That’s the title of a John Gottman book that I just read. He’s the researcher who’s profiled in the bestselling book “Blink”, the one who can predict with 90% accuracy which marriages will end in divorce based on viewing just a few minutes of them talking, and who’s found that there needs to be a ratio of at least 5 positive to 1 negative interaction to keep a relationship healthy. In “The Relationship Cure,” he says that the key to successful relationships lies in the way we make and respond to bids for connection. These bids can be verbal or non-verbal, sexual or non, and we sometimes do them overtly and consciously, but often unconsciously. There are three ways to respond to a bid: by turning toward (responding in kind), by turning away (discounting, ignoring or just failing to notice), and by turning against (being sarcastic, combative, or aggressively dismissive.) Gottman says successful couples “bid” 100 times in ten minutes; less satisfied couples, as you’d imagine, do it far less.
While I wasn’t consistently captivated by the book (I have to confess to some skimming), I love the idea of bids as a simple lens to view relationships. So often, people bid for connection in unhelpful or even damaging ways (like the angry spouse who’s really saying, deep down, “Pay attention to me!” but he/she is making the other person want to turn away or against even more.) If people can realize this about themselves and their partners, it would create a lot more compassion. In the days after reading the book, I found myself noticing my own bids, and the bids by my partner. While we’re still in the early stage of our relationship (less than two years) so there’s already a lot of turning toward, I think my awareness reinforced it even more. Here’s to keeping the auction going strong.