mind: it motivates action to achieve a goal, thrives on
achievement, and comes from a place of desire and confidence.
Active interest wants to serve, while receptive interest wants
to be served. Receptive interest is what we feel when we are
openly considering the value of what is being offered: It is
motivated to create opportunities to receive, thrives in response
to support, and comes from a place of preference and worthi-
ness.
These two kinds of interest are reciprocal in their effect on
each other. When a man is very actively interested in a woman,
his active interest will usually generate feelings of receptive
interest in her. If a woman is receptively interested in a man,
it will generate his active interest in her.
A woman’s receptive interest in a man
generates his active interest in her.Let’s look at a basic example. A man asks a woman for her
number. He has his goal in mind and thus he is actively inter-
ested. A woman’s response is naturally to consider the request.
Her interest is receptive; she has no goal in mind, no hidden
agenda, but instead reflects on whether she would like to talk
further with this man. She notices how she feels about it and
then decides whether to give out her number.
The man’s confidence, which allows him to risk possible
rejection to ask a woman for her number, generates in a woman
the reassuring feeling that she is desirable. When she considers
his request and gives him her number, his confidence is in-
creased. Just as his active interest made her feel special, her
receptive interest generated increasing confidence in him.
It makes a woman feel special when a man is
willing to risk rejection to get to know her.THE DYNAMICS OF MALE AND FEMALE DESIRE / 179