Read Online Act like a lady, think like a man by Steve Harvey - Free Book Online

and she’s the conservatively dressed woman at the office who is a master at networking, but clueless about how to approach men. She has no plans for any ongoing relationships, is not expecting anything in particular from a man, and sets absolutely not nary one condition or re-striction on anyone standing before her—she makes it very clear that she’s just along for whatever is getting ready to happen. For sure, as soon as she lets a man know through words and action that he can treat her just any old kind of way, he will do just that. Men will stand in line to sign up for that, believe me.

    Never gives in easily, and the standards/requirements start the moment you open your mouth. See, she understands her power and wields it like a samurai sword. She commands—not demands—respect, just by the way she carries herself. You can walk up to her and give her your best game, and while she may be impressed by what you say, that’s no guarantee that she’s going to let the conversation go any further, much less give you her phone number and agree to give you some of her valuable time. Men automatically know from the moment she opens her mouth that if they want her, they’ll have to get in line with her standards and requirements, or keep it moving because she’s done with the games and isn’t interested in playing. But she will also send all the signals that she is capable of being loyal to a man and taking good care of him, appreciative of what he’s bringing to the relationship, and ready for love—true, long-lasting love.

    Newsflash: it’s not the guy who determines whether you’re a sports fish or a keeper—it’s you. (Don’t hate the player, hate the game.) When a man approaches you, you’re the one with total control over the situation—whether he can talk to you, buy you a drink, dance with you, get your number, take you home, see you again, all of that. We certainly want these things from you; that’s why we talked to you in the first place.
    But it’s you who decides if you’re going to give us any of the things we want, and how, exactly, we’re going to get them.
    Where you stand in our eyes is dictated by your control over the situation. Every word you say, every move you make, every signal you give to a man will help him determine whether he should try to play you, be straight with you, or move on to the next woman to do a little more sport fishing.
    I like to think that the way you play this situation is much like how you climb the ladder at work. Think about it: dating is a lot like a business; the best way to become successful is to master and control things you have control over. When I first started in show business, I knew I wanted to be a top-flight comedian. But because the club owners didn’t know me well, all I could get was a gig as the opening act—the first guy up, fifteen minutes to do my thing, and then off the stage I went.
    Still, I knew that if I was on my game—showed up on time, networked, and, most important, gave thought-provoking, funny performances that made the audiences and the club owners remember me—I could get the ultimate job as the headliner, the comedian who gets his name on the marquee and forty-five minutes to make people scream with laughter. I controlled my fifteen minutes by making people laugh hard enough to remember me, and then parlayed it into gigs as the “featured” comedian, the performer who gets thirty minutes on the stage. And then I did the same thing with my thirty minutes onstage, making people laugh so hard that club owners didn’t have any other choice but to make me the featured act.
    See? My success in getting to be one of the Kings of Comedy was based on my desire and ability to control my product—my performance—which ultimately made me exactly who I wanted to be. And doing that got me exactly what I wanted—success.
    The same applies to a woman who wants to be a “keeper” rather than a sports fish. You control what you can