The woman who reached out to you for a meeting is just as much a professional as you are, no matter what she does, what she looks like, or what her marital status is…
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You’re a busy, successful professional guy, right? When you set a meeting with some new business contact—a potential referral source, a potential vendor, a potential contractor, etc.—you want that time to matter. Maybe you bill by the hour, maybe you have deadlines looming, and maybe you have current clients expecting you to return their calls.
Whether you reached out to this new contact or they reached out to you, you expect that each of you will approach this meeting with the utmost respect and professionalism.
Be on time. Listen to hear. Know your shit.
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Then you arrive and sit down next to your latest LinkedIn find. Wow. You obviously knew this person was a female. You knew her picture looked pretty good. But you feel a little skip that she is that much more of whatever it is that excites you about women than you were expecting.
You give your business schpiel and then she launches into hers. She is a seasoned divorce professional and it quickly becomes clear to you that she knows her stuff. Impressive. You ask some of the typical questions divorce professionals get asked, like “do people really just give up too quickly?” and “what do you think is the most prevalent cause of divorce?”
Before you know it, this already intriguing creature is now talking about sex. Sex! Like, in pretty damn vivid detail. How porn affects marriages. How threesomes affect marriages. How kink affects marriages. How women love being wooed and men love being admired.
So wait, what was the purpose of this meeting again? And how many more of these “business meetings” do you think you need to schedule with before you can ask her out?
You thank her for the fantastic lunch/coffee/chit-chat session and text to thank her again before you even put the car into drive.
How much business do you end up referring to her down the line? None.
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As a woman whose work directly involves issues affecting romantic relationships, I cannot speak of what I do without the topics of sex and male/female relationship dynamics coming into play. I could dumb it down with alternate terms like “intimacy,” but I would be doing at least two things I have a major problem with: 1) promoting an idea I don’t believe, and 2) perpetuating acceptance of a concept I don’t agree with.
I must state for the record that I am a big fan of men, both personally and professionally. I have a father who has always been actively involved and loving, an awesome big brother I have always admired and two young sons I adore. I have tons of male friends and always felt that guys were easier to hang with then other females were. When I worked in non-profit development for more than 15 years I never once encountered a male colleague who treated me a less-than. And yes, I am also a divorced heterosexual woman with a hopeless romantic streak that just won’t seem to die.
When I meet a man for business, we are meeting for business. I simply cannot accept that the distinction is one that is terribly difficult to understand.
It has shocked and disappointed me that over the course of my now 6 years working in for-profit industry, the same has not held true.
Time after time I meet with an established professional in the spirit of collaboration, only to find that by the second meeting he will shift the conversation, asking whether or not I am currently involved with anyone. What typically follows is some profession of how we “obviously” have a special connection that we should explore further.
When I meet a man for business, we are meeting for business. I simply cannot accept that the distinction is one that is terribly difficult to understand.
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“But you confused them!,” you say to me.
Highly unlikely, folks.
Here’s how I see it. Sometimes I meet with a professional and find that they actually offer a service I might be interested in for myself. When that happens, I ask for a list of services or schedule an appointment.
If you meet with a professional who deals with divorce, marriage or any other forms of relationships, and you find that what they are saying resonates with you, by all means, ask for a meeting! Or if you want to maintain a professional boundary, ask for a referral for yourself.
Please, please understand that the fact that this person seems to understand your personal dilemma in a way no one else has before is an indication that they are good at what they do. Not an indication that they that they want to do you.
Lest you try telling yourself I am just being too uptight, or perhaps assuming I am being too salacious in my conversational banter, I turn to a piece featured in The Wall Street Journal back in December of 2014 entitled “Women at Work: A Guide for Men,” which stated the following:
“For most men in a room, respect is a given. But women in the corporate world will tell you they often feel the opposite: that they are treated as if they don’t know what they are talking about until they prove otherwise… This is a huge issue for women— one that few men can understand because they haven’t experienced it. ‘It’s not that women want respect more than men. It’s that men start out with more,’ says Tony Schwartz, president and CEO of the Energy Project, a consulting firm. As a man, ‘you’re the privileged one. You just don’t realize you’re privileged.’”
If a woman wants respect at the boardroom table, she’d better remind herself to never flirt across it, right? But could you imagine coaching a man to suppress his charisma at work? I asked LMFT Jay Blevins that question, to which he replied, “When a man uses wit, charm and banter to close deals and win favor with clients, it is seen as a success, not as his having extended an invitation to become sexual with him. Yet, exactly the opposite often applies to women who use these same skills.”
There is plenty of work women must do to assert positions and ideas more confidently, ask for and expect deserved compensation, and set clearly delineated boundaries. But you are here reading this on The Good Men Project and we are having a conversation about the changing roles of men. So let’s focus on talking about what you guys could do differently.
I am going to fall back on that 1980s anti-drug mantra we all know so well. Just say no. To any of these following questions that may jump into your mind:
• Did she agree to this meeting because she thought you were hot? No.
• Is she telling you these details because she really just wants to excite you? No.
• Am I feeling this crazy connection because we have some kind of cosmic chemistry? No.
• Should I text her a risqué joke just to feel her out? No.
• Does she want me more than she wants my business? No.
Sorry. But no.
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The woman who reached out to you for a meeting is just as much a professional as you are, no matter what she does, what she looks like, or what her marital status is. She wants you to value her time. She wants you to value her insight. She wants you to value her network and her accomplishments and her expertise. And she wants to treat you with these same courtesies.
Just like the dude you had coffee with yesterday.
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Photo Credit: Flickr/rj4uZL
Whenever I read these types of pieces I always think of that SNL skit with Tom Brady. It’s a classic.
“When a man uses wit, charm and banter to close deals and win favor with clients, it is seen as a success, not as his having extended an invitation to become sexual with him. Yet, exactly the opposite often applies to women who use these same skills.” – See more at: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/meeting-woman-business-lunch-dont-want-guy-kt/#comments This, in other circumstances, would be flirting. We presume, in business, that it means business, but we have the guy who may be wishfully thinking and misinterpret. If you wish guys to never, ever think of going personal, moving on from business, you ought to say so. Is… Read more »
Or not. That’s where the trouble begins Richard. Or ends. Some years ago I asked a female acquaintance how she could tell if one of her girlfriends was interested in someone. She said that she couldn’t. They would have to tell her. At that point I felt a lot better about never having broken that code. Anyway the message is don’t mix business with pleasure. Unless you’re Tom Brady. Or not.
All I have to say is that a business meeting is a business meeting. Period.
And yes, I am absolutely certain there was no wide-eyed touch on a forearm. But really, the width of her eyes and slight touch of her hand are not the issue here.
It is a business meeting. You know what those are. Keeping business and personal separate means keeping that separate. Even if you think she’s hot.
And now I need to go Google that Tom Brady SNL skit. Have a good night.
Jay, I understand that, for purposes of the article, these things have to happen often, be epidemic. I was in a white collar biz for forty years and never saw it, never heard a woman vendor mention it. Not once. What are “those traits”? If you’re referring to wit, charm, and banter, the article implicitly says that from women it might be biz as usual, or an Indication of Interest. It’s up to the guy to figure out which. Not sure what your last ‘graf has to do with the article. It’s either relevant to all attempts at dating, or… Read more »
Hi Richard,
You likely never heard a woman mention this dilemma because such dilemmas persist when they are hard to talk about it. Such is the crux of almost all struggles for populations dealing with inherent power imbalances.
The article implicitly and explicitly says that under all circumstances her behavior should be interpreted as business as usual. That was certainly my intention. I would be highly curious to know which of my statements led you to interpret otherwise.
Thanks for so much for adding your voice to this conversation!
Richard, I also was in business for decades before becoming a therapist. I’m not going to doubt that you didn’t see it. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Kudos to you for keeping good boundaries. I have witnessed it and heard enough reports from women to know it happens and happens often. Women are often reluctant to speak up because the believe it will impact their ability to do business. I have female clients that receive suggestive and inappropriate messages from men they are doing business with. The females tend to want to “brush it off” thinking the man will… Read more »
“When a man uses wit, charm and banter to close deals and win favor with clients, it is seen as a success, not as his having extended an invitation to become sexual with him. Yet, exactly the opposite often applies to women who use these same skills.” – The above is from the article. Here’s where we have a problem. When a couple of straight guys are trying to do business, and one uses wit, charm, and banter to move the deal forward, it’s pretty clear what’s going on. The problem is that this is pretty much what a woman… Read more »
Richard, I don’t think we are talking about the same things. I’m referring to the guys that say, “I haven’t had a chance to eat, mind if we meet over some food?” and then proceeds to make reservations at a romantic restaurant and offer to pick her up. Or the guys that think those traits from a woman gives them permission to start sending jokes and e-cards with sexual innuendo…and sometimes not even innuendo. And yes, those things happen frequently. For me it comes down to this – if you are interested in the person on a personal level, come… Read more »
While I agree with this article in principal I think it’s a stretch to claim that such meetings as described in the article are some nefarious conspiracy to belittle women in a professional setting. Using the scenario in the article I think there are too many details left unsaid. For example, what was the agenda of the meeting? What was the primary goal of the meeting requester and what was the ask and/or take away for the meeting accepter? What were the follow up items? I’ve had many such lunch meetings with both men and women professionals and most of… Read more »
Hi mgm531, Thank you for sharing your thoughts and important questions. Here are my clarifications: 1) Regarding the conspiracy question: I do not believe, nor did I state, that there is “nefarious conspiracy” afoot to belittle women in professional settings. The problem is deeper than that, because when men do disrespect women in these settings, they are doing so from an unconscious, unintentional place. It is much more difficult to change habits people fall into this way than it is to call out intentional manipulators on intentional manipulations. 2) Regarding meeting agendas: I am typically not the one to request… Read more »