Too Eager
Before I started talking about the notion of good karma, I mentioned the “red badge of desperation”, and described some of the symptoms such as being overly eager, nervous or in a hurry to go out on a formal date, or asking someone out too often … so let me now go back and elaborate on those issues, as they are just as important a part of being comfortable with yourself as the “good karma” persona.
Whether you want to date a particular woman or not is immaterial – if you appear to her to be too interested, she is going to think you are weird or a stalker or possibly too controlling. Women appreciate attention – but I don’t believe they appreciate too much attention … especially before you are involved with them. [And even after you do become involved with a woman, you do not want to smother her with too much attention.] The bottom line is that if you come on too strong, you almost always will scare a woman away from you. And if you really are interested in a particular woman, the last thing you want to do is scare her off!
Here is a short example of being overly eager. My friend, Mike, had a crush on his Living Trust attorney, Antoinette. He asked her out a number of times, and even brought her flowers – most of these actions occurred when either Antoinette had met with Mike to work on his trust, or when Mike (a contractor) had gone to Antoinette’s home to do some work. Mike told me that he keeps asking her out – and even invited her to Mother’s Day brunch (huh?) with his mother. [Side note – people usually want to spend Mother’s Day with their own mother … not your mother … especially when you are not even dating.] Anyway, Mike could not get Antoinette to go out with him at all – and it appeared to me that she wouldn’t go out with him because he kept up with his full-court press all the time. Even though I’ve never met Antoinette, my guess is that she thinks Mike is a nice guy – but that he would be a nightmare to date … since he won’t leave her alone even when they haven’t been on one single date!
My advice to Mike at the time was to back off of Antoinette completely. If she didn’t respond to his first attempt to go out with her, his best bet would have been to just keep it work-related, and try to spread the good karma approach to encourage her friendship. If and when she wanted to go out on a real date, she would make Mike aware in her own way. Who knows – maybe she thinks Mike is funny-looking? If Mike had reverted to the good karma approach, she would at least possibly want to fix him up with one of her friends … but not now, as she probably thinks he is a borderline stalker! When you pursue a woman, you’ve always got to carefully consider the totality of your actions. In other words, you have to try and put yourself in the woman’s shoes, and think about how she perceives your approach. The full-court press approach is rarely successful – usually it has the opposite effect you desire … so always try to keep that in mind.
The notion of being overly eager or perhaps even appearing desperate is part of what I call the OUTWARD or OUTBOUND dimension of one’s personality as it pertains to midlife bachelorhood. The flip side of the outward/outbound dimension is, of course, the INWARD dimension … which refers to one’s self esteem, one’s opinion of one’s self, etc. What we think of ourselves can be greatly influenced by what others tell us … and this can be especially true in midlife dating. However, it is very important to put into context what a woman you are dating (or trying to date) tells you … because (as we will learn later on) all women are basically crazy. You always have to put what a woman tells you in its proper perspective – which this brings me to the second of the fundamental truths.
