Ignoring The Bid

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and right after you finish, the other person starts talking about a different topic? I mean the moment you stop. It’s as if he didn’t hear you at all (I’m going with “he”. Could just as easily be “she”)?

How’s that make you feel?

Or maybe he looks down at his phone or, worse, takes a call right in the middle of the conversation.

Maybe he snickers, laughs when what you said isn’t funny or replies in a sarcastic way.

Ever happen to you? And if so, how did you feel?

People who study relationships and what types of behavior predict the end of one, call this “ignoring a bid”.

A bid is when someone says something to you expecting you to respond. When you don’t respond or respond in an unexpected way, the signal you’re sending is you don’t care, not interested.

Do that enough times, and your relationship crumbles.

Any relationship can succumb to ignoring the bid. Business, personal. Doesn’t matter.

Ignoring the bid happens in email and text, at least to me, way too much. So, I don’t use either as a form of conversation. They’re great for info delivery, getting a question answered, etc but horrible if you expect a bid response.

“Did you get my text?”

“Uh, yeah why?”

“You didn’t reply …left me wondering if you got it.”

“Oh, well, yeah, I never reply to things like that. I just assume you know I got it.”

Drives me nuts.

Your body sends you “bids” all day long.

You probably know a lot of them. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, too hot, too cold, too bright, too dark. Most people respond to these bids because they understand them.

But when it comes to other things, more subtle bids, we’re not so good at noticing and if we do, we often ignore the bid.

You’re out for a run and this same “bid” keeps showing up. Your knee hurts. A little. It’s not so much that you have to stop, sit down, rub it, call for help or anything. It’s just an annoying gnat in your knee.

This is a bid. It’s your knee saying, “Hey, how’re you doing? Remember me? Hey buddy let’s talk!!”

Now, if a person asked you “How’re you doing?” you probably wouldn’t give them a blow by blow of your day or life. It’s how we start a conversation. It’s a bid to engage. Your knee is doing the same thing. Sending you a bid, granted you have to translate it, for you to stop and pay attention.

Other body bids include stiffness, aching, swelling, weakness, tingling, numbness.

The tricky part is that some body bids can sound like trouble when they’re not. After you push through a tough workout, your quad muscles are sore two days later. Sitting down and getting up is hard to do. You know what that means though. That pain is not a”bad” pain. It’s an over worked muscle and 90% of the time, it resolves.

A friend of mine, many years ago, complained to me once that her arms itched. Just out of the blue, no reason she could think of.

I asked her if she was allergic to anything. Not that she knew of.

Changed soap or laundry detergent? Nope.

How about lotions? Nope. Diet the same? Yep.

Been outside in shrubs or bushes? Nope. Camping recently? Nope. Just showed up one day.

Hmmm…that sounds like an unusual bid. Odd. I urged her to go get it checked out. She eventually did but not right away. Turns out she had a rare form of bile duct cancer. She died about two years later.

Ignore the bid, as I have from time to time, and you usually pay a price later. By not ignoring the bid, you can keep a problem from escalating.

That’s all I have for now.

Thanks for reading.

PS – If you’re interested in what I do for exercise and training, go here. For my books, go here

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