Imagine you’re inspecting a house for sale; you make an offer to the owner and before you can finish saying dollars they gleefully rush over to shake your hand and accept the deal. Overjoyed and keen to waste no time – the owner whips out the contract in one hand and a pen in the other for you to sign. How do you feel now about the house you’re about to purchase?
Now imagine you’re looking to organise a first date with someone and you suggest Tuesday night. ‘Oh, I have dinner plans with my mum that night – but that’s ok I can reschedule’ they say.
You reply – ‘Don’t break your plans, another night would be alright.’
‘I’m free any night of the week to meet you, I have indoor soccer Thursday but I can reschedule that too. You live about an hour away but I can drive over and pick you up and I’ll take you out to dinner’.
What message does this send? Too keen! It probably sends you running to the hills away from this person! It may not sound romantic, but dating always involves an element of negotiation and strong negotiation involves ‘playing hard to get’. In negotiating circles this is more commonly known as ‘a willingness to walk away’. If you display ‘desperation’ trying to sell an item, (and in dating you are selling yourself), potential ‘buyers’ will perceive the item to be worth less than first thought.
Show you have respect for yourself and don’t chase someone too much – you’re a catch too! It could be that the time isn’t right and you’re better waiting for some time in the future.
Say you met someone on a night out, you’re both with your own groups of friends, and their group decides it’s time to move on to a new venue. As much as you’d probably like to keep hanging out with this person, this is not the moment for you to decide to ditch your friends and follow them to where they are headed next. This also sends ‘desperation’ or ‘clinger’ messages to the other person.
Some people try to give themselves away to anyone like they’re handing out flyers. A classic example is the one sided texting ‘conversation’ where one person keeps sending messages and the other person isn’t replying. What does this say about the value of the ‘product’ they are trying to ‘sell’? The other person needs to be doing some chasing as well – don’t act like your attention comes for free!
At Ignite speed dating in Brisbane presents a perfect opportunity to start off on the right foot in the dating negotiation game. You only get a limited amount of time to talk to the people you meet before moving on and then that’s it until you find out who your matches are from speed dating. When you get the opportunity to talk to your matches, that’s when you can make sure you’re not coming on too strong. If you’ve met someone at speed dating Brisbane and matched, you already know they are interested in seeing you again so no need to come in too strong and send them running.
