What are some of the things a man can do to get a girl in a receptive mood for a proposal? Here are a few:
—If he is a shrewd, practical psychologist he can detect the chief source of her feelings of inferiority. Most girls feel inferior about something, usually something about their appearance since that looms so important to them. Perhaps they are acutely conscious of big hands or thick ankles or mouse-colored hair. In such cases the man should reserve his most enthusiastic compliments for those sites of anxiety. He does not need to mention them specifically, but he should word the compliments in such a way that those features are obviously included in his admiration. The girl will be so grateful that she will want to be with the man as much as she can just to hear him say such nice things.
—The man should be “romantic” if it kills him. He should remember that women inherently are much more sentimental than men. If it weren’t for feminine sentiment there never would have been a Valentine’s Day. The actual sex urge is not as strong in girls as it is in men, so they are much more interested in the forms of courting than in sex expression itself. They want to be told again and again that you adore them.
—The man, if he is adept, can play effectively on the girl’s feeling of insecurity. Security is the most important thing in the world to women. Though girls can make their own living nowadays, most of them still feel their greatest chance for real security lies in marriage. How can the man play on these feelings of insecurity?—by talking to the girl in detail about her job, about her aspirations, her plans for the future. He can accomplish the same result by the reverse technique of talking casually and impersonally about all the things that stand for security in a woman’s mind. He can analyze house plans in a magazine with her; he can talk about his own future at his job and the prospects that some day he will have a job commanding respect and a substantial income.
—The man should be self-assured with the girl and just a bit masterful. Despite all the feminine emancipation of the past few decades, women admire he-men and sometimes yearn to be swooped up, whisked away and relieved of all their problems.
—He should be considerate and gentle with the girl and be careful that he observes all the amenities of politeness. Women are more impressed by etiquette than men.
—He should be careful not to reveal any anxieties he has about his job or his future generally.
—He should let the idea seep out that he is now in a marriageable state of mind and that other girls seem interested in him. Girls have a more fiercely competitive spirit in their mate-seeking than men.
For people who are still a little baffled about the whole business of courtship, we can pass on a tried and true formula for winning a mate. We have seen it work wonders in scores of cases.
The amusing thing is that it was not designed for snaring mates but for snaring customers for American products such as refrigerators. It is sometimes called the AIDA advertising formula, named from the first letters of the formula’s four key words—Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. To get a person to buy a refrigerator you must first attract his attention, then generate an interest, instill a desire to own the refrigerator, and then give him the final prod that will impel him to go in and lay down his hard-earned money for the machine.