Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

As I stepped onto the elliptical machine and finagled with plugging in my headphones to watch the 5 o’clock news, my gym bud, Michael, or worded on his name tag as MIKEY, approached with a wide smile.

Our eyes locked.

He asked me about my marital status and the ages of my two children. We had talked about them before, but I guess he forgot. “Divorced. Two boys, 10 and 12.”

The corners of his eyes turned down, as if a date canceled on him last minute.

“I broke off the relationship,” I said.

He seemed puzzled, and then all of his insight about relationships gushed out. “It’s the little things that make a relationship,” he said.

Uh-Huh, I thought, giving up on listening to the news. Keep going.

Without any prompting, he did. Key to sustaining a relationship, he said, were three little words. Forget “I love you.”  Try consistency, patience and determination.

I think that also applies to on-the-job relationships between an employer and employees.

During the job-seek phase, your determination keeps you focused to press forward, but you need patience so as not to appear desperate. Consistency plays a huge role throughout the interview process. The second you founder, you’re scratched off the list. Doesn’t it work that way in love, too?

Right on. “Consistency,” I said. I’d never heard that one but so true. The beginning of a relationship sets the tone for the long term.

He linked consistency with doing the little things. Surprising your special friend with something you know she’d like, or turning talk into action by following through with some of the things you’ve told her while out on a date. At work, I’ve got to hand it to the employees at my last job who brought in homemade cookies for no other reason that just because. None of them were laid-off.

Michael also stressed the importance of doing these things throughout a relationship, not just at the beginning.

I’d love a relationship like that, but what usually happens to me is that I get that kind of treatment in the beginning (or none at all, and that’s very worrisome), and then it slackens off.

One of my favorite surprises was when I taped a titillating welcome-home note to the front door of my boyfriend’s house after he’d been away for a week. We exchanged our passions that night.

He surprised me, too—by tracking me down at a hotel and sending me flowers before I spoke at a conference and giving me permission to spend $5,000 on an outfit for the conference.

Unfortunately, Burberry’s wouldn’t take his credit card over the phone, so I ended up getting a Hermes scarf. Still a nice touch and so thoughtful.

The relationship eventually ended, but I’ll never forget the little things: They’re big reminders of my desires for my next relationship, both at work and in bed.