Nobody Wants to Date the Angry and Jaded
If you feel like you’ve been on dates for ages and you’re starting to feel frustrated and frustrated about it all, it might be time to take a step back and do a little recalibration. We project what we feel onto others; people can sense your negative outlook on things a mile away, which ruins any chance of success. It seems counterintuitive, but the more you act like it’s not working out, the longer you’re likely to be alone.
Upload any dating or romance story online and you will see an irresistible mountain of negative comments about dating being “only good for attractive people,” how the opposite sex “always makes life difficult,” and how they must have drawn a short straw. Of course, some of them are just people who need an outlet where they can give an outlet (and that’s okay), but many truly believe in what they are saying. They have a “it’s not me, it’s them” mentality, and the truth is that it only makes their situation worse.
Part of the problem lies in our attitude towards the unpredictable world of dating. Even when we just hit the stage and true love feels like it’s just a romantic candlelit dinner, we tend to believe that we deserve someone’s love just because we gave it a chance. This right is wrong and dangerous. When we don’t receive what we thought we were lamented, we think the universe is holding on – as if others have received a gift from us. “Why did the gods of love leave me!” you scream. But that is not what is happening. Success, even in the dating world, is not given – it is earned. Not necessarily through self-improvement or buzzwords from some vulgar educational video, but through persistence and willingness to show your true self to others in the hope that they will do the same. Like birds performing a mating dance day after day, or deer standing still during the rutting season, we must try, we must do our best, and we must maintain a somewhat naive belief that the next time will be better.
When you let dating upset you, it poisons your point of view. You think: “Well, it didn’t work out last time, so it won’t work out this time either.” You lose hope and become more and more angry. You begin to view rejection as a personal attack rather than a simple inappropriateness, and you begin to defend yourself so that you don’t have to feel this way again. First, you build up your defenses like a thick castle wall. After all, how can someone offend you if you don’t let them in? Then, like a volley of arrows, you pre-emptively strike anyone who gets too close. You project your dissatisfaction and immediately tell them with body language, sarcastic comments and low self-esteem that you think this won’t work, that you’re not good enough, and that dating is just a bunch of bullshit anyway. Well guess what? People don’t react very well to this. They see a dark cloud of approaching volleys from afar, they feel the arrows shoot past their cheeks, and they turn away, looking for a place to be met.
It is not easy to be vulnerable, and it is not easy to maintain hope, especially when you feel like a fool over and over again. But that’s what needs to be done to get through this glove, no matter how long it is. It is not you against the world; it is you against yourself . As the sage Ice Cube once said, “You better test yourself before you destroy yourself.”