Dating Radar

“A relationship manual intended to help the unwary avoid the land mines that litter the dating landscape.

Eddy (It’s All Your Fault!, 2012) and Hunter (Bait & Switch, 2015) collaborate in this dating survival guide that consists of one-tenth hope and nine-tenths somber warnings. Specifically, they focus on what they term “high-conflict people” (or “HCPs”), who “tend toward all-or-nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions, extreme behaviors or threats, and blaming others.” The bulk of the book is devoted to helping readers identify HCPs, preferably before any deep emotional or financial commitments have been made. “Many of us have blinders on when it comes to love,” the authors write, and their advice is intended to remove those blinders by asking simple, straightforward questions and identifying various types of HCPs, including the “Narcissistic HCP,” the “Histrionic HCP,” and even the “Antisocial (Sociopathic) HCP.” Using lightly fictionalized stories as cases in point, Eddy and Hunter effectively lead readers through a labyrinth of conflict-addicted individuals, most of whom actively try to hide their natures using techniques that the authors lay out in clinical detail. Indeed, readers are never for a moment allowed to let their guards down: “HCPs thrive when they are able to control their fears,” readers are told in a representative passage. “How do they do this? They use you!” The authors further complicate the picture with biomedical factors such as bipolar disorder, chemical addiction, and PTSD. Overall, Eddy and Hunter offer a very frank discussion of the ways that readers make themselves vulnerable by intentionally refusing to think clearly about their own blind spots. Much of the advice in this book may strike readers as simple common sense, such as that people should wait a while before committing to serious sexual relationships, for instance, and that they should beware of people who curse at them. But taken with a grain of salt, it all makes for an intriguing cautionary tale.

A thorough, if sometimes thoroughly cynical, account of the perils of forming relationships with those who thrive on drama.”

“One of the most frustrating things for a divorce lawyer is the inability to help a client understand what went wrong in the relationship, so healing can start and the same mistakes aren’t repeated. Megan Hunter and Bill Eddy’s book explains, and goes far beyond dating advice: it’s the equivalent of 20/20 foresight about relationships, delivered in a kind, frank, and intelligent way. This is the kind of book people bring to my office, crying with relief, saying ‘This explains so much.”

“This book is great! As a person who helps people with high conflict marriages, it does my heart good to have a book with the wisdom of authors like Bill Eddy and Megan Hunter, who try to prevent high-conflict marriages in the first place. People tell me ‘I wish I had known about high-conflict partners 10-12 years ago.’ To find out about them beforehand is a blessing, which may help people avoid years of hardship in an unhappy marriage with unhappy children. This gives binoculars for people to see beyond their childhood programming. Now they can look with fresh eyes before it’s too late.”

“A relationship manual intended to help the unwary avoid the land mines that litter the dating landscape.”

“This highly readable, detailed guide is an indispensable manual to dating in the digital age. When technology has made it so simple to connect, but doesn’t supply the wisdom or insight of a personal or community network, caution is more crucial now than ever. The authors offer clear, easy-to-follow advice and convincing stories from their wealth of expertise with high-conflict personalities. This is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand his or her blind spots when looking for love.”

“Eddy and Hunter have captured a complex topic in readable and nonsensical fashion. Their Dating Radar is a terrific gift for my divorce clients as they head out my door and reenter the dating scene. While my prenuptial clients are already smitten, this book should be required reading as a final check on their judgment. High conflict people present complicated personality and behavior patterns, yet the authors distill the warning signs and offer sound advice on how to avoid and exit these couplings that ensnare the unsuspecting in what often morphs into dangerous, painful, and heart-breaking relationships. Consider this book a handy operating manual for tuning up one’s dating antenna.”

“Megan Hunter and Bill Eddy help readers navigate dating with a common sense approach and avoid the usual pitfalls that keep so many people single. It’s an easy read that will surely provide transformative results in the reader’s dating life.”

“Are you actually going to commit the rest of your life to that charming, good-looking person you found on an app? Are you blindly allowing momentum or neediness or loneliness or sex to push you into a future with a person you’ve known so briefly? Have you caught yourself rationalizing that ‘he only hit me once’ or ‘she promised never to do that again’ or ‘I can change him?’ Do you secretly worry that the exciting passion of the bedroom could easily turn into the corrosive passion of divorce? Then it’s time to turn on and tune up your dating radar. Eddy and Hunter have given you the means. Now it’s up to you to make healthy relationship choices.”