Last week I skyped with Kelly; a bright, educated, attractive single woman in her mid-twenties. She shared information with me about her love life: a break-up about six months ago with her college sweetheart, a couple of guy-friends that she was ambivalently interested in, and a rather uneventful date she went on last weekend.

What stood out to me as the common-link between each of Kelly’s frustrations about men, dating, and relationships was: she constantly felt into the trap of beingn a “fun, cool” girl that’s “flexible.” Here’s an example:

Last weekend while Kelly was out with friends she met Jim at a concert.  Jim’s friends happened to be standing near Kelly’s friends, the two of them started a conversation and before you know it they spend the next 30 minutes chatting away.  They laughed and stared into each other’s eyes. Jim’s friends decided to move to get closer to the stage, so he asked Kelly if she wanted to hang out the next night and if he can have her phone number.

Kelly agrees and gladly gives him her number. Then, Jim says “well, I kind of told a friend that I would to to a party with him, but we could go to dinner or something before that?” Kelly says “okay,” and they agree to meet up the following night at a local restaurant.

Flash forward to the next night: Kelly texts Jim to confirm that they are on 20 minutes before the time they set to meet, and gets no response. She decides to head over to the restaurant, anyway. She arrives on time, Jim is not there. She waits, 5 minutes, 10 minutes and then calls him. He answers the phone and says “I hate to make you wait, but my friend locked his keys in the car and I won’t be able to make it for at least another 20 minutes.”

Kelly thinks about it, she’s been needing to catch up with some friends over the phone, so she can do that while she waits. She replies “that’s okay, I can wait, I will see you here soon.”

Twenty minutes later Jim arrives. Throughout dinner he is texting on his phone as Kelly talks. She realizes that although she has asked him several questions about himself he has not really reciprocated. In fact he’s barely asked her any questions at all. The date concludes, rather uninterestingly they part ways and that’s the end.

What went wrong here? They were having a great time at the concert, they’d really hit it off? When did it go down hill?

Here is the problem. The main message Kelly sent Jim is:

“My time is neither valuable nor important. I don’t see it as valuable, so why should you?”

This may seem cruel or mean, but it’s true: Others only place the value on your time that you place on it yourself.  What she can do next time to show that she values her time and herself is:

1.) Do not agree to dates that are “squeezed in” or in a restricted time frame- it’s a date, not a meeting, if it is enjoyable you’ll want to extended it… go out for ice cream after the movie or have another leisurely glass of wine after dinner. Having a specific end time kills the opportunity for romance.

2.) Do not sit around and wait on someone who does not have the decency to call you or at least text to let you know he/she is running late. He/ she is not worth your time if they don’t respect you enough to show common courtesy.

3.) Don’t chase anyone. Conversations are give and take, if you find that you’re doing all of the work to keep a conversation going—stop. See what happens, maybe the other person will pick up the slack, maybe not.  Either way don’t put in too much effort when the other person is rude enough to be texting other people during a date .

Moral of the story:  Non-verbal communication is just as powerful as the things we say. Value you yourself and your time, others will follow. And those that don’t are worthy of your time anyway.