Empathy & Women

One of the reasons we started this new company is because we see things much differently then the rest of community. We feel at best it’s short-sighted for so many reasons.

I have many different perspectives, but one stands out as extremely key in meeting, attracting and having relationships with women. Sure there are certain skills and mindsets that revolve around witty banter and confident body language, and rapport, but those skills are myopic. They focus all attention inwardly.

Well, what about the girl? You can't always just be looking inwardly and keeping your focus there. Your attention needs to be on the woman as much as it needs to be on yourself. We're shooting for interactions here...

Just like no one talks about relationships in the community, no one talks about another HUGE piece.

Reading women.

Whenever you’re with a woman, the interaction is like a dance. The saying “it takes two to tango” is quite relevant.

A problem that I see with guys is that they’re so internally focused that they can’t be present. They forget to be in the moment and mess up the "dance" taking place. They’re so focused on their own footwork that they don’t notice they’re stepping on the girl’s feet.

But, even when they become more present they still don’t pick up on the subtly of the communication.

Reading people is such an invaluable skill set in general. Statistically, people who can do this are more successful and make more money then people who have higher IQ’s and SAT scores. When it comes to success in relationships these people are also exponentially better with people.

Reading people, is at best, extremely complex in nature. There are many skills sets and sub skill sets that go into it, according to leading psychologists.

The one key aspect, agreed upon, is the ability to empathize.

Empathy is identifying with the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. The process of identifying emotions gives you insight to how someone feels, which in turn gives you clues to why they might be that way, what it takes to maintain or change that feeling, and how to proceed with them.

Can you read how a woman feels at any moment in a conversation? And even if you think you can, are you really picking up on the most important feeling?

Feelings are extremely complex. Ask a woman who has just broke up with a boyfriend how she feels? Then listen to her talk about her feelings…

What you’ll realize is that it’s not as simple as JUST feeling sad, or just feeling depressed. That’s a blanket generalization that doesn’t capture nuances.

It’s closer to a feeling of loss, with some sadness, regret, loneliness, anger, relief, anxiety, and hope mixed together in varying degrees. That subtly and distinction are extremely important to pick up on. It’s the difference between:

Understanding there is a problem
and
Understanding the problem

The interesting part is that empathizing starts internally. In order to identify with someone else’s emotions, you have to have had that emotion. Someone who’s NEVER experienced loss won’t be able to identify with a feeling of loss. This means that they will completely miss this emotion and everything that goes along with it.

Now, my example was pretty extreme. Most people have felt a sense of loss. In fact most people have most emotions as that is the human experience. Where people screw up is that they don’t recognize it in themselves or other people.

When I say recognize, I mean without someone having to say it.

Let me give an example.

You go over to meet your new girlfriend at her house because you’re going out to dinner with your good friends whom she hasn’t met. When you arrive, she opens the doorwith no makeup on and annoyed look on her face. She gives you a quick kiss and then disappears into her room to continue fixing her hair and putting on her makeup. She’s obviously agitated for some reason, so you plop on the couch and watch TV waiting patiently giving her some space. While you’re waiting she starts shouting orders at you from her room, to bring her the blow dryer and her liquid cover-up. You really don’t mind except for the fact that she ORDERED you and said it with a lot of attitude. You don’t even know what the hell liquid cover up looks like and bring in everything. You set it right next to her. Being that you were more then slightly annoyed with her tone earlier you respond to her “rudeness” with an abrupt, “you’re welcome.”

At this point, she starts shooting daggers from her eyes. When she looks down she realizes you brought all of her makeup because you didn't know what to bring. She then erupts into a diatribe about how you NEVER listen to her. You retort back defending the the false comment which only pisses her off even more. She then pulls out all the stops on every single little thing that you have ever done: from drinking too much to being cheap. She finishes off telling you how it's not working out between you…

Does this sound familiar?

I remember incidents like this vividly and thinking that women were crazy – literally. For a long time I assumed that this was normal. And the sad part is for a lot of people it is normal.

So here’s where story changes…

Had you sensed the subtle abruptness right away AND tried to empathize with her, it could have been different. If you had taken a moment to try and see things from her perspective you might have avoided the drama. You would have realized that as fun as getting dinner with friends SHOULD be, that was not necessarily the case for her. You might have considered that she was probably feeling rushed and anxious over meeting your good friends. Since you were still a new couple you might have sensed that she was anxious because she knew it would be important for YOUR friends to like her because if they didn’t like her, you would probably end up leaving her. If she get’s rejected then she has to deal with feelings of worthlessness and loneliness. Had you taken the time right away to calm her anxiety over the situation you would have avoided the emotional outburst.

Even worse I consistently hear about guys who sort of get this and miss the point. These guys actually engage in the arguement over not listening, drinking too much, and being cheap. These guys don't understand that you need to deal with the issue driving the emotion. The real emotion was that she was anxious, nervous, excited, and worried about meeting your friends. Taking a second to empathize with her, would have given anyone great insight to the real motivation.

Understanding women, is understanding the emotions that drive them. Women don’t make all of their decisions based on emotion. However, they do make all of their relationship decisions that way.

My point is really to highlight that, becoming better with women means empathizing with women. Most guys focus too much on the steps of meeting women. They're so focused internally that they miss all the clues that women give back to them and remain unsuccessful. It means taking the time to actually understand women, rather then just knowing a sequence that gets them to sleep with you.

Joe