Dear Relationship Coach-

"We met online and seemed to hit it off right from start. After he answered my ad, we went on our first date, and it was fabulous. I believe we both felt a strong chemistry and learned a lot about each other. At end of evening we agreed to get together again. He called me next day and we talked for three hours. On our second date, we spent whole day together. After three dates (and many emails, phone calls) - we were talking on a Thursday night. We had previously discussed plans for Saturday. However, he did not mention it before we hung up. I wasn't sure of how to handle situation, so I waited until a day later and left a voice message for him, saying hi. After four days with no word, I left him an invitation to dinner at my place. I never heard back. What happened? What am I supposed to think?" (Confused Female)

Many single women write to me expressing confusion, uncertainty and frustration regarding whole dating scene. Their stories are often (like one above), filled with tales of broken dates, unanswered emails and/or phone calls and guys just disappearing for no apparent reason. They are looking for answers about what qualities men look for in choosing women to date and want to know what single guys really want from their relationships. Most of all, they want to know how to find and build mutually satisfying and lasting relationships.

After receiving above email, I decided to query several single guys and ask for their thoughts, reactions and suggestions to this and other questions that women want answers to. The men I spoke to are all; never married, twenties to thirties, professional, attractive and financially successful. All have very full social lives and have been actively meeting and dating women for years. Only one guy (David, a small town mayor and a professional lobbyist for a trade association) is in a relationship. However, he travels quite a bit and spends a lot of time out socially with mixed groups of singles.

Their feedback for writer of above question contained somewhat differing views, but had a consistent thread running through it. The bottom line - he liked her and had an interest, but something changed and he decided he didn't want to continue. The men offered such comments as "he decided he's just not that interested in her" and " I wonder if they had sex, because some guys are into chase and loose interest after that". One guy was surprised that this had occurred after they had spent a lot of time together and there had been a real interest in getting to know each other. All of guys felt that he should have handled situation differently. David felt writer should have brought up issue of getting together right away- during phone call. He believes "this would have cleared up ambiguity and let her know upfront where she stood." He also commented that a woman needs to "focus on what is happening in a relationship right now". He cautioned, "don't rely on past dates, go with what is happening now." Their comments gave birth to more discussion and many related questions that came up for me as they shared about their dating experiences and their beliefs. The end result? A brief snapshot of qualities men look for in women and their thoughts on dating, timing, commitment and marriage.

What are turn-ons for you?

Home inspectors are quite simply eyes and ears of home being examined. They are objective voice of home. The mantra of home inspectors should be "if home could speak, what would it say". It is critical that inspector can speak in a manner that makes understanding simple for homebuyer, yet has depth of technical language to detail repairs using terminology common to trades.

Making that right choice of which home inspector is in many ways more difficult than choosing home. A clear and critical approach to selecting an inspector is essential to being happy over time with home selected.

My Friend in Construction It seems that everyone knows someone who "works in construction", and from that relationship comes common desire by some buyers to save professional inspection fee by having friend or family member perform inspection.

At first blush, this seems like a perfect solution. The friend or family member is a known and trusted person. There is no doubt in mind of buyer that loyalty and intentions of this person are above reproach. And then of course, there is issue of saving inspection fee.

These attributes of friend are important. Ideally, all but expense issue would be traits found in any professional home inspector. The difficulty arises in three principal areas; objectivity, creditability, and inspection specific knowledge.

Let's look first at issue of inspection specific knowledge. While it may be that friend is without peer in his particular area of construction, it is rare that he is able to view home in it's entirely - that is, as an interaction of dozens of complex and interrelated systems. The most knowledgeable of heating and air-conditioning contractors may know near to nothing about roofing.

Even more common, however, than lack of a broad base of knowledge, is lack of any knowledge that is useful during a home inspection.