“If you want to be different in the beginning of a relationship, try being yourself: That’d really impress ’em.”
-Anonymous
“It’s useless to put your best foot forward- and then drag the other”
-Anonymous
“When we put our best foot forward, the other one had better be good enough to stand on”
– Cullen Hightower
Most people believe that whenever they begin a relationship, in order to create a favorable first impression, they should start it off by putting their best foot forward. After all, who would think that another person would become attracted to them if they started it off on their worst foot? But as you will see in this chapter, there may actually be a drawback to beginning a relationship on your best behavior. After all, if you start out at the height of your “game,” that is, after such an enthusiastic start, the only way to go from the peak is down.
People interacting in society play more “games” than Milton Bradley and the Parker brothers combined.
After that initial encounter, the potential relationship partners are likely to exchange personal information so that they are able to communicate with one another. The two people involved in this process are likely to communicate with via the phone, text, Facebook, or even email. It is through this initial disclosure process that each of the partners learns more about the other. Through this process of disclosure, people learn what type of job their prospective relationship partner has.
As I said above, people normally experience a pleasurable feeling when they initially meet someone and realize they may have some “chemistry” with each other. They sense that they “click” with a person and then they immediately feel an attraction to one another. As a result of such a gratifying introduction, they may feel as though there is potential to begin a more serious romantic relationship. In this stage of the relationship, many people feel that they need to immediately start behaving in a pleasing and agreeable manner. Acting in any other manner may threaten their sense of relationship bliss.
Each person learns about their partner’s age; some details about their family; information about their friends; some particulars about their level of education and where they attended their schooling.
Potential partners soon learn the more intimate fine points about their future partner’s political affiliations; their hobbies and off-work social activities; their past relationships; and maybe even whether or not they do illegal drugs. So on and so forth. This process usually takes some time to run its course.
Each of the potential partners is likely to mind their P’s and Q’s (manners) while this disclosure process run its course. After all, this preliminary disclosure is similar to the process when someone starts a new job. They are likely to be placed on a temporary thirty to ninety day probation to figure out whether they are compatible with the other workers and can competently perform the job. Therefore, the new job seeker must make sure they make a good impression in order to keep the job past that probationary period. In the case of the budding relationship, the potential partners must make sure they make a good enough impression on one another so that they can stay in it past that trial disclosure period.
This initial disclosure process will continue until each of the potential partners has gathered enough personal information about the other to feel that they know them well enough to start a bona fide romantic relationship. Once this “probationary” period is over, the couple probably knows enough about each other to trust them enough to continue the relationship and take it to the next level.
On a side note, many women have told me about the “probation” period when their male partners continue to act romantic toward them. However, these same women went on to explain that this initial romantic phase only lasts about three to six months. After that, the relationship settles into a routine and the romance starts to fade.
This information explained what one of my aunts used to tell everyone about her dating life. She was a remarkably attractive woman, but it seemed like she couldn’t keep a guy for very long. So, many of her friends and family seemed to always be puzzled by this fact. As it turned out, however, this aunt of mine was only dating guys for three to six months so that she was able to keep up a steady stream of these initial romantic feelings.
Keep in mind, however, that if you initially like someone, and then at a later date come to dislike that person, you will dislike them more than if you had initially disliked them.
Keep in mind, however, that if you initially like someone, and then at a later date come to dislike that person, you will dislike them more than if you had initially disliked them. That is a mouthful; so read it again, but do so this time with some added emphasis to help clear up any confusion. Remember, despite the tongue-twisting aspect of that sentence, we are referring to you liking and then disliking the same person. If you initially like someone, and then at a later date you come to dislike them, you will dislike them more than if you had initially disliked them.
The opposite also tends to be true. That is, if you initially dislike someone, and then at a later date come to like them, you will like them more than if you had initially liked them. Therefore, contrary to popular belief, it’s ok not to start off a relationship on your best behavior.
According to the above logic, it may actually be beneficial to not start off a relationship by putting your best foot forward. That way you will have some room to “improve.” If you continue only to put your best foot forward in the relationship, it is likely that you will reach a plateau where no matter how much effort you that you put into it, you won’t be able to keep up such a “front.” And if you can’t keep putting your best foot forward, your relationship will have only one way to go: down. In fact, this is what too many people do. They play all of their aces from the get-go and then they are found wanting later as their relationship unfolds.
I understand that there will be some detractors who will whole-heartedly disagree with my recommendation to avoid starting off a relationship on your best behavior. Nevertheless, think deeper about this social dynamic. Again, if at the beginning of a relationship someone initially likes you, and then they come to dislike you for some reason; they will dislike even more than if they had disliked you in the first place. In fact, they may actually come to hate or revile you. They will probably feel that you somehow tricked them into liking you under false pretenses.
On the other hand, if at the beginning of a relationship someone initially dislikes you, and then they come to like you; they will like you even more than if they had liked you in the first place. In fact, they are likely to come to love you! The logic goes something like this. Such a person will probably feel that during their initial assessment, they hadn’t judged you correctly. After that, they are likely to overcompensate for such a brash appraisal by coming to like, or even loving you.
The repercussions of this process will likely stretch beyond just the two people in the actual romantic relationship. For example, if your new partner initially liked you and then later came to hate you, they will likely try to convince their friends and family to feel the same about you as they have come to feel about you. They will try to get those people to also hate you. However, if your new partner initially disliked you and then later came to love you, under these conditions, they will likely try to convince their friends and family to love you.
Therefore, I am unequivocally suggesting that you may want to start off your new relationship a little bit on the negative side of the equation. Again, this is so that you have some room to “improve.” Plus, if you can get your new partner to believe that they had something to do with the “improvements” and “upgrades” in you, then they will feel proud of their efforts and want to keep the relationship together.
Another drawback of starting off a relationship by trying to be on your best behavior is that if this is the precedent you set from the get-go, your partner will come to expect such behavior once the relationship starts to lose it novelty. That is, your partner will expect you to pay them the same high level of attention that you did at the beginning of the relationship. However, once you’ve learned almost all you can about your partner and their friends and family, your interest in getting to know more about them will likely decline.
If this happens, it will seem as though you have become less interested in paying them the same level of attention because of the fact that you now care less about them; when in fact, you may still care greatly about your partner. Let me just say that reality is one thing; but perception is everything. Before we end this chapter, let me make something perfectly clear. I am NOT suggesting that anyone treat their partner unkindly. Nor am I explicitly telling anybody to be mean to their relationship partner.
A critique I used to hear about my classroom lecture series on the social dynamics of relationships was that I was teaching people to play “games.” And many students did in fact interpret my lectures as condoning relationship “games.” However, my rebuttal to these claims was that despite not condoning playing “games” in relationships, nearly everyone in fact plays some sort of “games” in their relationships. If a women shaves parts of her body, she is playing a “game.” If a man gets hair plugs, he is playing a “game.” Everybody plays relationship “games.”
As I showed in the chapter on Erving Goffman in The 14 Keys to Understanding Relationships section of this book, “games” are a universal aspect of social interaction. All I am doing in this book, and in this chapter, is illustrating how the “games” function and the dynamics inherent with them. People interacting in society play more “games” than Milton Bradley and the Parker brothers combined.
