Have The Relationship You Want

Should you approach a man if you know you’ll never see him again if you don’t?

Here’s a letter from Ingrid to start the discussion:

“Hi Rori,
I’ve recently met a man (while involved with an activity with a group of others). He’s a genuinely nice guy, friendly with everyone, and I’m drawn to him quite strongly. He appears to be everything all the internet guys turn out not to be, and I’d really like to get to know him better. My problem is with the approach as I’m naturally quite shy, although I tend to hide this with a bubbly front. However when I’m genuinely keen on someone the shyness takes effect and I find it hard to approach men.

The main problem is that he is fairly recently widowed (about 9 months I think) and my worry is that it may be inappropriate to be showing an interest in dating him so soon. I really would rather just like to spend some time with him as a friend and get to know him, but I just don’t know how to do this without appearing too forward and therefore insensitive at a time when he is surely still grieving. There will probably only be one more meeting with this group and then our paths will probably not cross again, so I feel I need to make a move like ‘now or never’. Have you any advice for me Rori?

Many thanks in anticipation of your reply, Regards, Ingrid”

***Here’s my answer:

Ingrid, the biggest thing I noticed is you talk about “approaching men” and “hiding” your shyness behind a “bubbly front”…and NOT doing these things is what my programs and work is all about.

I do not encourage you to approach men. And so I don’t have any strategy for that.

Instead, simply smile (the whole way to go about this is in my new Targeting Mr. Right program) – and let THEM approach YOU. If they’re not approaching, then you need to work on your authenticity and expressing your feelings and being truly who you are – even if that’s “shy” – instead of covering or pretending to be cool or upbeat or “bubbly.” (This is what the Modern Siren program is all about — and the basics of what this is all about is in my ebook. )

That said, if he’s not approaching you here are the possibilities:

1. He doesn’t feel moved by chemistry or anything else to approach you. You’re not his type, or he’s thought about it and has decided not to approach you.

2. He is clueless and shy and doesn’t know what to say to you any more than you know what to say to him.

3. He’s completely oblivious, and perhaps, yes, grieving. He doesn’t notice anyone unless they throw themselves in his face.

4. Your bubbly front is not drawing him in. YOU know it’s not authentic, and so it feels inauthentic to HIM. It’s dampening his feelings of attraction for you.

The most likely answers to the question here is number one and/or number 4 on this list.

He’s thought about it and he’s not interested. And, possibly, you can do something to change that by changing his feelings of attraction to your “vibe.”

Let’s deal first with the logistics of approaching a man in this situation, if that’s your choice. If you want, so that you won’t regret not ever having at least “tried,” you can do this:

Walk up to him, lean back, smile, and say “Hi, I’m feeling very sad that the group is ending tonight. I’ll miss you all.”

And then he’ll talk.

And you’ll respond with Feeling Messages and Listening at Level 2.

From this point forward, it’s all in his hands. If he doesn’t ask for your phone number or your e-mail address, if he doesn’t say “Let’s get together sometime,” then that’s it. You’ll know that he’s “just not that into you,” and that’s the end of it.

The only thing here is — approaching him, even in this small way, may not good feel very good to you. The person who makes the approach has to suffer the rejections as well as savor the triumphs.

Either way, men learn how to deal with it. It’s traditional. But we women are so much more sensitive on so many levels. I know for my own self and my own life, every single time I have managed to make a move on a man — even though it was very subtle (and I used to be pretty good at picking up men in this way) they just end badly.

If a man is interested he will find a way to get your phone number. He knows how– and bottom line this is the truth. My friend Keri Newell says this over and over again in my Targeting Mr. Right program — “Every woman deserves to be pursued.” And if you have to do the pursuit at the beginning you’ll be pursuing forever.

I saw a delightful movie on TV the other night called “The Hammer” with Adam Corolla playing a boxer/loser/boxing instructor/funny guy. He gave the exact demonstration of what my friend David DeAngelo calls “Cocky and Funny.” He had an amazing sense of humor and used it 99% of the time, but the thing is — he was really, really sweet.

Even though he was a jock — a boxer — he was actually very sweet and sensitive, and the way he approached the leading lady of this piece (who is a formidable woman), was just simply very straightforward, very sweet, very masculine and very appealing.
Whereas, in the new movie “500 days of Summer” we have a very different leading man. One who has difficulty making that first approach.

In this movie, the girl ends up making the first move, but because she’s not totally smitten with the guy it’s okay…. I don’t want to give the movie away but by next month I will want to talk about it (see it if you want to join the discussion).

Now for possibility number 4 – which is the only thing we can really have control over or change or shift — and that’s US.

There’s nothing wrong with being “shy.” It can be totally charming if you’re willing to OWN your shyness, discover what’s UNDERNEATH the shyness, and begin to let a man see THAT.

If your shyness is only about your ego — if you’re being run by caring what people think about you — then work with that by noticing how judgmental you are about yourself and shifting all that to CURIOSITY about yourself. And then to curiosity about other people around you. Curiosity is a huge CURE for so many emotional “problems.”

If your shyness is that you’re feeling strong emotions that embarrass you and frighten you — that’s your cue to get even more curious about what’s underneath and start taking baby steps to reveal those feelings to the world.

You can start easily with Feeling Messages about non-scary things like the weather and TV and the movies and the news…
So, the choice to approach a man or not is yours.

In my world, in my experience, and the experience of most women that I’ve talked to, if you feel forced to make the first approach, there’s something wrong. For a man to not start a conversation with you, even if all he’s interested in is friendship, tells you that there’s something going on that may not serve you.

And yet, I don’t want to lay down “Rules” here. Every single thing you do or don’t do is something you can learn from. If you can do this approaching in what feels like a “now-or-never” situation with a spirit of adventure and the goal only of having an “experience” and doing an “experiment,” then I encourage you to follow your impulses — once.

Be sure, Ingrid, to let us know what you did and how it went for you.

Let’s talk more about this “approaching” thing… Love, Rori

Money is tight – so who pays for a date?

He does.

Yes, sounds unfair, sounds anti-feminist, and yet – this is the difference between “friends hanging out together” and a “date.”

A date is about romance. It’s not about companionship or friendship. And it’s not just about sex. It’s about the whole package, it’s about building a romantic relationship step-by-step – and the steps are “dates.”

And in order for romance to happen – for it to even get started – a man has to feel like a man.

What does that look like? For a man to FEEL like a man? He needs to feel appreciated (but in a different way than YOU do. You need appreciation for your warmth and juicyiness, and sexiness, and loveliness – and He needs to be appreciated for his brain power, his manliness, and for what he can PROVIDE – even if it’s simply frozen yogurt or a walk in the park.)

Sound old-fashioned? Sound like the old Cinderella thing? Well – it is. Except for some tweaks that we all have to work with and get used to and make work for us…romance still lies in the emotional, subconscious, cells-of-our-bodies places that “modernity” has never, and will never touch.

Love and romance are feelings – and they have nothing whatever to do with opinions.

Being beautiful and smart and rich and loving and nurturing and fun will get you NOWHERE with a man if he’s not “feeling” it for you.

(Whereas we women can quite turn a handsome, smart, rich, loving, nurturing, fun man into an object of desire – and well we SHOULD – a man doesn’t work quite that way. He’s either “into you” or he’s not – and he won’t even be able to explain the reasons why or why not. Romance is won or lost in the realm of emotions – and the way to win at love is to find your feelings and learn to share them with every man who shows up.

Romance is inspired by feminine energy – yours. Here’s how to get into your feminine energy and inspire romance…without paying for it, and without breaking his bank account, either:

1. Romance and love and dating have absolutely NOTHING to do with WHAT you do or WHERE you go. It has nothing to do with the date being in a romantic setting, or at a romantic time, or even if the date is “nice” or “pleasant” or even “great”!

What we women consider “great” may not ring any chimes with HIM.

So – don’t care about what you DO on a date. Spending money on a nice dinner to score points on a date is a bad investment for a man – and it’s possibly the LEAST romantic thing you can do.

I’ll tell you what’s romantic – going to the zoo or animal welfare shelter if you’re into animals. Going for a walk or a hike if you’re into nature. Sitting in a coffee shop in a strip mall in a suburb you’ve never been to and talking about the people who walk by as characters in a movie – making up their lives. hanging out in a big bookstore or library and looking at things together and separately. Walking around stores or art galleries or the beach.

Romantic has absolutely nothing to do with money.

So – first – get that into your head, and come up with a LIST of things you think might be fun for a SHORT – let’s say under an hour get-to-know-you first date, and for LONG dates – entire evenings – without including tickets to the theater or even ridicualously expensive movies on a Saturday night.

Okay – that’s you, being creative. Now let’s talk about how to share this with HIM.

2. First – let me explain masculine and feminine energy (let’s this “boy” and “girl” energy), and how it works on a date:

You’re in “boy energy” when you’re THINKING about anything, DOING anything, GIVING anything, making a DECISION about anything, taking the INITIATIVE about anything, FOLLOWING UP or CHASING DOWN or SUGGESTING anything, or anything that looks and feels like what I call “Leaning Forward.”This could look like driving, starting a conversation, calling, texting, emailing…and PAYING.

Girl energy, on the other hand, is all about FEELING anything, RECEIVING anything, RADIATING, SHARING – and just BEING.

When you are in boy energy – you get stuff done. You are smart and clever. And you do not inspire romance. Respect, maybe. Friendship for sure. Even awe. But not romance.

When you are in girl energy – you ARE romance! That’s it. A man is desperately lonely. No matter what you think, or what he says, or what his history looks like – the man in front of you is LONELY.

He’s lonely because he cannot FEEL romance on his own. He needs a woman to feel that with. And he can’t supply the necessary feelings for it. He needs YOU to supply the emotions that cook up romance. He needs YOU to make him feel OKAY with his feelings by feeling your OWN feelings.

And the moment you pay for anything – you’ve just turned into a guy.

3. So what do you say when the talk about money comes up? Try this:

“I’m feeling old-fashioned these days. I don’t care what we do – I don’t need fancy or expensive, but I don’t feel good paying for stuff around dating. It would feel great to do whatever you think is fun and get to know you. What do you think?”

Okay – notice the words.

Notice how many times I said the word “feel”? That’s the point! SHARING how you feel is what you want to do to help yourself get into your feelings instead of your opinions, which are so much easier. Notice how I said what I “don’t want” instead of trying to lay out what I DO want? Notice how when I said what I want (to do whatever he thinks is fun…) I only said that it would “feel great”?

As subtle as this sounds – it’s actually HUGE.

Giving instructions, directions, and opinions from your thinking brain is a recipe for romantic failure. Don’t do it.

If he asks you what you’d like to do – you have your LIST! Say “I actually wondered about that. I sat down and wrote a list of the things that feel fun, that make me feel good, that don’t cost a lot…would you like to see it?”

Or course he would.

So you can read it to him, or hand it to him out of your purse…and then…you have a GREAAT thing to TALK ABOUT!

Forget about the stories you’ve told every first date. Talk about what’s going on NOW. Right now. “I feel glad you asked me, and It feels good to be asked, and it feels even better to follow you around and find out who you are, too. Ask him “So what’s on YOUR list around town?”

4. If this is a first date – he already knows if he’s smitten with you. And it still might take him a week or two to call you. And if he’s not sure, he may call, or he may not.

No matter what – stay with being a “girl” – stay with the ROMANCE you want, and let him do his job as a man.

Let him call you. Let him ask you out. Let him come up with a plan. And let him pay.

If this is a man you’re dating (and if you’re familiar with my work about a life-plan I call “Circular Dating” you know you ONLY stop dating when you’re ENGAGED) – then you can make a sandwich or popcorn for him occasionally at your place (please no fancy, impressive meals). You can “give back” and still be a girl, as long as it’s small, something YOU enjoy, and infrequent.

Love, Rori

Oh my, so much uproar, so many fabulous ideas, so much sharing, thank you so much and I’m going to start a new subject here…

This is all about taking responsibility for yourself. When to take charge and when to let go. When to fight on and when to give up and give in. When to stand in full brain power like a boy, and when to sink down into your feelings like a girl.

How to solve problems by figuring them out and how to dissolve problems by rising above them.

Basic starting point for this:

1. Where you are now is where you are now. You actually are “here.”

This means, if a man is not doing the job, if something is going wrong, if no man has shown up, do you want to take responsibility for this happening? Or, do you simply want to take responsibility for being here now?

Sometimes, I have to take responsibility for why things happen. Like right now I’m going through some stuff you all may have dealt with — physical stuff like aches and pains and a bad back… and yeah, some of it is my genetics, some of it is the environment, some of it is just time, and yet — some of it is how much I knew and know and what I did about all that. Some of it is about — was I pro-active enough about taking good care of myself, and some of it is — was I so busy trying to do stuff that instead of really being in my body I allowed tension and stress to build up and it harmed myself?

And all of it is about what can I accept now, what can I do now, how much can I allow myself to feel now, and how can I just be without blaming myself in any way shape or form.

It’s about how do I take responsibility without placing blame.

Same with my man. Same with your man. Same with any man.

A lot’s been said here about being in a situation with a man that doesn’t feel good and trying to figure that out.

Trying to figure out what his stuff, and what’s your stuff.

And trying to figure out, bottom line, why you are here now.

But I like this better today: Instead of asking “Why” – I say to myself — “I am here now.”

So let’s say you have a conversation with a man — maybe a really good conversation, about things you’re concerned about, you negotiate, and you work something out. And then — he drops the ball.

He just sort of — forgets.

And during this period where he is forgetting what he already said he would do, you’re building up resentment.

Not only are you building up resentment, you’re building up an insecure feeling of rejection. Because the truth is — what it looks like is that he doesn’t feel MOTIVATED to do what you clearly shared with him would make you happy.

So here you are. You’ve expressed yourself to him. You have a good, perhaps intimate, conversation. You’ve reached some agreement. And now — nothing.

In the old days, this is where we start nagging.

This is where we start trying to solve the problem. This is where we start trying to open the conversation again, and revisit the situation, and make some new agreements, and fix the darn thing!

Well, as we all know, that usually doesn’t go so well. People don’t do stuff for lots of reasons. We don’t do stuff because we don’t want to. Because we’re busy. Because, even though we know we’re supposed to, or we said we would, or we know it would make someone else we really care about happy, it sits somewhere lower on our priority scale than survival. And sometimes a lot of us are in survival mode. That’s what stress is — being in survival mode. And sometimes we’ve triggered ourselves — or he’s feeling triggered — with guilt and shame, and feel paralyzed. We’re pretending, on some deep level, that this isn’t happening. Not really.

So let’s try to put this into some steps:

1. Say to yourself, out loud if you can, “I am here now.”

2. Now say “I have stuff and he has stuff.” And then…

3. Say, “Instead of trying to figure him out, I’m going to find my stuff.” Now…

4. Say, “I know that my stuff affects his stuff and his stuff affects my stuff.” Now…

5. Say, “…and it’s not important for me to figure this out.”

6. Say, “It’s only important for me to find and express my stuff. Because his stuff is none of my business.” And…

7. “Without trying to understand why I feel something, I just feel this…” Simply feel around your body to find what you’re feeling and to put the simplest words possible to those feelings so that you can say them out loud.

I can pretty much guarantee you that once you do this, and only this, and stay away from trying to analyze your situation or make a judgment about it — he will finally feel safe enough to say exactly what it is that’s been bothering him, too.

And here’s where we can fall into the trap again. We can fall into trying to have a “discussion” about all this. And nothing could be worse.

What you want to do is to keep it going like this. You say, “I feel scared, or rejected, or bad, or uncomfortable, and I need to feel… (fill in the blank here)…”

And keep this in mind — frustration and anger are genuine feelings real feelings that — even though you want to express them and share them — are not the bottom line feelings you have.

You feel angry because you are not getting what you want. It’s the old kid in a candy store being told to get-your-hands-off-the-glass.

You feel angry because here you are putting in effort and not getting back what you’ve put in. You’re feeling angry and hurt because you think you’ve made some kind of “deal” here, and it’s not going your way.

You feel angry because YOU ARE HERE NOW.

So let’s move on from trying to figure out who is right and who is wrong and what is right and what is wrong and what is appropriate. Let’s just start from the place on your life marked “Here.”

Let’s take another step. I look forward to hearing your steps as I take my own.

Let’s move UPWARD from the “problem.”

Let’s get a bigger view. Let’s find our stuff, discover how our stuff feels, get into our stuff, own our stuff, take responsibility for our stuff, making no judgments about our stuff, rise above blame for our stuff, and stay away from his stuff. If he’s dropped the ball, and you let that go on for a very long time, just start with #1 in these steps.

Say “I am here now.”

You have options. You can say Yes, and you can say No, and you can even say Maybe…and then you will be at #1 again. You will be “there” – only it will still be “Here.”

Let’s go on from here to the next here…which might just feel different…

Love, Rori

I wrote Jason, a man who’s been posting here, and got this interesting reply:

“Rori,

Great to get your encouraging email. I am still here. I love your comments, provocative posts, and overall attitude.

If you want a ripe topic — and maybe you’ve already touched on this – I’d like to know your thoughts on equality and entitlement and how it fits in with your teaching. Basically I find chivalry to be the opposite of civility, and gender based entitlement to be the opposite of equality. I know personally, in a long term mate, I would want someone I could respect as an equal, as a peer. With no expectations of deferential treatment.

You can read more on my attitude here.

http://gonesavage.blogspot.com/2009/06/4-pillars-of-love_21.html

I also wrote about my visit to Siren Island. It is mostly in jest, as I am sure you will recognize. Mainly, I just wanted to collect the ideas that I had expressed passionately on your thread, to see if I still feel the same way months or years from now.

http://gonesavage.blogspot.com/2009/06/siren-island-nice-place-to-visit-but.html

Jason”

Here’s what I wrote back:

Jason – I need to read more on this to understand the full extent of how this works for you – but, basically – I think you’re missing an essential truth.

Science is all over the place now – (have you read “evolutional psychology”?) – but I say that men and women are wired differently, and then, cross-section-wise, men and women are individually wired differently into categories (personality tests/enneagram/astrology/matchmatrix/energy patterns…).

Some women are more logical than some men.

But, your whole “seduction” thing relies on psychology – our basic feelings of lack of self-worth and trauma-based patterns.

What I’m talking about is energy and emotion and core needs.

Women can give birth.

It’s just a whole different thing than what you men experience.

You cannot base a relationship with a woman on your version of “equality” – and you can’t align “entitlement” with “needs.”

A man, if he wants a woman with abilities to go down deep into her emotions, be raw with him – has to provide a framework for that to happen.  He has to have certain things in place.  A man has to FACILITATE.  (I spoke about this at a David DeAngelo program.)

These days, many women are out-earning men, and it throws everything off balance and automatically creates inequality.  Then, a man has to step up his masculinity in OTHER areas to compensate and keep balance.

What YOU mean by equality is open to discussion – but if you don’t understand the EMOTIONAL, IRRATIONAL component of this – the MYSTERY if you will, your trying for “equality” will backfire in your face.

You are trying to square “concept” with “mystery.”  Love doesn’t work that way.

Love is inspired.

Sex doesn’t work that way for a person who is inspired to sex through emotion rather than through the physical.

If you are physical-based, you can’t understand a person who is emotion-based.

Re: your “Pillars” – Asking a man to “provide” is often the only way a woman can bring out the masculinity in a man.

You’ve already figured out how to do that in other ways, but….

Money is the biggest breaker of relationships, and the biggest obstacle to love.

These days, no one gets away with being less than financially wise – and men get it and have it worse.

It’s about attraction. It’s about fear. About trust. About compromise, negotiation, tweaking, demonstrating and doing what’s necessary to win a girl, even when some elements don’t seem fair.

Usually, what we say we don’t like is affecting our attraction. Emotion always trumps logic – and equality, too.

Just something to think about…Rori

***Okay – I love having a man’s point of view, and I got permission from Jason to talk about this…

To have boundaries is to know what feels safe and good to you, and what doesn’t.  Often, we go with what we know.  Often, we go with what everyone else thinks we should go with.

Where do you stand on financial stability?  Is it a non-negotiable on your list, or would you be happy with a fabulous man like Jason (and he IS fabulous – go look at his picture on the links and read what he writes) who is more spiritual/emotional/contribution-based than money-based?  What’s important to YOU?

I encourage many women to throw out their idea of “success” in a man…and to find out what’s really important and necessary.  How do you feel about all this?

Love, Rori