The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible (25 page)

Which movements of the body are more important?  Where to start?  The proper technique is to match from the macro to the micro.  Start with general body posture, the position of limbs in space, and then move on to motion of hands, feet, fingers, neck angle and facial muscles.  Once you’ve mastered that, you can start to mirror vocal tone, volume and tempo as well.  And finally, for achieving ultra-deep rapport, you want to mirror diction by repeating
verbatim
what the person just said.  This is not active listening – this is
word-for-word
repetition of what you just heard.  I call this
backtracking
, and it's super effective.

One of the reasons why these techniques are so useful is that in order to do them right, you must pay complete attention to your companion.  This in itself is enough to engender attraction.

Ideally, the nonverbal rapport protocol becomes a habit so ingrained that you use it unconsciously and all the time.  In any case, you should still use the following three secret techniques for creating and enhancing rapport, especially in interactions with less time to establish pacing and leading:

1)
     
Assume rapport.
  Imagine that the person you’re speaking to is an old friend that you’ve known for at least three years.  The attitude is more along the lines of “Hey, good to see you again, buddy” than “How do you do, sir.”

2)
    
Go into the emotional state of the bond
.  What would it
feel
like if right now you were to bump into your long-lost friend that you haven’t seen in three years?  How thrilled would you be?  How eager would you be to talk to her?  Summon that same feeling and bring it to the interaction at hand. 

3)
     
Share a secret.
  Preface your statement with “Can I tell you a secret?,” then go ahead and share.  It need not be something earth-shattering or embarrassing; it need not even be about you: “I just really appreciate your style” works, as does “I just can’t stand mosquitoes.”  The fact that you prefaced it as being a secret is enough.

To really grasp rapport, think of your best friend and how you interact with her.  How do you greet each other?  What sort of things do you talk about?  How do you bring up a topic of conversation?  Bring those qualities to the interaction to deepen rapport.

In deep rapport, you’re not afraid of losing your audience – you’ve been friends for years, for example – and so you are more willing to antagonize each other, tease one another or be slightly rude.  This brings us to the covert technique which I call the
rapport of anti-rapport
.  If right from the outset of an interaction you start playfully teasing someone, the implication is that rapport is already so deep as to permit this.  Paradoxically, this
creates
rapport. 

Two caveats: first, it’s important to do this
playfully
and not too seriously.  Feisty (being contrary in a friendly way) is good; confrontational and hostile less good.  Second, follow up the anti-rapport with the usual rapport techniques, using anti-rapport as the spice rather than the main course.  Every time you do something to deliberately break rapport without actually breaking it, you
strengthen
rapport.

How to create passion

Here's one of my favorite paradoxical tidbits of human dating behavior.  The key to creating passion is the presence of
obstacles
.  That which is gained with little effort is lost without much regret – easy come, easy go.  Passion, on the other hand, is like water building up behind a dam: the more it builds up, the more urgently it wants to break through and express itself.  It's pent-up energy aching for release.  You don’t get that kind of intensity, the rush of water rolling over things wild and uncontrolled, unless the dam had held it back first.  So in order to create passion, you must do two things:
plant the seed
, then
create obstacles
, even if they don’t initially exist. 

Planting the seed means giving him something to think about.  Ideally you want it to be something that runs in his head over and over again while you’re not around.  A story or well-placed compliment is good for that. 

Then create obstacles.  Play up the distance between you.  Set up dates two weeks to a month in advance while building up anticipation for them in the interim.  Or, if you feel particularly daring and dastardly, do all of the above – then postpone the date at the last minute for an extra day or two (
caution
: handle with care – more on this soon).  Which would you prefer – a mediocre date tonight, or one next month that’s guaranteed to go extremely well?  Think of the great love stories of history.  The idea of star-crossed lovers is as old as time, and it is precisely because of the seemingly insurmountable barriers between the lovers that the passion intensifies.

To create passion, plant the seed of attraction, then create obstacles.

How to make a man fall in love with you

              My friend Michelle is a beautiful, sophisticated and exceptionally intelligent woman of about 30 who lives in New York City.  Because she's so damn smart, she doesn't find too many men who can go toe-to-toe with her.  But every once in a while, a keeper comes along.  That's when she gets all excited – and instantly loses her bearings and calls me asking what to do.  I'll never forget the one time she asked me, point-blank, "Ali – how do you make a man fall in love with you?"

              Never having had a man fall in love with me, I'm not qualified to answer that question.  However, I have been a man for a while, and have fallen in love with women more than once. From those experiences and my forays into the scientific literature, I've come up with three ways that a man will fall in love with you.

1) The Natural Way
.  Consciously or not, every man has a mental archetype of the woman he desires, and once in a blue moon, he comes across that woman.  If that woman happens to be you, and you also find him interesting, hallelujah – let the fireworks begin. 

              There isn't much you can really do to engineer this kind of love.  A man is attracted to a certain body type, facial look, hair color, smell, cultural background, or any other number of random elements of which even he himself is not fully aware.  You could resemble his first girlfriend from high school.  You could be wearing that one perfume that drives him nuts (because his first girlfriend from high school used to wear it).  Whatever it is, this is the love that cannot be planned.  If it happens, great.  If not, read on.

2) The Devious Dastardly Way.
With enough determination, you can make any man fall in love with you, and the procedure is simpler than you think.  It can be summarized in three words:
give, withdraw, repeat.
 

              Before I elaborate on this, I want to let you know that I consider emotional manipulation of any person to be just plain wrong.  I have been on the receiving end of that kind of treatment, and it was no fun.  So why am I including this manipulative method of making a man fall in love with you if I don't condone it?

              I'm including it because I don't believe any woman would use this procedure
consciously
.  However, through coincidence and circumstance, a woman could end up using this procedure
unconsciously
.  And then she's got a man who's borderline stalking her, and she doesn't understand why.  Now that you know how this works, it's more likely that you can prevent this inconvenience from happening.

              Here's the essence of it.  You start out by giving the man attention.  You appear interested, give him your number, and maybe even set up a date.  You are
giving
.  And then – you cancel the date at the last minute. This is
withdrawing
, and it puts the man in a tizzy.  He won't understand what happened, and will be hurt and confused.  This is when you call him and apologize profusely (which is different from flaking, when you don’t seem very invested at all).   Some emergency came up, it could not be avoided, you're so sorry, can we reschedule?  You’re showing that you actually cared, but just couldn’t show up.  That's more of the giving.

              Usually, he'll be so pleased that you're still interested that he'll accept your apology and agree to reschedule.  Now you have the option of canceling again, or showing up and using the procedure
during
the date.  You can be very flirtatious, giving him lots of compliments, touching him here and there, gazing lingeringly deep into his eyes.  You may even give him a kiss on the cheek at some point, or make out with him.  You are
giving
.  But you cut the whole procedure short when he least expects it, and leave abruptly – something came up.  You
withdraw
. 

              Once again, he will be frustrated and confused, thinking he was
so
close – what went wrong this time?  He will think about you all the time and wait with bated breath for you to call him again.  And with judicious timing, you enter his life again and give a little bit more, only to withdraw it later.  Three rounds of give and withdraw should reduce any man to putty in your hands – if that is what you want.  The man will be completely infatuated with you.

              The key to making this work is this: when you are giving, give genuinely.  You really are into him. It's just that something completely unexpected comes up everytime he's on the brink of being on solid ground with you.  And that's when you withdraw completely, yanking the rug out from under him decisively and unequivocally – only to restore it later.  In the case of my friend Brian, a woman broke up and got back together with him three times, each restoration of the relationship accompanied with vehement protestations of undying love (and passionate make-up sex).  To this day, he can't recall being more obsessed with anyone, even though she was trouble.

              By now, you see how deeply devious and manipulative this is.  And by now, you may also realize that you may have unwittingly done something like this to some poor sap at some point in your life.  You were initially interested, gave him your number, went out with him once or twice.  But then you got busy – exams, big project at work – and he got relegated to the back of your mind.  Then you thought about him again and responded to him positively, but then withdrew for some reason that wasn't entirely clear even to you.  That's when he started acting clingy and weird, and you decided to ignore him – which, paradoxically, whetted his appetite even more, since you were withdrawing so completely. 

              So to keep from sending out the wrong signal to men, be more mindful of your actions towards them.  On the other hand, if this is how you wish to nab Mr. Right, just know that you're playing with fire.

3) The High Road.
If you are truly interested in a man and want him to grow in love, respect and admiration for you, this is the way to do it.  The method is remarkably simple: bring out the best in him. 

              A man will steadily fall more and more in love with a woman who steadily helps him become more and more the man he has always wanted to be.  As we discussed in Chapter 2, this is your opportunity to be the Goddess to his Warrior.  Not only can you nurture the vision that he has of his own greatness, but you can go one step beyond and encourage him to be even bigger than he has imagined himself. 

              When you do this, he has no choice but to feel good about himself around you.  He will feel taller, stronger, more capable, more masculine.  And chances are that he's not getting anything like that anywhere else.  Which means that he's more likely to stay with you for the long run. 

              Great idea, you say.  But how do I do it? 

How to bring out the best in a man

              As conscious beings, we have the extraordinary ability to direct our energy according to our will.  According to spiritual principle, energy flows where attention goes, so merely giving your attention to something will make it flourish.  This is particularly true in our interactions with others. 

              Consider this scenario.  Walk up to a stranger and say, "Why do you have to be such a jerk?"  The most likely reaction you will get from him is, "Well, why don't you go to hell?  You're the one who's being a jerk."  By being nasty to someone, you will bring out and nurture the nastiness in him. 

              Contrast that with going up to someone and saying sweetly, "You look so nice today."  The most likely response you'll get is something like, "Aww, that's so sweet of you!  You look very nice yourself."  By directing kind energy towards him, you brought out the kindness in him. 

              To put this in term of the language of devotion, address that energy of devotion to the part of the man you want to help grow.  By consciously directing your energy, you can help another person along his (or her) path of evolution. 

              Every man you meet contains multitudes of archetypal characters within him – Boy, Warrior, Bully, Weakling, Prince, King, Rogue, Sinner, Saint, Magician, Trickster, Caveman.  The way you interact with him and direct your energy at him has a large effect on the kind of man you end up dealing with.  In essence, people rise to our expectations of them.  Most of the time, this happens unconsciously.  Here, I'm asking you to bring your unconscious expectations of men to conscious attention so you can direct your energy in a way to bring the greatest fulfillment to your life – and theirs, too.

The foolproof internal guide for your actions

              There are so many ways to behave in response to men.  How to know when you’re doing the right thing?  Should I call him back?  How soon?  Should I show more interest?  Less?  Instead of going through every possible scenario that can come up, I am now going to give you a foolproof tool for testing any action you could take to see whether or not it's the right way to go.  It’s called
running it through your own neurology
.