Getting along with the other sex is one of the most important skills you will ever learn—if you do learn it.
If you fail to achieve a good adjustment it will show up in other aspects of your life. Failure to get along with others is undoubtedly one of the biggest reasons why people fail at their jobs. Far more people are dropped from their positions or are passed over in awarding promotions because of personality inadequacies than are dropped because of technical incompetence. The person who can’t get along well on a job is usually not a good risk in marriage. And the person who cannot get along with acquaintances is usually not a good risk for a job or for marriage.
Likewise, when you find a happily married person you will also usually find a person who is happy in his work and in his social contacts. And whether or not you get along with people—particularly of the other sex—depends primarily upon the sort of training you had in childhood. Professor Terman found that happily married people were people whose own parents had been happily married ... were people who had a great deal of love and affection for their parents ... were people who had been punished only mildly and infrequently by their parents and had been disciplined firmly but not harshly. It is not impossible to replace bad traits with good but it will become increasingly difficult with each passing year.
How do you impress people of the other sex? Did you ever stop to ask yourself that? To find the answer you will have to adopt the attitude Socrates is alleged to have recommended: “Know thyself.”
Have you ever stopped to make an inventory of your assets and liabilities? Perhaps you have traits which you have lived with so long that you aren’t aware of them, but which greatly annoy people you want to know better. Or perhaps the traits are not downright offensive but weaken your appeal. The test in this chapter, “Do You Have a Negative or Positive Personality?” may help you in making an inventory.
If you feel something is holding you back from popularity with the other sex try to get to the root of your trouble. If people do not ask you out, why don’t they? If some dislike or avoid you, what is the explanation? If some people seem merely to tolerate you, what is the trouble? If you feel you do not have as much influence in your group as you would like to, what is undermining your influence? Below we are going to point out a dozen of the major trouble-making characteristics. Perhaps some of them may apply to you.
Do You Feel Uncomfortable in the Presence of the Opposite Sex? Perhaps you are haunted by deep feelings of inferiority, feelings which may come from your lack of association—compared to other persons your own age—with the opposite sex, or perhaps you have been thrown into a more “sophisticated” group than you were accustomed to. Another possibility is that you lack the knowledge to intermingle suavely. Perhaps you still feel clumsy—and must watch your feet—while dancing. Perhaps you dread the ceremony of introducing people because you are vague on the etiquette involved. Perhaps you are not sure you are dressed appropriately for the occasion. Perhaps you don’t know when to use the right fork or spoon. Perhaps you are not quite sure how to act in saying good night to a date, or how to thank a hostess for a delightful evening.
The answer to this type of problem is simple. If you feel ill at ease because you feel you are a poor dancer, then learn to be a better dancer. Take lessons, or simply practice on your own living-room floor. If it is etiquette that bothers you read any of a dozen books on the subject, and watch carefully how others around you behave. One more thing—if you are haunted by feelings of inferiority, learn to do some one thing superlatively well, even if it is only table tennis or gin rummy. This will bring you recognition from the group and ease your feelings of self-consciousness.
General Eisenhower has said that self-confidence is the greatest asset one can have in the world. John Powers, originator of the famed Powers Model Agency, tells his new models that the biggest thing they have to learn is self-assurance, and he quotes to them General Eisenhower’s remark.