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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
John Gray
Ultimately, taking the time to really get
to know someone is the secret of success.
To sustain attraction in stage one, we must express our best and most positive self.
When a woman dwells on negative feelings or problems in her life, instead of valuing her willingness to share openly, a man mistakenly assumes that she is difficult to please. Just as a woman is attracted to a man who shows interest in her, a man is attracted to a woman who clearly can be pleased.
Putting her best foot forward means sharing her most positive side, her up side, and her autonomous side. Later on she can share the other part. It is just a matter of timing.
Too much intimacy, too quickly, can cause women to become needy and men to pull away.
To put her best foot forward, a woman makes the mistake of treating a man the way she would want to be treated. She eagerly responds to his attentiveness by being overly interested in him. She responds to his consideration by being overly considerate of him; when he is of assistance to her she immediately wants to return the favor instead of just smiling and saying thank you. A woman doesn’t instinctively understand that after being receptive to a man’s advances and appreciating his efforts, she doesn’t owe him anything.
The anticipation of more is very important to keep him interested. If he feels completely
satisfied, then there is no distance for him to continue traveling to pursue her. Distance not only makes the heart grow fonder but gives a man the opportunity to pursue. Without movement and the opportunity for more, a man can easily lose the interest necessary to move through all five stages of dating.
When women do not understand men, they easily make the mistake of diffusing the attraction by continuing to give back, instead of increasing the attraction by continuing to receive.
The whole point of the dating ritual is for the man to do little things to show his interest and caring and for the woman to receive him and take some time to discover how interested she is.
The more a man’s life is in order, the more he hungers for a woman to share it with. Although he may feel very autonomous and independent, he begins to feel empty.
When a woman falls in love, she may feel as if she is already getting everything she could ever want. She feels so satisfied by his presence that she begins to think, He is so wonderful. What can I do to be worthy of him? How can I earn this love? What should I do for him? How can I make sure he likes me? How can I be most attractive to him? These kinds of thoughts then lead to action. As she proceeds to pursue him, he becomes less interested in her.
Even if he has the potential to be the man of her dreams, he is not yet. She needs to remember that they are in stage one. He is not even exclusive with her (stage three), nor does she really know him
A man bonds with a woman through being successful in providing for her happiness, comfort, and fulfillment. His doubts are dispelled not primarily by what she does for him, but by how she
responds to what he does for her.
Quite often, she senses the man pulling away. To find reassurance, she makes one of two common mistakes. Either she starts asking questions about the relationship, or she may try to win him over. Both of
these approaches can push him away or prevent him from feeling confident that he is the right guy for her.
Unfortunately, all of these questions lure her in the wrong direction; she begins to pursue him. When a man stops pursuing, a woman’s task is to resist the enormous urge to find out what has happened or to do something about it.
For a woman, the stage of uncertainty should be a time to reflect on what she is getting from the man, not on what she could get. This is a time for the woman to stay open to his future advances, but more
important, it is a time to fill up her life with the support of friends. This is a time to test whether he is really the right p...
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By giving the man the space to pull away and then once again become more interested, a woman also gets to know if this man is the one with whom she would like to have an exclusive relationship. If she can fill up her life with the support of friends and family and she still misses him, it is a good sign.
If, in the uncertainty stage, a man does not call for a while, it is a good idea for the woman to give him a call but not to pursue him or tell him how she feels about being ignored. Instead she can casually let him know that all is well. She can call just to say hi, to thank him for something, or to ask a question that he has some expertise about. It is just a short, friendly sounding call, so he clearly gets the message that she is not harboring any resentment because he didn’t call.
