Pittsburg Shooting - The ConsumHERist

Posted on | August 6, 2009 |

by Delia Passi

The tragedy this week in Pittsburg was very disturbing. A lonely middle aged man acted upon his compulsion to be heard and shot to death three women and then himself at an aerobics class. According to reports he was unhappy about the hopelessness of his existence which was centered around his lack of female companionship. Although he’d had dates, he hadn’t, by his own blog account, had a girlfriend in over twenty years. He seemed mystified by his inability to connect with women. His photo didn’t show a man that women would be turned off by so his problem was possibly just poor communications skills.

I couldn’t help but wonder that the event might have been avoided if he had only found some useful advice on communicating effectively with women. So many men struggle with interpersonal communications skills with women, it is tragic that one might have reached a point of senseless violence as an outlet for his frustrations.

Only days ago I had talked about developing a set of simple rules of thumb for men to be mindful of when communicating on a personal level with women, and planned to create a short video on the subject. Here are the rules, using the letters of my name as an aid:

D - Don’t Interrupt: Men interrupt each other in conversation routinely, but women don’t appreciate it.

E - Eye Contact: Women appreciate when a man looks her in the eye when talking to her. Don’t be looking around.

L - Listen: This should be the man’s mantra when communicating with women. Talk less, listen more.

I - Image: Look your best. Sloppiness doesn’t count with most women. Being clean and neat does.

A - Attitude: Be positive, friendly and non-threatening. Carry yourself with confidence.

If these sound obvious and simple to the ladies reading this, well, they are, but they aren’t always so obvious and simple to men who haven’t gotten comfortable following them. They should also sound similar to my advice on selling to women, as the same practices apply any time you are communicating with women.

If you know men, young or old, who struggle with their success with women, please share my simple advice. If they practice these five DELIA rules, they will likely find they can have better success with the women they meet, socialize and work with.

Delia Passi, Founder of WomenCertified® and author of Winning the Toughest Customer: The Essential Guide to Selling to Women is a regular columnist on ReachingWomenDaily. Delia can be reached at delia@medelia.com.