How To Choose The Right Woman To Build A Relationship With
Posted: Friday, October 07, 2011
by Scot McKay - Dating Coach
X & Y Communications
Earlier today I was on a coaching call with a truly great guy from Australia.
Seriously, he’s all about being a high quality man who treats a great woman right…and that’s a good thing. That’s because when you treat women right you can EXPECT that a good one will treat you right in return.
After all, women respond to a man’s lead, right?
Well…there’s that AND the common, natural fact that high quality people tend to perform in a high quality way toward one another in general.
So the reason why our Aussie friend was on the phone with me is because he had gone on a few dates with a woman, only to have her “drop the bomb” on the fourth date that she wasn’t interested in seeing him anymore.
Having driven in from the ‘burbs to hang out with her in Sydney, he JUST KNEW instinctively that something was wrong. She was playing everything off as if it were cool, but everything WASN’T.
Finally, she just came out with it: “I really like you, but I can’t see you anymore.”
And that was it. She left.
Perplexed, our hero made what he perceived to be “The Walk Of Shame” back to his car and drove home.
About 24 hours later, what do you know? He got a long, drawn-out e-mail from her.
Long story short, she had recently gotten back with her ex-boyfriend. She had our hero drive out to the city to see her just to “confirm her feelings”, but instead she only got “confused”…which is why things got so weird on their “date”.
So hey…she’s really, really sorry. Etcetera.
Now our friend from Down Under had sent me the e-mail she wrote ahead of our coaching call together. So I knew the whole story before we even talked.
Can you guess what the first question he asked was when we got on the phone?
If you guessed, “What did I do wrong?” give yourself a gold star.
Not at all surprised by his question, I answered him as follows.
”If you mean on the date with her, then rest assured you did NOTHING wrong…at least as far as I can see.
But if you mean ‘in general’, then I’ve got a completely different answer for you.
YES…you messed up in two key ways.
First, you PUT UP with being treated poorly by her and blamed it on yourself.”
To elaborate on that first point, I recounted the sad story in my own distant past about how a little gal from Pittsburgh I met at the beach over the summer had invited me to see her sometime after college started up again.
So I had bought the short-hop plane ticket and penciled in the third weekend in October.
During our phone calls leading up to the “big weekend” she talked of how excited she was to see me.
When I got there, however, she was as cold as a stone.
After a few hours of sitting through this, I threw the obvious question on the table. The resulting conversation went sort of like this:
Her: “Uh…well, my boyfriend and I got back together a couple of weeks ago. But you had already bought your plane ticket and I felt guilty.”
Me: “What?! You’ve got a BOYFRIEND?”
Her: “Yes. Yes I do. And I told him all about how you’re visiting me this weekend and how I should probably still see you. And he told me [read: ‘had no choice but to tell me’] he is completely okay with that because he ‘trusts me’.”
Me: “You mean, he KNOWS I’m here with you right now?
Her: “Um…yes. And that makes me [sob] love him even more.”
From there it was a very awkward weekend. I couldn’t afford to change my flights OR get a hotel.
Fast-forward back to the present. After I told my friend on the phone that story, I asked him point-blank, “OK, so what did I do wrong?”
He quickly responded, as if the answer were obvious. “I think I totally get your point. That was ALL HER problem, mate.”
Indeed.
Yet for a brief while there on that cool autumn night in Pittsburgh, I felt sort of jealous of her boyfriend.
But that was only until I realized that HE was probably even MORE perturbed, frustrated and at the same time perplexed by this chick than I was.
Plainly stated, she had left TWO guys hanging out to dry.
Whether that was because of indecision or sheer lack of guts doesn’t matter.
Sure, she could have told us both what was up and that she didn’t want to be exclusive with either one of us just yet.
Or she could have drawn a line in the sand and delivered the “hard truth” to the one she was no longer interested in seeing.
But instead of drawing a line in the sand, she had stuck her head in it.
The result? She put TWO different human beings in a position she herself would NEVER want to be in.
Ironically, not only would her boyfriend have preferred that I stay the heck in Philadelphia, I WOULD have greatly preferred to stay the heck there also…had I only known the truth.
And don’t kid yourself. BOTH her boyfriend AND I should have been pleased to part ways with her, regardless of whose choice it was…HERS OR OURS.
Read that last paragraph again. It’s important.
Meanwhile, had my Australian friend run what I call “The Golden Rule, Reversed” (or “TGR-R”) he would have been able to see what all was going on in his case as clear as day.
That is to say, if he would have realized that if someone tries to put us in a position that we NEVER, EVER in a million years would subject someone else to, then we SHOULDN’T PUT UP WITH IT either.
BUT NOW, both my Australian friend AND I could see my situation as it unfolded back in Pittsburgh for what it was.
And better yet, my friend could now see HIS situation for what it was as well.
Here it is, gentlemen, once again: Don’t believe the “hype”.
Problems between men and women aren’t ALWAYS the guy’s fault…despite what you see on TV commercials.
But wait a second. Didn’t I say before that there were TWO mistakes that our Aussie hero made overall?
Right on.
So what was the second one?
He didn’t CHOOSE wisely when it comes to women.
OK, so maybe the truth behind this whole brouhaha didn’t come out up front.
Fair enough.
And maybe neither that gal in Australia nor my female friend from Pittsburgh INTENDED to behave badly.
You could say they just didn’t think things through, were insensitive, were immature…whatever.
Also fair enough.
But looking at the big picture, when exactly stuff “hits the fan” or what the “intentions” are don’t really matter.
If we start rationalizing stuff a woman does that makes us feel less excited about her—or worse, we INTERNALIZE it as if it must somehow be OUR FAULT—that’s when our unfortunate fate is sealed.
You see, you can “weed out” the obvious ones pretty easily. But what about all these crazy and sometimes hidden nuances that really can spell out whether a woman is right for you (or any other high quality man) or not?
How do you know when you should “pull the plug” on someone…or feel like you’ve dodged the proverbial bullet if she “pulls the plug” on you?
It all comes down to this: Will a relationship with a particular woman bring you JOY or PAIN?
That’s a complex question to ask, for sure. But it’s one we need to be FULLY HONEST with ourselves when answering…regardless of how “hot” she is, or EVEN how “nice” she is.
Seriously, he’s all about being a high quality man who treats a great woman right…and that’s a good thing. That’s because when you treat women right you can EXPECT that a good one will treat you right in return.
After all, women respond to a man’s lead, right?
So the reason why our Aussie friend was on the phone with me is because he had gone on a few dates with a woman, only to have her “drop the bomb” on the fourth date that she wasn’t interested in seeing him anymore.
Having driven in from the ‘burbs to hang out with her in Sydney, he JUST KNEW instinctively that something was wrong. She was playing everything off as if it were cool, but everything WASN’T.
Finally, she just came out with it: “I really like you, but I can’t see you anymore.”
And that was it. She left.
Perplexed, our hero made what he perceived to be “The Walk Of Shame” back to his car and drove home.
About 24 hours later, what do you know? He got a long, drawn-out e-mail from her.
Long story short, she had recently gotten back with her ex-boyfriend. She had our hero drive out to the city to see her just to “confirm her feelings”, but instead she only got “confused”…which is why things got so weird on their “date”.
So hey…she’s really, really sorry. Etcetera.
Now our friend from Down Under had sent me the e-mail she wrote ahead of our coaching call together. So I knew the whole story before we even talked.
Can you guess what the first question he asked was when we got on the phone?
If you guessed, “What did I do wrong?” give yourself a gold star.
Not at all surprised by his question, I answered him as follows.
”If you mean on the date with her, then rest assured you did NOTHING wrong…at least as far as I can see.
But if you mean ‘in general’, then I’ve got a completely different answer for you.
YES…you messed up in two key ways.
First, you PUT UP with being treated poorly by her and blamed it on yourself.”
To elaborate on that first point, I recounted the sad story in my own distant past about how a little gal from Pittsburgh I met at the beach over the summer had invited me to see her sometime after college started up again.
So I had bought the short-hop plane ticket and penciled in the third weekend in October.
During our phone calls leading up to the “big weekend” she talked of how excited she was to see me.
When I got there, however, she was as cold as a stone.
After a few hours of sitting through this, I threw the obvious question on the table. The resulting conversation went sort of like this:
Her: “Uh…well, my boyfriend and I got back together a couple of weeks ago. But you had already bought your plane ticket and I felt guilty.”
Me: “What?! You’ve got a BOYFRIEND?”
Her: “Yes. Yes I do. And I told him all about how you’re visiting me this weekend and how I should probably still see you. And he told me [read: ‘had no choice but to tell me’] he is completely okay with that because he ‘trusts me’.”
Me: “You mean, he KNOWS I’m here with you right now?
Her: “Um…yes. And that makes me [sob] love him even more.”
From there it was a very awkward weekend. I couldn’t afford to change my flights OR get a hotel.
Fast-forward back to the present. After I told my friend on the phone that story, I asked him point-blank, “OK, so what did I do wrong?”
He quickly responded, as if the answer were obvious. “I think I totally get your point. That was ALL HER problem, mate.”
Indeed.
Yet for a brief while there on that cool autumn night in Pittsburgh, I felt sort of jealous of her boyfriend.
But that was only until I realized that HE was probably even MORE perturbed, frustrated and at the same time perplexed by this chick than I was.
Plainly stated, she had left TWO guys hanging out to dry.
Whether that was because of indecision or sheer lack of guts doesn’t matter.
Sure, she could have told us both what was up and that she didn’t want to be exclusive with either one of us just yet.
Or she could have drawn a line in the sand and delivered the “hard truth” to the one she was no longer interested in seeing.
But instead of drawing a line in the sand, she had stuck her head in it.
The result? She put TWO different human beings in a position she herself would NEVER want to be in.
Ironically, not only would her boyfriend have preferred that I stay the heck in Philadelphia, I WOULD have greatly preferred to stay the heck there also…had I only known the truth.
And don’t kid yourself. BOTH her boyfriend AND I should have been pleased to part ways with her, regardless of whose choice it was…HERS OR OURS.
Read that last paragraph again. It’s important.
Meanwhile, had my Australian friend run what I call “The Golden Rule, Reversed” (or “TGR-R”) he would have been able to see what all was going on in his case as clear as day.
That is to say, if he would have realized that if someone tries to put us in a position that we NEVER, EVER in a million years would subject someone else to, then we SHOULDN’T PUT UP WITH IT either.
BUT NOW, both my Australian friend AND I could see my situation as it unfolded back in Pittsburgh for what it was.
And better yet, my friend could now see HIS situation for what it was as well.
Here it is, gentlemen, once again: Don’t believe the “hype”.
Problems between men and women aren’t ALWAYS the guy’s fault…despite what you see on TV commercials.
But wait a second. Didn’t I say before that there were TWO mistakes that our Aussie hero made overall?
Right on.
So what was the second one?
He didn’t CHOOSE wisely when it comes to women.
OK, so maybe the truth behind this whole brouhaha didn’t come out up front.
Fair enough.
And maybe neither that gal in Australia nor my female friend from Pittsburgh INTENDED to behave badly.
You could say they just didn’t think things through, were insensitive, were immature…whatever.
Also fair enough.
But looking at the big picture, when exactly stuff “hits the fan” or what the “intentions” are don’t really matter.
If we start rationalizing stuff a woman does that makes us feel less excited about her—or worse, we INTERNALIZE it as if it must somehow be OUR FAULT—that’s when our unfortunate fate is sealed.
You see, you can “weed out” the obvious ones pretty easily. But what about all these crazy and sometimes hidden nuances that really can spell out whether a woman is right for you (or any other high quality man) or not?
How do you know when you should “pull the plug” on someone…or feel like you’ve dodged the proverbial bullet if she “pulls the plug” on you?
It all comes down to this: Will a relationship with a particular woman bring you JOY or PAIN?
That’s a complex question to ask, for sure. But it’s one we need to be FULLY HONEST with ourselves when answering…regardless of how “hot” she is, or EVEN how “nice” she is.
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