By Nancy Rugart Plummer, Times Columnist
One of my favorite stories has nothing to do with dating, but it taught me something I now share with almost every client I work with.
In the 1930s, a small company in Cincinnati called Kutol Products made a soft, pliable putty designed to clean soot off wallpaper. It was sold in Kroger stores, did its job, and kept the company in business for about twenty years. Then homes switched from coal heat to gas, vinyl wallpaper came along, and suddenly nobody needed wallpaper cleaner anymore. The company was heading toward bankruptcy – not because the product was bad, but because the people buying it had disappeared.
Here’s where it gets interesting. A nursery school teacher named Kay Zufall, who happened to be the sister-in-law of one of Kutol’s owners, needed cheap craft supplies for her students. She’d read somewhere that wallpaper cleaner could work for modeling projects, so she brought some to class. The kids went absolutely wild for it. They squished it, rolled it, and shaped it into all kinds of wonderful creations.
Kay called her brother-in-law and told him to stop selling it as a cleaner. “It’s a toy,” she said. They pulled out the detergent, added some color and a pleasant scent, and gave it a new name. The compound itself barely changed. What changed was who they put it in front of. That product was Play-Doh, and it has sold over three billion cans since 1956.
I love this story because I see it play out in my coaching practice all the time, especially when it comes to dating.
When Your Profile Tells the Wrong Story
A while back, I worked with a client named Jill who reminded me so much of that wallpaper cleaner. Jill is a talented woman – she’s both the singer in a band and a successful professional. When she first came to me, her dating profile was filled with photos of her singing on stage and at concerts. She figured that since music was such a big part of her life, she should lead with it, and ideally find a guy who was also in a band.
It made perfect sense on the surface. But when we sat down and talked about what she actually wanted in a partner – someone driven, someone whose schedule and values aligned with hers – I gently pointed out that statistically speaking, a guy in a band probably wasn’t going to check those boxes. That’s not a knock on musicians! But Jill’s day-to-day life was built around professional ambition and personal discipline, and she needed a partner who matched that energy.
Once Jill realized this, we changed her profile pictures to show her doing the many other things she loves – not just singing. The response was almost immediate. She started hearing from men whose schedules and values actually fit her own. And yes, she found the love of her life. Does he enjoy music? Absolutely. Is he a musician? Absolutely not. Is she happy with that? You bet she is.
Jill wasn’t the problem. She’s wonderful. She was just marketing herself to the wrong audience, much like that wallpaper cleaner sitting on a hardware store shelf when it should have been in a classroom.
You Might Be in Your “Wallpaper Cleaner Phase”
I see this pattern so often that I’ve started calling it the “wallpaper cleaner phase” of dating. This is when you’re presenting yourself to a type of person that might have made sense at an earlier point in your life but doesn’t quite fit where you are now.
Maybe, like Jill, you’re leading with one part of your identity and attracting people who only connect with that one piece of you. Maybe you’re an introvert forcing yourself to meet people at loud bars because that’s what you think you’re supposed to do. Maybe you’re someone whose best quality is emotional depth, but you keep ending up in environments that reward surface-level banter.
Here’s what I want you to understand: this isn’t rejection. There is an important difference between rejection and misalignment. Rejection means someone saw you and said no. Misalignment means they never had a reason to look in the first place. Those are two very different things, and recognizing the difference can be a real turning point.
Finding Your “Nursery School”
So how do you find the right room, the place where who you actually are is exactly what someone is looking for?
I always suggest my clients start with two things.
First, get honest about what you actually bring to the table. Not the version of yourself you’re performing, but the real you. Play-Doh didn’t try to pretend it was a premium cleaning product. It was soft, colorful, and a little messy – and those were the exact qualities that made it magical in a classroom. I encourage my clients to think about the parts of themselves they’re tempted to downplay. Your intensity, your sensitivity, your quirky sense of humor, your need for deep conversation – those aren’t flaws. With the right person, they might be exactly what draws someone in.
Second, take a hard look at where and how you’re putting yourself out there. Kutol kept selling its putty in hardware stores, next to actual cleaning products, to people looking for actual cleaning products. Of course it wasn’t working! The dating version of this is spending all your energy on apps or in social scenes that work against your strengths. I always recommend my clients make a list of the activities they genuinely enjoy, whether that’s skiing, going to museums, joining a book club, or volunteering. Then get out there and do those things. You’re far more likely to meet someone compatible when you’re already doing what you love. And even if you don’t meet someone right away, you’ll be enjoying yourself – which is the whole point.
As I told Lauren, a widow who wrote to me after meeting a wonderful man on the ski slopes, you’re starting on the right foot when you look for a partner while doing one of your favorite things.
The Small Adjustments
One more thing I love about the Play-Doh story: the transformation wasn’t a complete makeover. They pulled out the detergent and added some color. That’s it. The core substance was the same.
Jill didn’t change who she was. She didn’t quit her band or pretend music wasn’t important to her. She simply adjusted how she was presenting herself so that the right person could see the full picture. That’s often all it takes – small, honest adjustments that let the real you come through.
Maybe for you it means updating your profile to show the range of who you are instead of just one slice. Maybe it means picking a first-date spot where you actually feel comfortable rather than one you think sounds impressive. Maybe it means being upfront about what you’re looking for instead of trying to seem easy-going when you’re really not.
These aren’t reinventions. They’re the dating equivalent of removing the detergent and adding a little color – letting the real thing shine without the stuff that was only there because you were trying to be something you’re not.
You are not a product that needs to be fixed. You might just be a wonderful person who hasn’t found the right room yet. And the distance between those two things is often much smaller than it feels.
Nancy is the founder of All About Connecting, and offers personalized date coaching and matchmaking to help you find the love of your life and create the life you love!
