What is supplication? In the community it is a huge topic that is important to understand. However avoiding supplication can be taken way too far at times as I have already illuminated in previous blogs. Supplication is really when you are doing or saying something that shows desperate interest. Whenever you do something for anyone else to “make” them like you is a form of supplication. So here is a story of my supplication.
Last year there was a woman who I met who I put so high on a pedestal that I almost worshiped her. The very first night I met her I gave her foot rub. It was the beginning of the end. She felt sick in the early part of the week and I delivered her soup at her work. I was so proud of myself for my thoughtful gestures and knew it was sure to show how good a guy I was. We went out to a play later that week. It was heaven; an outdoor theatre sharing a blanket watching an incredible production of Faustus. Our hands intermingled and I caressed her fingers. Later we took a walk in the park and kissed in the middle of a labyrinth. Under a blanket of stars we walked and talked for hours. The next day she received a delivery of flowers at her work. I had all of her friends coming up to me telling me I was the most romantic guy they had ever met. So what went wrong?
The reason she started avoiding going on more dates with me was complicated. She was dating other people and without even asking me what I thought about it, she just assumed I wanted a relationship; I can’t blame her, my actions spoke pretty loud. I had made dating her a very heavy thing. I was showing a lot of interest and treating her in a way she didn’t feel she earned just for being who she was. She felt me put her too high on a pedestal. This is what I consider supplication.
The idea of this romance is the dream of most women, but when it comes to reality it is too much. Fantasy stays fantasy for a reason. If things happened like in a romance novel, women would feel like they could fall off that pedestal at any minute. They know and realize they are not perfect. If you see an image of them that is not reality they feel you don’t see who they really are. Every woman wants to be seen as unique and special, but wants to be loved flaws and all. If you are too blind to see the flaws she will be scared for that time when you do see them.
Supplication is whenever you show interest in a way that she doesn’t feel she deserves. Even if she is actively manipulating you into it she doesn’t respect you because you are falling for it. This is why in the community we don’t buy drinks or dinners for women we first start dating. Does that mean I never buy drinks or dinners? Sure I do; but by that time it becomes an equal exchange. I have shown I am not trying to buy her affection. We have both paid for drinks and dinners at times. A woman who feels she is entitled to things being paid for her has a wake up call when she dates me. She may not like it but she will respect me more for it.
So the real litmus test now for me to understand whether I am supplicating to a woman is this: “Am I doing this to make her like me more? Would I do this for a new acquaintance? Could she see me doing this as a way to earn her affections?”
If you are not sure whether you are supplicating then try this, always make it equal; even if it is only implied equality. Sure feel free to buy her coffee or a drink if you ask her out, it is polite; however imply some level of exchange. “I’ll get this round of drinks but you get to give the first back rub tonight!” Or set it up from the start as an equal exchange. “Ok, let’s play a game, I’ll buy you a drink that I think represents your personality, and you buy me a drink that represents mine.”
Understanding the idea of equal exchange in your interactions and desperate interest will help you avoid supplication yet not go overboard and not do anything nice for someone.
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18 comments:
I guess the big problem is knowing when your genuine interest doesn't come off as supplicating to the girl.
If your interest is genuine i can't see how that can come off as supplicating. Only when your interest is desperate that it comes off as supplication. Any examples you can think of?
Guilty as charged!
Thanks Socialhitchhiker for posting this. I have been banging my head on this because I have been recently dating someone and now I know that it came off as desperate. I couldn't stop myself. That is what kills me. It was like I was walking down the street and just as I was about to take my last step, I notice a piece of gum on the sidewalk and my forward momemtum wouldn't stop. 3 dinners in two dates, someone smack me!
It's a wonderful story, manadtory blow job if I were dating you.
I had a somewhat similar experience trying to take a fat student nurse on a date rowing down the canal. It was too frightening for her, to agree. I used to have her friends coming up to me in clubs saying 'are you the boat guy?'.
Romance is best saved till later. Much much later.
As an AFC i would buy dinner, dates, everything.
Found the community and as a RAFC i would not buy anything for a girl no matter what.
Its nice to see there is an equal medium in this, and thats what i'm learning through JM.
I also have some trouble differentiating between my genuine interest and supplicating. Sometimes the line between the two gets blurred and projecting the genuine interest I have for a girl becomes more like supplicating.
good post!
Hi Dan! I love your personal thoughts on supplication. I can really relate. A couple years back, I took this girl out on day3 and didn't let her DO anything. I fixed picnic dinner, drove her to the hollywood bowl, got the tickets. She tried hard to get me to at least let her carry one of the picnic baskets. I wouldn't let her. Oh man. End of night: she doesn't want to smooch. Arg.
I wonder if we should just replace the verb "to supplicate" with the word "to bribe".
The distinction between a reinforcer and a bribe is that her work (or her compliance), comes either before a reinforcer, and after a bribe.
If I bribe, I give her nice things expecting her to reciprocate. I give unconditional on any work or behavior on her part. This is supplication. Nice things given before her effort.
If I reward good behavior, then I tell her she's sexy AFTER she's sung me her favorite song. This is showing genuine appreciation, because it is after her work. Nice things given after her effort.
The timing (before/after) and the size of the reinforcer are really what makes the distinction between supplication and the natural escalation of good game.
Most of us have to learn to prompt for good behavior without bribing for it. CA/JM technique of counter-demands are one way to do this. Giving instructions and reinforcing her compliance.
"What did I do to deserve this?" is the question I ask myself if someone is overly nice before I've done anything. "I couldn't make this happen again if I wanted to, so I don't trust it. It came too easily."
yours,
Jason_LosAngeles
Excellent point Jason. I have a simple rule of thumb that works most of the time: 'Would I want to say/do this if instead of the hot chick the subject was one of my guy friends?' (of course the parallel is not exact, but it works). For example:
-She doesn't return my call. Do I call again? Yes, my friends get too busy sometimes, and I make the second call to them too.
-She is intentionally being flaky, do I pursue her more? No, I wouldn't accept that behaviour from ANY of my friends.
-We are walking out from the concert, and I want to offer to buy her dinner in an expensive local restaurant. Should I? No. I would never offer my guy friend a free expensive dinner out of the blue.
-We are on Day2 at Starbucks, should I pay for her coffee? Maybe, I buy my friends drinks, because they do the same for me once in a while. So I'll do it, but I expect my date to reciprocate some other time in the future (a drink, backrub, whatever).
Same rule works if my words/actions are a form of escalation/reward.
-Would I reward one of my friends with buying him/her dinner. I did, many times; thus I can reward my date in a similar situation.
Grand
Just playing devil's advocate here, but:
I've been experimenting lately with giving the reward before the person has done the deed to obligate them into doing something for me. It's been working small scale but i'm not sure if i could extrapolate it to dating.
an example:
Girl's walking towards a door and you're just behind her. As she opens the door to walk through, you say 'thankyou' and she looks around and holds the door open for you.
This works. So the question is, why doesn't this apply for relationship building? Is it because her brain doesn't have time to contemplate the door thing?
You're the expert mr SHH. what are your thoughts?
davich
Dan, good post, thank you.
Everything is very true.
Sounds fun davinch.. Gimmicky though, not sure if it has implications anywhere else however if you see some results with it let us know.
We did one in April and in Jun. Seems likely it will pop back on the schedule at some point. Nothing in the immediate future though. Might want to drop a line to Jonathan or Valree in the office though telling them your interested in a Toronto workshop.
Thanks SHH. Now i'm completely running away with this tangent, my mum's a primary school teacher and she was telling me she does this to get the kids to behave. THey're all being loud and running around and she says "Thankyou for coming and sitting down so quietly. You're so good, a lot of other classes wouldn't be so well behaved. I enjoy teaching this class because you're always sitting down quietly listening." And the students come and sit down quietly.
Dale Carnegie in his book 'how to win friends and influence people' gives an example that gives the reward before the action. One guy tells another guy how he really respects him because he always sticks by his word and he is a man of integrity. After receiving this reward, the man feels obliged to stick by his word and keep renting the house.
So after a little bit of thought, it turns out that this is a far more common occurance than originally thought... i'll let you know if i have any success with it in dating.
davich
I think the closest i have gotten with that i always talk about how everyone is so friendly where i am. Makes people a little more hesitant to be rude to me if i have the impression everyone is friendly.
This sounds almost like a positive presumption....interesting.
Hey Dan, I have a request for a future blog. I know that you're working with senoir Juggler this weekend. How about a post detailing anything you might have observed/learned from working with him? That would me awesome!
Interesting. I guess that is "presumption and verbalization" of good / positive / better behavior and expectations of people.
When you compliment them for better behavior, they want to LIVE upto it. You've set up expectations and jump hoops that people want to go towards.
I know it happens to me and others.
what if that is not the person's true self? what if honest and committed isn't how they are all the time? don't you think that person will think, "oh no, _____ is here, i better put on my fake side that he expects me to have."
sounds fucked up, but id rather the person be like that on their own will, rather than because i trick them into it.
the concept you guys are talking about here is called "imputing values," and it's nothing foreign to the community. It works well, but the problem with it is that you can "over-qualify" someone by doing it too much. I think Dan detailed this in another blog post about qualifying someone so much that they begin to resent it.
Sure, it's one thing to say: "Where I'm from everyone is so friendly" and get them to be a bit more receptive, but it's another thing to say: "I'm glad you don't smoke very much...that you listen to my kind of music...that you wear your hair down...that you work out regularly, etc"
It's easy to over-do this and get the person wondering why the heck you even bother with them.
-Harbinger
I agree with Harbinger... the trick is to make the rewards as much as possible about HER and NOT ABOUT YOU. The compliments should be "i'm glad you like to enjoy music and have your own taste in it, you know what you like and enjoy life". I realize Dan has made a post "personalize your rewrads", but does anyone (or dan himself maybe) you have tips to make rewards as much as possible about her and not about you?
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