Dating For Women - Right & Wrong Attention and the Attraction Gradient

Alrighty then! Now one of the things that I've endeavored to do is to make it principle-based as opposed to situation-based. 

Why? Because there are squillions of situations, but only a few key principles. The principles come from either science or ancient wisdom, and are fairly timeless and cross-cultural (although somewhat more applicable to Western-style dating than other styles of courtship).

So let's go back to the passage that evoked this response and expand on that:

"There's also a side point I'd like to make here. Amelia almost didn't call the man after the dinner. In fact, in the letter she says she called him because her friends told her to.

Hmmm. Imagine how *you* would feel if a man did not call you to say thanks the day after you cooked dinner for him. Even a day's delay would make you wonder.

There's a spiritual principle at work here that says that you get more of whatever you focus on and give your energy to. So if you want men to make more home-cooked meals for you, thank them profusely for that. If you want them to call you early and often, call them early and often. Energy flows where attention goes."

Now the principle of 'energy flows where attention goes' has been stated in hundreds of ways throughout the ages. One of them is the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." 

Basically, treat people the way you want to be treated (or even better, the Platinum Rule, which I heard recently: "Treat people the way THEY like to be treated.")

If you want to be loved, offer love. If you want to be respected, offer respect. And if you want to be called, call when social obligation requires you -- to say thanks, or to return a call. This is not the same as saying 'inundate the object of your affection with attention from the very first second', which the figure of speech 'call early and often' could be interpreted as.

There is a middle path between coquetry ("I'm going to play hard to get and I'm going to play it well") and stalking someone with nineteen emails and calls a day, and that is the path of the Tao.

What feels right to you? TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS. 

Why? I can think of two reasons right now. 

First, because you are Woman, the creature with the most finely developed intuition in the entire universe. It's true. Evolution has equipped you with incredibly sensitive tools for detecting emotions, states of mind, and the totality of a circumstance, to sum the whole thing up and give you an answer which is often very accurate.

How accurate? Well, it's kept the human race in business for over 3 million years, and that's purty darn good. It works. Trust it. Use it.

The second principle is this: others can only love us for what we are, not what we are not. Think about that for a second.

So we can go around putting on personas, masks and misrepresentations of themselves so the world can love us. But in the end, others can only love us meaningfully for what we are, not for the misrepresentation. 

This is why I believe that costly cosmetic modifications are such a misdirected use of time and energy. It's like changing the wrapping paper on a gift -- it looks prettier for the few seconds before the gift is opened, but the contents aren't bound to change that much.

But I digress. The point is this: if you like guys to call you back, call THEM back. Respect begets respect. Treat people the way you want to be treated. This is particularly true when you are already in a relationship with a guy. During the courtship phase, things are a little trickier. 

For example -- yes, if you are overeager about a guy and call him more than he calls you, you run the risk of killing the attraction. 

Which brings us to the second topic of this article: the Attraction Gradient. 

Natural law holds that water flows from a higher place to a lower place. Electricity flows from higher voltage to lower voltage. And, similarly, the energy of attraction flows from a place of higher interest to a place of lower interest.

This means that if you want the flow of attraction to come to you, you need to be ever so slightly less interested in a guy than he is interested in you. 

But wait a sec here. Didn't I tell you just a few paragraphs ago to trust your instincts? And just be yourself, 'cause that's the only version of you that people can truly love?

Yes I did. And here's where the seemingly paradoxical and subtle nature of Taoist wisdom comes in. The point here, you see, is not to misrepresent yourself, but rather to demonstrate a bit of discipline. 

If you're really into a guy and you're all over him like a hot rash before he even gets to know you, you've just tilted the attraction gradient in the wrong direction. This has many consequences, and none of them bode well for your empowerment in this relationship.

So it's important to play a little bit of that game called 'hard to get'. A little bit - not a lot. A lot is too much and will also kill the attraction. Remember the middle path. A little bit means returning phone calls with maybe a little delay. A lot is not to return it at all and expect him to call two or three times in a row.

A little bit means after a good date, giving him a quick kiss on the lips goodnight then running off home, making him wonder. A lot is to give him a chaste, sisterly handshake and thank him for a splendid evening. People tend to give greater value to the things that they have to work for. So give the man the pleasure of working for your affection. And make sure that you REWARD his progress in degrees. 

Playing too hard to get means that you're forgetting the reward process. And therefore his efforts - the very behavior that you want - is not getting reinforced.  

Which brings us to the third topic of this article:

"Energy flows where attention goes. Except when it comes to men.  When a woman puts her attention into her own life, the man's energy flows into her life.  But if she puts her attention to a man, the man goes.

My eyes about popped out when I read this, because it contradicts not only everything else out there on the subject, but even much of your own material, common sense, history, and our experience.  Not trying to be harsh, I'm just expressing my surprise."

Well, I appreciate the feedback here. However, given the choice of going with universal law and your statement here, I'm going to have to go with the law of gravity, the law of electricity, and energy flowing where attention goes. What I want you to pay attention to is this: if you used a universal law and it didn't work for you, take a close look at the environment and see what went wrong instead of saying the law doesn't work for you.

If I drop an egg from my balcony and it doesn't hit the ground, I'm not going to think that gravity temporarily suspended itself. I *will* look for a net or awning that may have caught the egg.

So if you're giving a man attention, and he goes away, here are some possible explanations for what happened:

Number 1 and most likely: he was the wrong man for you. Not a wrong man. Not a bad man. Just the wrong man *for you*. The right man for you will welcome the right kind of attention.

Bringing us to Number 2: it was the wrong kind of attention. One of my shortest, least fulfilling relationships was with a woman who gave me unsolicited constructive criticism from the moment she saw me, without any counterbalancing praise or appreciation.

Professor John Gottman of the University of Washington in Seattle has studied thousands of couples and found that unbalanced negative statements like that are the most accurate predictors of a relationship's demise. For a relationship to progress and grow, you need to have AT LEAST a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative statements. 

Some other kinds of attention which, anecdotally and through my own personal experience, will repel a man more than they attract him:

 -- 'Mothering' attention: worrying about him too much, fixing this and that, overwhelming solicitude.

-- Jealous attention: questioning his choices about whom he spends time with, questioning his affection level for you.

There really is only one bad kind of attention towards a man -- the kind that *restricts his freedom*. The deep masculine yearns to be utterly free and empty, and of the dozens of men who have worked with me, all of them stated 'freedom' as their highest value. 

The man will consider anything encroaching upon that freedom an emasculatory threat. Anything nurturing that freedom so it reaches its higher purpose he will embrace wholeheartedly. 

To summarize: the right man will welcome the right kind of attention from the right woman. 

We've already covered a lot of ground, so I'll stop here. In future articles, I'll talk about the principles behind the deep masculine and deep feminine and how they interact in the context of career and relationship.