Personal Empowerment, Developing human potential, Fostering interpersonal relationships

Personal Empowerment

Developing human potential and fostering interpersonal relationships

Keeping Your Date Interested In You

If you want to keep your date interested in you and avoid being saddled with the wrong date it is vital to set boundaries and standards

So what are boundaries and standards?

Boundaries

Setting boundaries is used to avoid making yourself vulnerable to someone by controlling your availability. It defines the so called "event horizon" when you either say "Yes" or "No" to a prospective date. Setting standards are your rules which govern your interactions once you are in a relationship. Though boundaries and standards are supposed to work in tandem they often interfere with each other. So let’s do an exercise on how to avoid this.

Julie mets Doug for the first time. Julie likes Doug so it is a "Yes". Doug wants to see Julie again so he asks her to a restaurant. Julie responds that she isn’t interested in going. Doug understands that Julie doesn’t want to see him. In fact, Julie is interested but in her communication she is cofusing her boundaries with her standards. Julie does want to see Doug but not in a restaurant where they can be publicly observed. In other words Doug has been able to cross Julie’s boundaries but has fallen foul of her standards. It is the inability of Julie to distinguish the two in her communication which had killed the date. The correct response should have been, "I would like to see you but not in a restaurant. Let’ s think of another venue".

Standards

Now let’s look at another example. Samantha is not interested in Jerry. However, she rejects him in a very aggressive way which causes unnecessary pain to Jerry. Samantha has maintained her boundaries but has achieved this using standards that betray a sense of insecurity and even arrogance. The correct response would have been, "Thank you for asking. You have a lot to offer but I’m into something else". Such an approach not only avoids hurt but helps endears Samantha to others because of her diplomacy.

Combining Boundaries and Standards

So how do you balance boundaries and standards? Let’s look at boundaries. If you make yourself too available then both you and your prospective matches may loose respect. But if you are not accessible then you loose the opportunity to date at all. You have to find the so called "comfort zone" where your avaibility is balanced with respect. Such respect is validated by maintaining standards of interaction that express your intentions which endears you to others whether you like them or not. It is by maintaining this balance that you maintain higher desiribility to attract the person you are interested in while conferring the interactive skills to maintain that relationship.

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