Sunday, February 17, 2008

Valentine's Day & Black Singles Dance

Can't believe I missed posting on Valentine's Day. Had a nice day. Hope you did too. I was asked by Mark Anthony Jenkins of http://www.blacksinglesmagazine.com/ to speak for about 5 minutes on relationships at his Black Singles Dance at the Rebel Nightclub on 30th Street between 7th and 8th Aves in NYC.

I arrived around 7:30pm and there was a decent crowd of men and women with the women dominating. But it was still early I said to myself. Maybe the brothers will bring up the rear and the night will be fantastic, full of interactions and chats and such. But after about 40 mins I saw what I always see at the few events I've been too (I ain't a night crawler yet).

The men and women were dressed well but there was little to no interaction between the two. Groups of 4-5 women had camped out at the booths outlining the place. Men stood close to the bar in small groups or alone. I walked over to a gentleman and asked "So there is all this supply of women, what's up with the demand?" He shared openly that it's hard to break in on women in groups. If one of them gets up to get a drink, then he could make a play if interested. So in terms of economics there was too much of supply so to speak and the dynamic of one-on-one match ups was diminished by the set up as it was. If this gentleman was any indication, men were up against too many women acting like they were quite fine sitting all together rather than perhaps making themselves available by working the room a bit.

This is why I advertise SUCCESS with the OPPOSITE SEX (TM) with the following tag:
Tired of speed dating and online waiting?
Tired of talking to the same sex about the same mess?
After seeing first-hand that women and men seemed to have no social skills, no home training about being available, open and interested in the opposite sex, I realized speaking simply about relationships (like sharing data on statistics and simply talking about SWTOS) wasn't going to cut it with this rather non-interested crowd. On the surface, we--I'll include myself--looked like were were ok with not really interacting and getting any real interplay with the opposite sex. We were all playing it safe. So my prepared routine would have flown directly under their radars.

So I took a different approach. I shared what the brother had told me as a kind of entree to getting people to actually interact with one another. I did my POSITIVE FLIRTATION DEVICE exercise. First, I had to get everyone close to the stage. I wanted them willing to play along and the first step was inviting to literally move closer. They were all being stand-offish and aloof, pretending they were fine with the way things were.

I got a good group to participate and I was proud of myself for fulfilling on my intention in a new space with strangers. GET RELATED not DATED (TM).

More to come on this. Will share the exercise and some ideas for the future.

NOTE: There is no March SWTOS event. We will return in April!!
Peace, Kyra

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