Mediation and Dating, Part Two

In my last blog I wrote about dating and the mediator. I recently went out on a date that once again showed me how relevant mediation is to everything.

I met this guy; we really hit it off and decided to go out on a date. We decided to meet at a middle-priced restaurant in an area of town where there really weren't inexpensive choices for dinner. I let him pick the restaurant figuring he would be paying and I didn’t want to pick out a pricey place at his expense. We have dinner – its great. The food is good; the conversation is good, and I’m pretty sure the attraction is there. The bill comes and he asks me, “Do you want me to pay or do you want to split it?” I just looked at him. I had no idea what to say to that. I thought things were going well. I kind stumbled over some words before saying, “Uh, well, if you get dinner, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.” He seemed very reluctant to pay. We dance around the paying and finally he agrees to pick up the check. I felt so bad about the fact that he didn’t want to pay that I had the waiter split it. He had gone to the bathroom during this exchange and was surprised to see the two checks when he returned. He asked me why I split the checks and I told him it was because he seemed very resistant to paying. I also told him I was confused by that because we seemed to be getting along very well and in my experience you only split the bill if at least one person isn’t feeling the date. He told me he was very much enjoying the date but in his experience you always split the check on the first date. Oh! (forehead smack) Unspoken rules!

Yes, that’s right, unspoken rules almost ruined my date. If I had not expressed how I felt about the check then its possible the date would have ended right after dinner and we would not have talked again. Luckily, we did discuss our own personal dating rules and have since gone out on more great dates.

This instance made me realize how important it is to get clients to reveal their unspoken rules. How many times in mediation have we realized the root conflict stems from different ways of approaching the world and different expectations of behavior that result from having unspoken rules? How many times do conflicts appear to be misunderstandings gone horribly wrong? Too bad we don’t come with manuals.

Mandy Stallings