When I recommended books, I forgot one:  the famous dating manual for “20-plus career women”.

The theory behind the book is simple.  Someone doesn’t call?  He’s just not that into you.  Someone keeps telling you they are busy?  Just not that into you.  Someone dating 17 other people of different sexes?  JNTIU.

This is an important lesson for 20-plus producers as well.

Want an investor to come to a reading and they aren’t responding to your postcards, emails and phone calls?  Want an actor to do your show and they blow off the audition?  Want the rights to a book and the agent never calls you back?  Sorry, but they are all just not that interested.

So what do you do?  Do you give up?  That’s sounds very anti-Ken, right?

You don’t have to give up, but you do have to invest your time and emotion wisely.  Why spend hours going after the same investor who isn’t responding when you can use the time to find others that might.  Why want an actor who disrespects your project by blowing off the audition?  Do you think his attitude will get better when you are in rehearsals?  Why start a negotiation with an agent if they’ve already made you feel like a call from them is a call from above?  They’ll get you to give away the store without even trying.

There will always be other investors, other actors, other projects, and yes other men (and women) that WILL be into you.

I know, you think that this investor, actor or project is “the one”, right?  Fine.  You can still be open to a relationship with them, as long as you’re OK if that relationship never materializes.  And most importantly, don’t let the fantasy of a future relationship slow you down.

For example:  I have the rights to Somewhere In Time.  What you don’t know is that they were denied to me the first time I asked.  After some post-rejection healing, I let go and pursued other things.  But once a year, in January, I sent the author a “Happy New Year” fax with an update on what I was doing.  It took five minutes to write, once a year.  No commitment and no expectations.

Four years later, and with a few shows under my belt, he called me.

When I answered the phone, I felt like a fourteen year old girl who had been asked to the Prom . . . by Zac Efron.

Finally, he was into me.  And it took me moving on for it to happen.