Review: It Just Hasn’t Happened Yet

Title: It Just Hasn’t Hap­pened Yet

Author: Karin Ander­son, Ph.D.

Pub­lisher: Clifton Hills Press

Date (to be) Pub­lished: June 2010

Syn­op­sis (from Ama­zon):

It Just Hasn’t Hap­pened Yet presents a new angle sorely needed in the Self-​​Help/​Relationship genre–one that coun­ter­acts the tired; clichéd mes­sages women typ­i­cally field e.g. “You’re too picky! You’re too needy! You’re too neu­rotic, which is why you aren’t mar­ried.” It Just Hasn’t Hap­pened Yet embold­ens, rather than blames and encour­ages women to stay true to them­selves, rather than chang­ing to appeal to some­one else. It asserts that sin­gle women are smart, sexy, cream-​​of-​​the-​​crop “catches” that will even­tu­ally get “caught”. They aren’t screwed up and they can stop berat­ing them­selves for being sin­gle. They’re fab­u­lous as is; it just hasn’t hap­pened yet. Now that’s self-​​help!

Where Did It Come From?

I inter­viewed Karin about her upcom­ing book while at the BEA and was sent a pre­view copy.

Why Did I Choose It?

I don’t know any women who haven’t read at least one self-​​help book when it comes to rela­tion­ships, includ­ing myself, and this one sounded more like what I needed to read.

My Review and Interview:

Karin hits this sub­ject mat­ter right on the head.  It’s not our fault we’re still sin­gle.  We’re not too picky, too crazy, too needy, or too inde­pen­dent.  Yes some peo­ple have found their mate, but it doesn’t hap­pen that eas­ily for every­one.  And we don’t need to change who we are just to land us a hus­band.  I’ve found in many of my rela­tion­ships, that I’ve changed who I am some­times in small ways, some­times in big­ger ways, but in the end I wasn’t happy in a rela­tion­ship that I couldn’t be myself in.  Karin picks apart a vari­ety of com­ments a sin­gle woman will hear and usu­ally dread hear­ing and ana­lyzes it from her point, another woman in that sit­u­a­tion and even gets a man’s point of view on the topic as well.  It’s a clearly thought out book, with a lot of great advice on how we may not have found the one yet, but that’s not a rea­son to set­tle for who­ever comes along next.

Dur­ing our meet­ing at the BEA, Karin and I dis­cussed how this book came into being.  Karin, like many women in their 30s and 40s, con­stantly gets ques­tioned by friends and fam­ily why she hasn’t found her­self a man and set­tled down yet.  Now I’ve met her, and Karin is not an ugly hag who’s past her prime in any sense.  She’s beau­ti­ful, con­fi­dent, and we truly had a blast.  I can’t imag­ine it would be any dif­fer­ent when she meets a man.  But while she did come close to get­ting mar­ried once, she real­ized that it wasn’t right for her and in a way I’m glad she did.  I don’t think this book would have come into being had she set­tled down with some­one who wasn’t quite right for her.

I recall one part of our con­ver­sa­tion about how many women feel their bio­log­i­cal clock tick­ing and that’s what forces them to set­tle for the next guy who comes along who while not her ideal man, would make a good baby daddy so that she doesn’t have to grow old with­out a child and a fam­ily.  One of Karin’s friends would tell her, ‘Oh my bio­log­i­cal clock? I can’t hear it.  It must be dig­i­tal.’  Per­fect!  I think I threw her for a loop though when I com­mented that while I off and on have had the desire to have a child, rare as it is, that if it came to the point that I was ready for chil­dren, I am not con­cerned with where they come from.  I’d be per­fectly happy to adopt a child as there are plenty in this world that need a lov­ing home.  So while my clock is tick­ing, to steal her friend’s phrase: it must be digital.

Karin’s insight into the world of why peo­ple ask us these at times rude and embar­rass­ing ques­tions is truly worth a read.  She’s light-​​hearted and funny, yet full of worth­while information.

I encour­age you if you are a sin­gle woman who gets this bar­rage of ques­tion­ing or even one of those who does the ques­tion­ing to pick up this book and get a lit­tle insight into your life and real­ize that you don’t need to change who you are to find the man of your dreams.  It Just Hasn’t Hap­pened Yet!

And keep an eye out for her new web­site Authen​ti​cal​lyMe​.com which will have not only inspir­ing words from Karin but from other seek­ing to main­tain her iden­tity in a world that encour­ages sac­ri­fic­ing who you are to find the one you love.