Everything I Learned About Relationships Sucking on Dating
Nobody wants to think that they are bad at dating. We especially don’t want to think that we are bad in unsuccessful relationships. Fortunately, I made too many mistakes to ignore. This is what I learned about relationships, mostly when I ruined them first.
You need to serve something on the table
From a very young age, most of us are encouraged to think about what we want from a partner. Make a list and find someone to check all the boxes. What no one ever tells you (or at least they never told me) is that everyone else is making the same judgments about you. And, like it or not, you should have a decent answer when someone quietly asks, “Why should I date you?”
In my early years in high school, I didn’t get it. I thought I was cute and funny, so any girl I like will clearly want to date me. The first few times I was rejected, I was not ready for this. It never occurred to me that the girl might have some good reason not to be interested in me (or that she doesn’t need a reason, but I’ll come back to that).
When you are looking for someone to date, easy to get stuck on how good it is, if you do not stop to ask yourself: “What I suggest to the table?” At that time, I (and probably most schoolchildren ever) had many flaws that could be a good reason to refuse. I was obsessive. I obsessively read things. I didn’t have the best hygiene habits. Take your pick. Even if I did not have these objective problems, there could be many subjective reasons why the girl refused me. Maybe I’m not her type. Maybe she likes artists and I’m one of those analysts. Maybe she just doesn’t have these feelings! The fact that I think we would be good together does not mean that she likes it.
Here’s a golden rule that no one bothered to tell me until many years later: if you want to make a date, be with someone on a date. Take an interest in yourself. Find out how best to dress . Take an interesting hobby. Make new friends . Hell, shower more than once a week. The more you invest in yourself as a confident, holistic person, the more people it will attract to you. If the best thing you can offer to your partner is “I’m not dumb,” you are not putting a mark on someone’s dating wishlist. Also keep in mind that you will not be liked by everyone. Just like there are people you are not interested in, there are people you simply won’t be interested in, no matter how many cute traits you think you have. This brings me to the second important lesson I had to learn.
Learn to recognize and gracefully accept rejection
Since I thought the benefits of dating me were obvious, I naturally found it difficult to understand why I was rejected as often as I was. This is fine. Most people do not receive a detailed account of why they were denied. However, it also led me to believe that the refusal must have been a mistake. Every romantic comedy I’ve ever seen has said that the best relationship starts with a woman rejecting a guy at least a thousand times. As a child, I didn’t think it was disgusting to be persistent despite a refusal. I thought it was charming.
As a result, I never moved on. I asked the same girl over and over. My quiet addiction would make it uncomfortable for me to form good friendships. The main problem with this thinking is that it completely ignores her decision to say no. Even if she made it clear that she was not interested, I did not accept this answer. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that this is a huge red flag. If a guy is reluctant to make a “No” when it comes to a date, what other decisions is he likely to ignore?
I had to understand that taking rejection at face value is not weakness or shame. No one needs to justify their decision to reject someone, and it is not romantic to keep stalking the same person for months or years. It’s creepy and it gets haunting sooner than you might imagine. This is especially difficult for young (and older) men to learn because we are raised to be “stalkers” and “persistent.” However, anyone who can’t make someone’s decision not to date him will probably have no luck next time.
It’s a shame, because I also learned that getting rejected is liberating in a way. When you can accept rejection as a normal, natural part of dating that doesn’t judge you as a failure, you can move on. You can explore other options. When you expect one person (who has already said “no”) to say “yes,” all your happiness depends on him. When you accept your own rejection, you can take your pursuit of happiness into your own hands.
Feeling jealous probably says more about you than it does about them.
By the time I had my first girlfriend after school, I was able to clean up a bit, develop some hobbies and start feeling better. However, I was still tormented by uncertainty. One night I was jealous that she was hanging out with an ex at a swing dance event. As far as I know, she did nothing inappropriate to him, but I still felt sad and uncomfortable when I saw her dancing with him. So I asked her to stop.
She broke up with me very quickly. It was the right call. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, what I just asked for was not a secondary favor. I just discovered that I think my feelings of jealousy are more important than her choice of friends. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She didn’t cheat, she didn’t even flirt with him. She just danced. But since it made me feel insecure, I decided it was okay if I tried to control her behavior.
In fact, my feelings of jealousy spoke much more about how insecure I was than about her intentions. Over time, I had to learn that feeling jealous does not automatically mean that my position is correct. Like any other emotion, it is an indicator of a problem. Maybe it’s insecurity, maybe it’s a trust issue, or maybe I’m just too controlling. Rather than forcing the other person to change, I had to examine my own jealousy to figure out what the underlying problem was.
Through this prism, jealousy becomes an excellent diagnostic tool. He can quickly tell you what is threatening you. I don’t tend to get jealous when my girlfriend is into a board game. We both love them! But I can envy if she gets excited about meeting her super hot and super smart friend. One of these things seems threatening to me. Do not have another one.
However, the feeling of being threatened and threatened is not always the same. Trying to understand why you are jealous can help you understand what scares you about the relationship. When you name the main problem, you can solve it directly. Even if what you fear turns out to be true (sometimes they do cheat), you may find out what you need to change about yourself – or what to look for in your next relationship – by first evaluating your own feelings instead. pounce on someone else.
Keeping quiet about your problems won’t help anyone.
I may have royally screwed up a lot on dating in my years, but at least I never let it be said that I couldn’t study. In the end, I began to wait before expressing all the emotions. I didn’t jump to conclusions or try to control other people’s behavior. However, I started to go too far in a different direction. I got to the point where I never brought up any issues that I had.
Although I had learned not to overreact to every emotion, I began to call all new, not saying a word. Whenever something upset or bothered me, I kept it to myself or, worse, rationalized it. It got to the point where I never said that they did something wrong. Of course, I was not very good at letting go of things, and this led to several occasions where I broke down and started a fight over an issue that she was unaware of . I stayed in a relationship with at least one girl longer than I should. None of us wanted to give up, but it was obvious to us and everyone around us that it wasn’t working.
Hiding their problems to themselves did not help anyone. Instead, I had to learn to identify the real problems I had and raise them constructively . I began to take time to reflect on what I was feeling, instead of expressing my disappointment the moment I felt it. Once I knew the underlying problem, solving it was not so much a struggle as a discussion.
It sounds corny, but problems don’t go away just because you don’t talk about them. In fact, the less you talk about them, the worse they get. In any stable relationship, ideally, both parties should be able to express their opinions when they have a problem. This is not always the most comfortable or funniest conversation, but it prevents more serious problems in the future .
At the end of the day, to be honest about the problems that I did lead to more breaks. This was my biggest fear, but like rejection, I found it to be purely positive. I have remained friends with several exes, and now our friendship is better than the forced relationship we tried to maintain. Allowing yourself to openly admit your problems gives you the freedom to say, “It doesn’t work,” and to embrace the changing status quo.
Now I have a stable, happy relationship. I’m probably messing up something, but I have fewer problems than before. The most important thing I have learned is that there is always room for improvement. When I was young, I thought I was a trap. Now I know that I am a guy who needs to work on some things. Fortunately, being perfect is not a prerequisite for any relationship.