The Meeting Game Salon’s Dating Discussion Group
2004 – 2014
As a psychology major in college, (and going back as far as selecting Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders in sixth grade) I’ve had a life-long interest in trying to understand what makes people tick – myself included. I’ve been in many types of therapy, including individual and group – Rogerian, Reichian, Rolfing – if it was therapy and started with an ‘R,’ I was there.
While my education went only as far as a bachelor’s degree, and though I had considered further training to be a therapist, I never pursued that career path, and had no experience running a sensitivity-type group of any sort. Again, however, it was something I knew I could do, and I felt confident I’d be good at it.
Our dating discussion group, Invincible in Love, met weekly, in one iteration or another, for approximately ten years. Here is the introduction, presented at the beginning of each meeting, that describes what the group was about:
“The intention of this group is to help you take control of the signals you’re sending to – and better decipher the signals you’re getting from – members of the opposite sex.
This group is a work in progress – its purpose is to explore how men and women are alike and how they’re different – and what the best ways are to approach most of them to increase the odds of our success with them.
We are animals. And, as like most, if not all other animals, we have courtship rituals; we use symbols and silent language to communicate with our dating partners. My contention is that, by understanding the nature of those symbols, that language, and those rituals – and attending to them, we can best 1) advance our own agendas, 2) protect the feelings of our dating partners, 3) protect our own feelings, and 4) increase the odds of our success with members of the opposite sex.
I come to this group as a facilitator and fellow seeker on the path. I’ve been married and divorced and have been living with my significant other for the past five years.
My goals for this group are:
To share with you the dating and relationship concepts I’ve developed or encountered as a result of my experience, my relationships, my reading, my dating failures and faux pas, and the facilitation of this group;
To invite you to share your own dating and relationship wisdom and experiences with the group;
And to establish an emotionally safe environment in which you can feel comfortable letting yourself be known by the other members – comprised of honesty, tact, and compassion;
To explore and to do our best to understand, rather than to try and fix each other or each other’s problems or challenges; and
To speak from our hearts, rather than from our heads, whenever possible.
Each week, we’ll begin with a 3-minute check-in from each participant. The intention is to focus, briefly, on the dating or relationship challenges you’ve faced in the previous week, though you may use the time in any way you like. You can also contract for up to ten minutes of time to discuss anything that’s up for you in your dating life or any of the principles presented that interest you, provoke you, offend you, or strike you in any other manner.
Seven or eight of the sixty principles of capturing men and women’s hearts will be presented for your consideration. Some you may have heard before, some you may find controversial, politically incorrect, or otherwise upsetting or disagreeable. The list is presented as a starting point, and, through discussion and examination of the principles, is open to addition, subtraction, or modification.
There will also be a time at the end of the meeting for you to add to, or retract, anything you’ve said, make an additional comment about anything that was discussed, or take one last parting shot at anyone in the group.
Most importantly, I’d like to make sure to cover the topics that YOU want to cover; have your questions answered, if possible, and have your dating challenges addressed by the group.”