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Your Dating Strategy Needs a Tune Up: The Hostage Exchange This evening, I met my sister, Faith, to share a bottle wine, follow up on a recent conversation, and to execute a hostage exchange. Not a real hostage trade of course, but the hand-off of wine she purchased for me. The wine, of course, is the hostage. Faith enjoys creating a sense of mystery around mundane events, by crafting a euphemism for the activity. She has developed a set of code words which makes a conversation more interesting and private. I must admit it is fun, like sharing a deep secret or speaking a foreign language no one else understands. Receiving my half-case of wine and paying her for my share becomes a hostage exchange. We are a two-person wine of the month club. And what is a good hostage exchange if you cannot make time to share a bottle of wine. So, we spent a few hours chatting over a bottle of Justin Cabernet. Faith clarified another bit of her secret code this evening by explaining her use of the term "card game." When she mentioned "a card game," I thought she was talking about one of her dating applications. In fact, it is another of her euphemisms for a date. I guess I need to start keeping a Dictionary to stay current with of all of her code words. Faith isn’t really my sister. I have three younger brothers, but no biological sister. Besides, Faith is an only-. Since she moved to Atlanta, about ten years ago, we have become great friends. So much so that we have mutually agreed that we are siblings of another mother. Our friend Melissa calls Faith moonshine. A very appropriate moniker. Not because she is into illicit clear whiskey, but because she seems to be more a creature of the night, sultry, seductive, and maybe a little feline. She is sophisticated, to be sure, and enjoys leopard prints. Faith is soft-spoken and speaks with a delightful southern accent, a Steel Magnolia. Faith is like the little sister I never had but always wanted. Even though a hostage exchange is a simple task, we view it as another opportunity to check in and catch up over a fine wine. You could say our philosophy is that every meeting is an opportunity to share more wine together. This evening was no exception. However, we did have a particular issue to explore. We determined that a follow-on discussion regarding dating strategy was in order. We had stumbled on a forgotten tactic while chatting it up last week. We explored that topic in a bit more depth this evening; specifically, scheduling special-interest events for baby boomers looking for romantic partners. To be honest, my interest in this connection is more professional as I have been married for forty-one years and completely committed to a monogamous relationship. However, the parallels between dating and job search are so similar that blogging on this topic is useful. The fundamental question for our conversation was, what is the next step? Should we dive right in and have a group event, possibly a wine-tasting? Or should we assemble a group of folks in our extended network to bring them together for a little marketing research/strategy discussion over cocktails? She asked me who I knew, that might find this interesting. As I thought about the question, I began offering up some names. I was a surprised that quite a few people in my network are in fact single and looking. Just between the two of us, we identified over a dozen people. So, the plan is to organize a cocktail party to explore the concept with our larger group of friends. I will keep you updated on our progress. Jim Weber Jim Weber, President NEW CENTURY DYNAMICS EXECUTIVE SEARCH Author, "Fighting Alligators: Job Search Strategy For The New Normal" |
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