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Forthcoming dating book makes case for good men
Anita Myers hugs her old gym teacher Dave Tesnow, who contributed to Myers' and Alex Sukhoy's forthcoming book on dating. | Joel Lerner~Sun-Times Media
THE DATING GPS
What: Forthcoming book by Skokie natives Anita Myers and Alex Sukhoy
Premise: Good men are not a myth
Release date: The authors are finishing up the book and release date to be determined
Website: thedatinggps.com
Article Extras
Updated: September 3, 2012 12:31PM
SKOKIE — “The Dating GPS” just may be the answer to every Lifetime movie about innocent women taken in by dark and disturbed men who ruin their lives.
The forthcoming dating book written by two Skokie natives and packed with the insights of many locals begins with a simple and encouraging premise:
“Good men are not a myth; they are very much alive, worthy and longing to be recognized.”
Alex Sukhoy and Anita Myers met each other when they were 9 and attending Middleton School. They went their separate ways after graduating high school, so it seemed rather unlikely that they would eventually write a dating book together.
Other reasons it seemed unlikely is because Myers lives in Arlington Heights, Sukhoy in Cleveland; Myers is happily married, Sukhoy divorced and single; Myers has a background in insurance and other industries, Sukhoy worked in corporate America and more recently as a teacher.
But technology — the Internet — solved the first problem and a shared vision about finding a partner solved the second.
In March 2010, Myers pitched the idea of a book to her childhood friend. She had no idea that Sukhoy, with whom she just reconnected, would say yes. But her friend was immediately on board.
“In the metamorphosis of what I had become,” Myers said, “I was watching all these shows on TV and movies and other media and everything was down on men.”
Myers said that the media onslaught demonizing men was not her experience. She has been in a happy marriage for a dozen years with a wonderful partner, she says.
“What women are saying is wrong with men — I don’t find that,” said Myers. “Women have issues and men have issues. It’s about finding a way to make them both meet.”
But it was really her daughter who served as an inspiration for her book idea.
“When I watched my daughter playing, I thought what’s in store for her when she gets older,” Myers said. “When she becomes a young lady ready to date, what will be her opinion of men?”
Even though Sukhoy is divorced, she shares Myers’ vision and has no bitter perspective about men.
“I still love men,” she said.
The authors believe they bring a full spectrum of relationship experience to the book.
“We’ve both been single, we’ve both been engaged, Anita is in a healthy marriage, I’ve been divorced and single for 15 years,” Sukhoy said.
Rather than immediately find a publisher, the women went about their research for the book.
They gathered the stories of real women and assembled a panel of diverse males to honestly respond to them.
“We talked to women who may have been our friends or friends of friends who shared with us what they had experienced in their dating world when they were younger,” Myers said.
The male panelists were asked to respond to these stories as if their daughters were telling them — without any filters.
“GPS” in the book’s title stands for “Guys, Pr--ks and Sweethearts,” the authors say. Stories were divvied up into these categories.
Popular retired Middleton School gym teacher Dave Tesnow served as a male panelist for some of the sweetheart stories.
“I believe truthfully there are some great guys out there,” Tesnow said. “It’s just that they don’t always know they are.”
Tesnow, who has been happily married for 39 years, responded to 10 or so stories including one about a woman who married a man when they were both 20.
That story came from Rose Regalado, now 31.
“Everybody made a lot of bets against us,” she said about her marriage, “because we were so young. He proposed in July and we got married at City Hall in August.”
But the marriage has worked because the husband and wife were determined to make it work.
Regalado said her husband has stood up and has fought for their relationship. Since her husband is Mexican and she is Caucasian, there were some racial issues between the families, she said.
There has also been painful loss in their lives.
“Even through the toughest of times though,” she said, “we always communicated with each other. We always had the perspective that we were going to work this out no matter what. He’s been strong and loyal and respectful.”
No doubt about it, Regalado’s husband falls squarely in the sweetheart camp.
“That’s just what he is,” Regalado said.
The authors of “The Dating GPS” want their book to remind women that these kind of men are out there. They just have to open their eyes and look around, they say.
