Should I send something like this?

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But look at it this way: someone who is willing to cheat in a relationship is not someone you should want to date! If she cheats on her boyfriend with you, she obviously will have no moral qualms about cheating on you once you are her boyfriend.
Couldn’t agree more.
 
Any possibility this girl suffers from depression or something like that? She sounds a little undependable and unpredictable. I vote for leaving a voice mail asking her out and asking her to call you back. If no response, then move on big time.
 
Ah well, who cares about her qualms, a night out with a knock out babe is a night out with a knock out babe :cool:
You are not looking for marriage or a serious relationship, you are looking for arm candy. Marriage, sir, may not be for you! Good luck with your game of chess.
 
Any possibility this girl suffers from depression or something like that? She sounds a little undependable and unpredictable.
I don’t want to speculate - nor do I want to rationalize - but I did get that feeling at some point. Can you tell me what gave you that impression?
 
Where are men like this anymore? I will invade any usher’s club or KOC lodge to find them. LOL What a nice/generous story!
 
It looks like some of you folks are in need of professional advice. Today you will have a unique opportunity because I’ll switch my billing off.

Dating is a negotiation process in which prospective parties search for partners to enter into a contract with on terms mutually agreed upon.

Like in any negotiation, two basic strategies and two basic styles are employed. The strategy governs the long-term approach and is in turn governed by an underlying assumption. The value claiming (adversarial) strategy relies on the assumption that negotiation is a zero sum game and one dollar more for you is one dollar less for me. The value creating strategy questions that assumption and relies on a couple of different ones, such as that particular items are differently valued by different parties, which facilitates mutually gainful trading, while collaboration between parties is able to open up new avenues in which no trading needs to take place for value to expand and benefit both parties.

Strategies ought not to be confused with styles. The competitive style assumes a contest of wills and attempts to undermine the other party’s certainty, while inducim him or her to misassess the competitor’s true resistance level. This style employs threats, “you” messages, other coercive and deceptive manoeuvres. In contrast, the cooperative style emphasises mutual respect and validation of the interests of the other party, stressing the need to agree over the need to maximise gain. In the competitive style, information is a jealously guarded asset. In the cooperative one, information helps expand the agenda and promote understanding. Any combination of a strategy and a style can exist. Not all, however, will be effective in any given situation.

The items which are typically sought are primarily the relationship itself, secondarily immaterial goods such as respect, freedom, rights. “Achievers” will typically see this as a win-lose situation. This comes from a focus on wants (positions) rather than on true interests of the parties. Parties will employ either the competitive style or even the cooperative one, but will still keep claiming value. Concessions will take place on some level and the outcome will be getting the relationship in some configuration of respect, freedom or rights, which is not that far a way from a buy-sell negotiation. Users of the competitive style will probably underline their strong points and downplay the other party’s ATNA’s (alternatives to negotiated agreement). Users of the cooperative style will do the same, except more gently, and they will likely do some trading in regard to one’s position in the relationship once it’s established.

That, in turn, turns the parties’ eyes away from one of the core aspects of the deal, something which should be a goal of the negotiation process as well: finding out whether the person is really a compatible, workable partner for the final contract, as well as what the performance is going to be like. This is on the one hand an exploration of the alternatives, on the other hand it creates value by seeking a common ground and looking to satisfy the most basic need of both parties: to find the right partner for the final contract, which this preliminary contract is supposed to show in the course of performance.

If your focus is on “getting” the woman (or man), you ignore that person’s interests and inevitably harm your own. No relationship will work if at least one party’s basic needs go unmet. Suppose she needs someone to talk to about literature and you need someone to take out fishing, but you both never found out because you were both playing hardball and she finally sold herself high, becoming your girlfriend for the price of securing the 51% controlling vote in your decisions. If you had spent some time exchanging information, you would know whether she would go fishing with you or whether you’d be ready to meet her literary expectations. What is more, in the later course, if you were to marry, you would need a close working relationship and in such a case as this one, such a poor deal would be untenable.

Experience may teach you to know a good opportunity from a bad one, but experience gained in playing adversarial games will not directly help you in establishing a good working relationship with another person. Sure, there is always place for some hardballing. For example:

A confident young man enters the room and claims the territory with his sweeping conquerous gaze of a regnant lion. Finally it rests upon a woman. “Do I look like I have hots for lawyers, Counsel?” she asks. “Finally some challenge,” he retorts.

In this example, the woman seems uninterested in the deal because she believes her WATNA (worse alternative to negotiated agreement) is better than the opportunity created by the negotiated deal. Therefore she employs a deflective hardball tactic. On the other hand, the man deflects that in turn in an equally hardball way, casting doubt on the woman’s assessment and undermining the confidence of her position, causing her to reassess her options. Now the woman might be interested in exploring the possibilities that the agreement might bring about.
 
Now consider this example:

“Donc, mademoiselle, on va aller pour un cafe?” he says in his best British accent.
“That was lame,” she rolls her eyes.
“Certainly it was, but it caught your attention. Now that I have it, is it coffee or something stronger?”

This is an obvious adversarial tactic on both sides and it violates every rule of collaborative dispute resolution. On the other hand it works and it keeps up the exchange until such point that various avenues can be examined.

Now, what if she says:

“You dudes are so full of yourselves, you talk all the time and you can’t even speak like normal people!”

After such an utterly unfounded accusation, do we even want to keep talking to her? Of course, we can say, “Oh, your words drive a wooden stick through my heart. Why is it that you won’t even see a remnant of humanity in me?” but what for, if we can look for a more explosively fun relationship?

“Motion to go out!”
“Dismissed!”
“Appealed!”
“Denied!”
“Motion for recusal!”
“Three days for contempt!”
“So I’m a keeper?”

See? Now there is some deep, instinct understanding that we were looking for. Even though we, ah, still used a competitive style, similarly as in the Frenglish example. Well, we are lawyers, not lovers. Now let’s move on and consider another example:

It was one of those evil Monday mornings in a law firm. Or, in fact, any morning since all mornings are evil in law firms. His charm was dwindling like an unwatered plant for indeed was the kitchen a far distance of whole thirty paces away and he had had only or two coffees. Consequently, he said something ultimately rather stupid which didn’t land well, and his memory instantly erased. His superb skills had not abandoned him, however, and so he commented,
“I apologise for the unexceptional quality of my first compliment, but you must understand that pursuant to the norms of the Civil Code, a debtor is obliged to provide items of average quality.”
“Hah, good one,” she uttered his first name, “really.” All the malimpression was gone and his reputation once again reigned supreme.
“So let’s have a coffee?”

In this example, a search for non-intrusive stress relief proved fruitful and allowed the man to prevent a halt in the talks. Attributing all blame to a shared foe known as lack of caffeine provided a thread of unity and a notorious display of conscious skill reaffirmed the relative superiority over the BATNA. The day was saved. Let’s consider another example:
 
A senior attorney was phoning. That always meant trouble. She probably wanted something silly that her superior billing did not admit of her doing on her own. Sigh. Can I pretend I’m not here, he thought. No, I can’t really, I need this job. Blast this.
“Bonjour,” he Frenchified her first name, “are you phoning to invite me for a coffee?” his voice betrayed nothing of what he had been thinking about.
“You make?”
“Of course I do.”
“Hmm…”
“So see you in five minutes?”
“See you.”

Occasionally, this would prevent a silly assignment from contracting at all and it would land squarely on the head of a more theoretically powerful underling. All that it needed was a bit of empathic understanding that handing out silly assignments was a silly assignment on its own and that no woman ever can resist the language of Charles Martel or a coffee that she did not have to make. Every woman needs to be treated like a princess every now and then, even a mighty attorney. A little value-building imagination can take negotiations to a whole new level!

Or in this example:

Stuff wasn’t looking good. Silly jobs were piling. The head honchos were awfully busy. Things weren’t working out. It was certain someone would come up with something that was not nearly as stimulating as it was engaging. It was time to visit the taskmistress.
“Hi,” he diminuted the senior attorney’s first name, “you’re looking charming today.” The heads gathered turned in his direction. It was obvious that they had just been talking about him.
“Your attitude towards your superiors…” - he even got to know what they were talking about.
“I would like to point out that my superiors present have rather cute legs…” the rest of the people nearly died.
“You’re incorrigible.” Heads turned in his direction again, this time expressing awe, amazement and lack of belief that he actually got away again.

In the above example, while the exchange begins with a stylistically adversarial opening, the content in reality created some value. On that value more value could be built and so the seemingly hardball deflection of the incoming adversarial authority argument satisfied an interest that wasn’t initially considered a part of the negotiation. And thus an agreement could be reached, for on the one hand this other interest could be satisifed and on the other hand it became clear that the established regime was not in clear and imminent danger which would need to be addressed.

Now it would be fitting to look at a more proper, stylistically cooperative and strategically value-building approach in order better to see that those create the most gainful solutions in the long run.

She moved into the kitchen. Without company, at that. “Hello,” he used her first name, “it is always nice to see you.” Why not be nice to someone for a change. She smiled back radiantly.
“So how are things with you?” she was quite interested in a conversation, which was surprising in the light of the recent events. They talked for a bit and the conversation carried over to her empty office. She was so atypically cheerful. Whatever was going on. The conversation went through silly subjects, as it clearly the fact of talking was more important than what was talked about. Somehow it crossed into people’s height.
“Small will I always be next to you,” she said.
“Am I hearing, ‘I will always be next to you?’” he thought while chuckling in response. After a while, the topic shifted onto age.
“I am not getting any younger,” she said.
“What is this girl…”
“Speaking of, you aren’t either.”
“…thinking about?”
And they had a pleasant conversation that nothing came out of. But at least it was nice.

The above is a clear example of following a cooperative style and expanding agendas to create additional value instead of cutting the cake or engaging in a win-lose competition. Even though no further negotiations followed for a number of reasons, the way to a mutually rewarding agreement was paved. All it took was a little reaching out and a little of lowering guard.

Similarly:

“Good evening, Doctor. I thought I would call you.”
“Good evening, Counsel. I thought I would find a silent place so I could talk freely.”

While not precluding a strategically value-claiming following, this clear example of the cooperative style and a value-building touch shows how far the negotiation can go with a small mutual purposeful affirmation of the other party.

Sometimes value-building happens in non-obvious ways:

“What is this lecture?” she asked him out of all people. He answered.
“Well, I think I’ve heard it.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to listen to it again if you’re here anyway.”
“Nah, I’d rather be going.”
A minute later:
“I thought I’d stay.”

As you see, a decent argument framed in a friendly way sometimes takes a while to hit home, but ultimately it does. This without the risk of deadlock characteristic of a more adversarial approach or a gain-oriented strategy. What is more, it does not block the way to researching individual interests of the parties. It turned out, after a brief reassessment, that taking negotiation further beat the BATNA. As long as that was the case, the negotiation carried on. There were no hard feelings when the BATNA ultimately proved better after several months.
 
In summary, while a masterful use of the adversarial style provides big turnouts and decidedly executed gain-maximising strategies allow you to reach whatever momentary goals you set, they do little for the interests of either party in the long run. In contrast, cooperative style sets a better foundation for a continued negotiation and a value-creating strategy, if unspectacular, leads to unexpectedly good results for either party, making everyone happy.

In dating, you must remember that the negotiation for the final contract is closed until the contract is signed. The very purpose of the preliminary contractual cooperation is to find out whether the other party is a reliable contractor for the ultimate deal. This perspective is often lost and the obfuscation of information, characteristic of adversarial style and gain-oriented strategy, prevents the acqusition of a mutually satisfying result by binding the parties in a contract with which neither party is truly satisfied. This should convince you to update your strategic goals and revise your tactical approach.
 
It looks like some of you folks are in need of professional advice. Today you will have a unique opportunity because I’ll switch my billing off.
Are you saying you are a professional at dating, Chevalier? 😛

I didn’t quite have the attention span to read your whole post, but it sounded like an excerpt from a romance novel for people with a legal fetish. :rotfl:
 
Sometimes I can’t help wishing for some old-fashioned politeness, like men holding doors for a woman, or offering to walk her home if it’s late. Do some men really think they don’t even have to bother to be polite anymore if they want to impress a woman? Just a couple of months ago, I was waiting outside a club with some friends, and I walked away from my friends for just a minute to make a phone call. Two guys immediately came up to me, and were trying to talk to me, but from my point of view, they were basically shouting, and came off as being absolutely obnoxious and rude. I ignored them and kept walking, but in retrospect, I can’t help wondering whether this kind of pick-up line would work on any girl. Sadly, considering the setting, it probably does. I often think of what Fulton Sheen wrote, “When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, and goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her.” Not that I think it just goes for men, either! :rolleyes:
 
Are you saying you are a professional at dating, Chevalier? 😛

I didn’t quite have the attention span to read your whole post, but it sounded like an excerpt from a romance novel for people with a legal fetish. :rotfl:
If I had billed you for the whole thing you would’ve read every word of it. :rolleyes:
 
Sometimes I can’t help wishing for some old-fashioned politeness, like men holding doors for a woman, or offering to walk her home if it’s late. Do some men really think they don’t even have to bother to be polite anymore if they want to impress a woman? Just a couple of months ago, I was waiting outside a club with some friends, and I walked away from my friends for just a minute to make a phone call. Two guys immediately came up to me, and were trying to talk to me, but from my point of view, they were basically shouting, and came off as being absolutely obnoxious and rude. I ignored them and kept walking, but in retrospect, I can’t help wondering whether this kind of pick-up line would work on any girl. Sadly, considering the setting, it probably does. I often think of what Fulton Sheen wrote, “When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, and goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her.” Not that I think it just goes for men, either! :rolleyes:
*Sadly, MANY young men do not have positive male role models, if at all, at home to TEACH them how to interact with women. I teach my son this, but it is very impactful coming from a man, and for a boy to see how his dad treats his mom. My husband’s example of how he treats me, goes much further than mere words. Young men who don’t hold doors, talk on cell phones throughout their date, shout over in an attempt to pick up a girl, most likely were not taught much about how to approach a nice woman. Another trend I’m noticing is boys ‘rough housing’ with girls…when on earth did that start? I was sitting in the car, waiting for my husband to run into the store quickly one day, and I noticed a girl, with a bunch of guys (she was the only girl) walking through the parking lot, and she was shoving this one boy, and he was shoving her back…very hard…like she almost fell. And he was laughing, the boys pointing at her and laughing. I’m like, how disgraceful! Boys shoving girls and girls shoving boys, like this is fun? This is acceptable?

Anyways, that’s extreme, but I just think that the young men nowadays, who know how to treat a woman, and who possess class, are few and far between. :o
 
Anyways, that’s extreme, but I just think that the young men nowadays, who know how to treat a woman, and who possess class, are few and far between. :o
True, but demand affects supply. Probably a large number of those “rough players” show off because they think that’s expected and they’ve been taught that not only by men. Charm of the bad boy. :rolleyes:
 
*Sadly, MANY young men do not have positive male role models, if at all, at home to TEACH them how to interact with women. I teach my son this, but it is very impactful coming from a man, and for a boy to see how his dad treats his mom. My husband’s example of how he treats me, goes much further than mere words. Young men who don’t hold doors, talk on cell phones throughout their date, shout over in an attempt to pick up a girl, most likely were not taught much about how to approach a nice woman. Another trend I’m noticing is boys ‘rough housing’ with girls…when on earth did that start? I was sitting in the car, waiting for my husband to run into the store quickly one day, and I noticed a girl, with a bunch of guys (she was the only girl) walking through the parking lot, and she was shoving this one boy, and he was shoving her back…very hard…like she almost fell. And he was laughing, the boys pointing at her and laughing. I’m like, how disgraceful! Boys shoving girls and girls shoving boys, like this is fun? This is acceptable?

Anyways, that’s extreme, but I just think that the young men nowadays, who know how to treat a woman, and who possess class, are few and far between. :o
What ever happened to chivalry?! But I suppose men aren’t the only ones to blame; too many woman sell themselves short and do not act worthy of the respect they deserve. Yet another wonderful product of the sexual revolution… women demand both to be treated as equal to men and allow themselves to be objectified, without understanding the irony of the situation. But I am being negative… if I ever have children I hope I can teach them that both genders are equally deserving of respect!

Perhaps if men have forgotten how to be gentlemen, we woman have forgotten how to be ladies! One of my dear parents read me an article from a newspaper a couple of months ago, which pointed out that when men work outside of the home to support their families, society seems to forget that working outside the home is not necessarily the privilege it has often been portrayed as; rather men sacrifice the time they could have spent with their families, and perhaps even their health working high stress jobs to support their wives and children. I had never really thought about it in that way before, having been unconsciously a little brain-washed, I suppose, by today’s culture. Perhaps women have proven they don’t need men to support them, yet we ought to remember that loving someone also means knowing how to allow ourselves to be loved. So perhaps we need to remind men about chivalry, but women about what it means to be a lady! Anyway, sorry for the rambling post. :rolleyes:

The few men who do know how to treat a woman stand out, so I guess that is one good thing for them! 😉
 
What ever happened to chivalry?! But I suppose men aren’t the only ones to blame; too many woman sell themselves short and do not act worthy of the respect they deserve. Yet another wonderful product of the sexual revolution… women demand both to be treated as equal to men and allow themselves to be objectified, without understanding the irony of the situation. But I am being negative… if I ever have children I hope I can teach them that both genders are equally deserving of respect!

Perhaps if men have forgotten how to be gentlemen, we woman have forgotten how to be ladies! One of my dear parents read me an article from a newspaper a couple of months ago, which pointed out that when men work outside of the home to support their families, society seems to forget that working outside the home is not necessarily the privilege it has often been portrayed as; rather men sacrifice the time they could have spent with their families, and perhaps even their health working high stress jobs to support their wives and children. I had never really thought about it in that way before, having been unconsciously a little brain-washed, I suppose, by today’s culture. Perhaps women have proven they don’t need men to support them, yet we ought to remember that loving someone also means knowing how to allow ourselves to be loved. So perhaps we need to remind men about chivalry, but women about what it means to be a lady! Anyway, sorry for the rambling post. :rolleyes:

The few men who do know how to treat a woman stand out, so I guess that is one good thing for them! 😉
*Yes, that is so well put! I agree. *
 
Well recently I have went after a pretty girl, but fortunately she does not have a boyfriend as she is a bit of a loner, meaning I am the first boy to have gone after her. She got freaked out by my kissing of her hand, so I am working my magic on her through passionate love letters “Today the sun is radiant, my love for you even more radiant”
 
Kissing the hand is normal, but your magic may have a reverse effect.

And do not overstate your love compared to what it really is. What ground or what right do you have to talk about “radiant love” to a girl you merely fancy at this point? It’s silly and it conveys a false message. Plus, it can scare her. And don’t use the same adjective in the same place in two neighbouring clauses. At least use inversion.
 
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