Battle is won or lost before the first blow is struck

Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 1:59 AM

Subject: Question

Hallo Dr. Alex

Such good material. Sorry that I just joined you. If I knew, I could have joind you long ago. But for now Dr, a simple question here:

There is this girl in town I have been looking at for quite some time now (it's a girl, not a woman, 20 years of age or so). She looks beautiful to me in all departments e.g. behaviours, physically, mentally... yup, so to say. The problem is, this is not my home town, I only came down here for work. So, not so many people know me yet. I mean, this girl does not know me, her friends do not know me and I don't know them. I only noticed this girl and so, I started looking at her. I have not made her know that I'm interested in her. And I don't think she took notice of me because I never presented myself upon her yet.

Now, I would like to make a move for this girl. She looks mature and there for taking. Could you please advice me on how to make a move for this girl?? Your opinion and wise words would be appreciated Dr.

Avril

Avril--

Thanks for writing in. Sun Tzu says in "The Art of War" that the battle is won or lost before the first blow is struck. Seems to me that without really having spoken to this woman, you have already built her up far too much. So this battle is already lost -- if you go into it with the mindset that she's so great (do you really know that?) and somehow you must have her because she's cute and 'there for the taking.' I would recommend going out with a few other women or just speaking to this one with the aim of finding out who she is (vs impressing her, or trying to pull off some trick to 'get' her). Once you want her less and know here more, you'll be in a much better position.

All the best,

Dr Alex

Grasping opportunities and the power of alone time

Dear Dr. Alex,

I had an interesting day yesterday. In preparing to summit Mt. Rainier in September, I had planned a rigorous hike. I realized at the last minute, though, that I needed to get a new annual northwest forest permit in order to park at the intended trail head, so I made a small detour to REI to purchase the permit. While there, I noticed an attractive woman in line (a different queue than the one I was in). After picking up my permit, I got some needed information regarding GPS units, and then headed for the door. The timing was such that the woman I mentioned above got there first, and held the door for me. Other than saying, “thank you”, though, I couldn’t think of a conversation starter. While I have come up with one or two since then, this particular potential opportunity vanished as we went our separate ways. Of course, I haven’t a clue as to whether she was single or not, or attached, etc., but at this point I’ll never know.

What would you have done?

The hike was everything that I had expected and, with considerable snow on most of the trail, a bit more. Still, I needed this solitary hike for several reasons, and was glad to have pushed through. Yesterday evening, at home following the trek, I read “Be, Part II: Attitudes” in “The Tao of Dating”, and the final section, “Your own rite of passage” struck me, especially the sentence, “No phone, no email – just commune with yourself.” That pretty much described my day.

While I will likely have company for many of the hikes that I will use for conditioning for Mt. Rainier, I also envision more solitary climbs as well, and will treat all of them as rites of passage.

I look forward to hearing from you.

-Dean-

Thanks for sharing that, Dean, and I'm glad that you wrote in. Fortuitously, I was just taking a break from writing the new Mindtrack, the Meeting Maximizer, so I was thinking about such things.

The answer to your question is that no one grasps 100% of the opportunities that present themselves, so no sense beating ourselves up over it. In the meantime, you did the right thing by going home and thinking about how you'd handle the situation differently in the future. My recommendation in these situations is to say anything -- it almost doesn't matter what. If she's at all interested, she'll pick up the ball and run with it; and even if she doesn't, you've just initiated the interaction and bought some time. Women, if even remotely interested, are much more accommodating and forgiving of our attempts at wit than we tend to give them credit for. Give them a chance to express their interest by opening the repartee at the very least -- she'll thank you for it.

In the end, it's about training. If you have a few stock responses ready for situations like this, then they'll come out even if you can't think of anything clever to say (e.g. if a woman holds a door open, say "How very gentlemanly of you" or something like that). You don't need a thousand of them -- just two or three passably good ones should suffice. In the meantime, instead of mourning the lost opportunity ("oh no, she's gone") and affirming scarcity, express gratitude that someone like her waltzed into your life, albeit briefly, brightening your day, and there will be many more like her to to come (i.e. abundance).

All the best,

Dr Alex

Dating a divorced woman

Ok...the problem is that this girl was married and has a son. I don't know how long ago her marriage ended, but it seems that she's trying to build up her love life again. She is very nice and I feel I'm doing all the right things. I'm laid back, I'm leading, teasing her, being warm but not complying... and I feel I'm building up solid attraction. But for some reason my instinct senses the presence of her husband...we haven't had sex yet although we've slept in the same bed (we've been dating a month so far). I feel that she needs to feel safe around me and also that she feels a strong moral responsibility towards hed son. And I understand... But being understanding can lead towards being too nice...and this is is not the way...she's a woman and even though it's reductionistic to generalize, I feel that I must trust my knowledge about female psychology and behaviour. What do you suggest my approach should be at this stage? Thank you in advance F.

Hmm. Very interesting.
I'm not privy to the entire story here, but in my opinion, if a woman sleeps with you in the same bed more than once and no sexual activity happens, something is not quite right, and you may not necessarily want to find out why. There are special cases, of course, but the sexual response is one of our most powerful, biologically-determined instincts, and for someone to suppress it that long must mean that either a) she's not that into you or b) there are some iceberg-sized trust issues that you (or anyone else) don't want to mess with. Either way, it means "run". If I were in your position, I would ask myself, "Am I getting what I want out of this, or am I just being strung along?" It's all about fulfillment, my friend, so if a month-long case of testicular venous congestion is your idea of fun, by all means, go ahead. If it were me, I would not let her have any more sleepovers until she makes it perfectly clear what she wants and where she stands.
I also want you to look back on the times when you really did have solid attraction with a woman. Do you remember how she couldn't take her eyes off you, had her hands all over you and generally just wanted to be around you and physically interact with you? Did you have to think about whether you had attraction, or did you know beyond a shadow of a doubt? Sometimes we have the answers but we forget to trust ourselves. Compare this picture to other ones from the past, and you'll know where you stand.

All the best,
Dr Alex