“What do men value?” I asked.

“Men believe value is created by accomplishment, and they have objectives for the women in their lives. If a woman meets the objectives, he assumes she loves him. If she fails to meet the objectives, he will assume she does not love him. The man assumes that if the woman loved him she would have tried harder and he always believes his objectives for her are reasonable.”

“What objectives?”

“The objectives are different for each man. Men rarely share these objectives because doing so is a recipe for disaster. No woman would tolerate being given a set of goals.”

“So what should a guy do if the woman in his life doesn’t meet these secret objectives? How can he get her to change?”

“He can’t,” he replied. “People don’t change to meet the objectives of other people. Men can be molded in small ways—clothing and haircuts and manners—because those things are not important to most men. Women can’t be changed at all.”

“I’m not hearing anything helpful here.”

“The best you can hope for in a relationship is to find someone whose flaws are the sort you don’t mind. It is futile to look for someone who has no flaws, or someone who is capable of significant change; that sort of person exists only in our imaginations.”

“Let’s say I find the person whose flaws I don’t mind,” I said. “The hard part is keeping her. I haven’t had much luck in that department.”

“A woman needs to be told that you would sacrifice anything for her. A man needs to be told he is being useful. When the man or woman strays from that formula, the other loses trust. When trust is lost, communication falls apart.”

“I don’t think you need to trust someone to communicate. I can talk to someone I distrust as easily as someone I trust.”

“Without trust, you can communicate only trivial things. If you try to communicate something important without a foundation of trust, you will be suspected of having a secret agenda. Your words will be analyzed for hidden meaning and your simple message will be clouded by suspicions.”

“I guess I can see that. How can I be more trusted?”

“Lie.”

“Now you’re kidding, right?” I asked.

“You should lie about your talents and accomplishments, describing your victories in dismissive terms as if they were the result of luck. And you should exaggerate your flaws.”

“Why in the world would I want to tell people I was a failure and an idiot? Isn’t it better to be honest?”

“Honesty is like food. Both are necessary, but too much of either creates discomfort. When you downplay your accomplishments, you make people feel better about their own accomplishments. It is dishonest, but it is kind.”

“This is good stuff. What other tips do you have?”

“You think casual conversation is a waste of time.”

“Sure, unless I have something to say. I don’t know how people can blab about nothing.”

“Your problem is that you view conversation as a way to exchange information,” he said.

“That’s what it is,” I said, thinking I was pointing out the obvious.

“Conversation is more than the sum of the words. It is also a way of signaling the importance of another person by showing your willingness to give that person your rarest resource: time. It is a way of conveying respect. Conversation reminds us that we are part of a greater whole, connected in some way that transcends duty or bloodline or commerce. Conversation can be many things, but it can never be useless.”

For the next few hours the old man revealed more of his ingredients for successful social living. Express gratitude. Give more than is expected. Speak optimistically. Touch people. Remember names. Don’t confuse flexibility with weakness. Don’t judge people by their mistakes; rather, judge them by how they respond to their mistakes. Remember that your physical appearance is for the benefit of others. Attend to your own basic needs first; otherwise you will not be useful to anyone else.

I didn’t know if I could incorporate his ingredients into my life, but it seemed possible.

Affirmations

“I’ve heard of something called affirmations,” I said, taking the opportunity to spelunk another tunnel in the old man’s brain. “You write down your goals fifteen times a day and then somehow they come true as if by magic. I know people who swear by it. Does that really work?”

“The answer is complicated.”

“I have time,” I said.

“People who use affirmations know what they want and are willing to work for it; otherwise they would not have the enthusiasm to write down their goals fifteen times every day. It should be no surprise that they have more success than the average person.”

“Because they work harder?”

“Because they know what they want,” he said. “The ability to work hard and make sacrifices comes naturally to those who know exactly what they want.

“Most people believe they have goals when, in fact, they only have wishes. They might tell you their goal is to get rich without working hard, without making sacrifices or taking risks. That is not a goal, it is a fantasy. Such people are unlikely to write affirmations daily because it would be too much effort. And they are unlikely to be successful in any big way.”

“So the affirmations are unnecessary?”

“They have a purpose. Writing your goals every day gives you a higher level of focus. It tunes your mind to better recognize opportunities in your environment.”

“What do you mean by tuning your mind?”

“Have you ever had the experience where you hear a strange word for the first time, and then soon afterward you hear the same word again?”

“That happens all the time,” I said. “It’s freaky. It’s as if hearing a word for the first time makes it appear everywhere. Like fescue. I never heard of that word until I saw it on a package of grass seed in the store last week. That night I was at a party and some guy used the word. I’m fairly sure I’ve never heard that word before in my entire life, then I hear it twice in a matter of hours. What are the odds of that?

“And last night I was at my neighbor’s house down the street, shooting some pool on his new table. I asked him if he ever played a game called foosball. It’s that table game where you use handles connected to little soccer players and try to kick a wooden ball into the other guy’s goal.”

His face said that he didn’t need to know the details of foosball table design.

“Anyway,” I continued, “we talked about foosball for twenty minutes, how we both played it in college but hadn’t seen a foosball table in years. I can’t remember the last time I uttered the word foosball. Fifteen minutes later, I’m walking home and something catches my eye in an upstairs window of a neighbor’s house. I’ll be darned if it wasn’t a bunch of kids playing foosball. I’ve gone past that house a thousand times and never seen that foosball table in the window before.”

“Your brain can only process a tiny portion of your environment,” he said. “It risks being overwhelmed by the volume of information that bombards you every waking moment. Your brain compensates by filtering out the 99.9 percent of your environment that doesn’t matter to you. When you took notice of the word fescue for the first time and rolled it around in your head, your mind tuned itself to the word. That’s why you heard it again so soon.”

“It’s still a coincidence. I don’t think people are saying fescue around me every day.”

“Yes, probability is still involved. But fescue and foosball were only a few of the unusual words and ideas that you tuned your brain to this week. The others didn’t cross your path again so you took no notice of their absence. When you consider all of the coincidences that are possible, it is not surprising that you experience a few every day.