Which Came First, the Chicken-head or the Egg?” it’s particularly devoted to men that deal with women that are termed gold-diggers and users. They see a guy as somewhat of a nest egg.

Kent: You deal with all these issues, what people are always asking, like “Why won’t men call?” You talk about interracial relationships. Where did you get started with all this? It’s been, what, 15 years?

Deborrah: It has. It’s been 15 years actually in the business. But the information that I bring to this field has been information that’s been coming to me from a wide variety of sources practically since birth.My dad and I had a very close relationship. He spent lots of time talking to me about men and relationships, how to be a lady, how to conduct myself in the world, this kind of thing. As I grew up, I took those lessons with me. So, as I got older and got to dating age, I was able to see exactly what he was talking about.I came into the dating world light-years ahead of most girls my age. As I got even older, I was able to see the games that even women older than me didn’t see, didn’t recognize. People were coming to me for advice, and it just kind of morphed from there. Now I’ve been doing this professionally for 15 years.

Kent: What is the most common mistake people make in a relationship?

Deborrah: I knew you were going to ask me that. [laughter] If I had to pick just one, I think I would say that they don’t accept the person for what they are. They think that love is either going to change the person, or that what they see right in their face isn’t as bad as they think it is.They ignore the red flags. They just ignore it, and they stay in relationships and stay involved with people that they really should have passed by. That, I think, is the biggest mistake and that causes the most problems.

Kent: You deal with singles every day. Have singles changed over the years?

Deborrah: I think so. The environment is different. Even though we all love our Internet connections and our Blackberries and our cell phone text messaging and picture messaging, those things I think have taken us away from the ability to really communicate with the other. People do a lot of hiding.It’s hard, even when you have a relationship with someone, to really develop the depth of understanding and intimacy that I think most of us are really looking for. People are in relationships, but they still feel lonely.

Kent: You said you spoke to your father a lot about men and all of that stuff. Have you fallen into some of these traps yourself?

Deborrah Cooper: I’ve met guys. I’m not going to lie, I’m not going to lie. I have met them, but I was lucky, though, in that that’s as far as it went.I met them, I may have gone out on a date or two, but we did not have any relationship because I was able to see what they were all about. So, I was somewhat protected. Oh yeah, boy, they’re out there.

Kent: Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. It’s a notorious holiday for men not quite giving it right. There’s so many hopes attached to the day. What do you think about that?

Deborrah: A couple of friends and I was talking about that, starting something called the Un-Valentine Day: just to get together and celebrate the fact that we are accomplished and smart and beautiful women.I don’t want women–or men either–that are single to put too much stock on it, because after all it is a commercially created holiday by the floral industry and the card industry.But, it has come to mean something in relationships which forces those that are not in one at the moment to reconsider our position and feel a little lonely and upset when everyone else is getting these giant bouquets at work.I think for the most part it is just one day. The whole point is to be around people that love you. It does not mean that that has to be someone of the opposite sex. So, if you have friends and family–you know, go spend your Valentine’s Day with your mom.If you can’t love that person that loves you more than anything in the world and show some appreciation to that individual, what else is there?

Kent: Exactly. What’s your plan now? What are you working on?

Deborrah: Well, I just finished an article as a matter of fact, which has references to the Valentine’s Day letdown that you just mentioned. It’s based on a survey of three hundred men with the ten dating secrets that women need to know. I’m going to put that into an article.My next book is going to also be based on that same survey for women that want to get married and the title of that is “So You Want to Get Married? Why Would He Choose You?” We delve into what men are actually looking for in a wife versus a girlfriend. I think a woman is confused on those issues.

Kent: That’s also something that’s changed so much. It changes all the time, depending on what the stars are doing. Not the stars up in the sky, I mean movie stars and all that. But I guess either one, right?

Deborrah: Either one.

Kent: What’s some wisdom you could impart to men and women? I even have friends that are so frustrated; they say “I’ll never meet the right person”. What do you tell people like that?

Deborrah: In the back of my book, actually that’s one of the chapters that I cover, is “If love is the answer, please rephrase the question”, which somewhat reflects the frustration and confusion that singles that are out looking experience in the dating world.What I did was put together something called my ten rules for psycho-free dating. Just ten quick little guidelines, like “Never date someone just for love”, “Don’t settle for less, just avoid being alone”, “Avoid dating someone with different values or core beliefs, that is key”, “Ask lots of questions before you get yourself involved next time”.You know, you need to know who you’re getting involved with. Focus on commitment; focus on the person that you’re trying to commit to. Never date someone just because they want to date you. This is also important.You have to have screening technique. Just because someone finds you attractive and interesting doesn’t mean that you have to return that thought.”Never rush into a commitment before you know who you’re committing to.” I’m sorry I’m repeating myself. “Always be a person of your word,” this is where we’re talking about communication, honesty and developing trust.”Don’t waste your time loving someone that doesn’t love you back.” I can’t even tell you, Kent, how important that is and how much that’s ignored.”Listen to your inner voice and pay attention to the red flags that you see”. And then the tenth one is “Never bring baggage of the past into the present”. That is very important too.A person should never be charged with crime and have to do time for something done by someone in your past. Let it go.

Kent: What do we find in your book? Is it kind of a guidebook for how to do it, or fun to read? What do we find?

Deborrah: Well, you find all that. It’s hilarious. It’s a question and answer format with commentary by me.As well there’s a questionnaire there so you can assess the relationship that you in, with a sucka or not, as well as those ten rules for psycho-free dating I just read you. The seven chapters are divided by topics, so you can go right to the issue that is in your life right now and read the rest later.It’s very informative, very down to earth, very real. I don’t use a lot of highfalutin’ psychological psychobabble words. I talk to you just like I’m talking right now. People that have heard me talk can hear my voice.I just want people to feel like they have a friend. I can’t meet everyone, but I can be with you through the pages of this book and guide you through the mess before you get in deep.

Kent: It’s been a real pleasure speaking with you. You have a couple of websites online, askheartbeat.com as well.

Deborrah: Yeah, that’s my chief website with most relationship advice and articles on it. That’saskheartbeat.com.

Kent: Then we have suckafreelove.com. That’s the fun site that talks about this brand new book “Sucka-free Love: How to avoid dating the dumb, the deceitful, the dastardly, the dysfunctional and the deranged.”We’ve been speaking with Deborrah Cooper. Thanks so much for being on the show, and happy Valentine’s Day.