The Best Dating Advice

Halloween may still be months away. And you find the idea of dressing up in a costume to go out in public and garner the favor of strangers galling.

Yet, that is exactly what we all do, everyday. We “put on our best face”, “dress for success” and “take on the world. The truth is, we are all insecure (and some would say we’re conditioned to be this way from an early age). It’s in the way we are raised. In generations gone by, stepping out of your cultural norms or expectations could lead to public shaming. Of course this only works if you care about what others think.

There’s a school of thought that says this desire for getting other people’s approval is hardwired in us from the days we had a tribal culture when it was a struggle just to stay alive. Here, being in everyone’s good graces meant you had the protection and resources of the group to help you live another day.

We remain affected by this desire today. We are still under a lot of pressure to make sure we are well received by strangers, whether it’s a job interview or a first date. If we completely tank, on an emotional level, we feel that loss, that primal pain of not being accepted, deeply, as though those tribal conditions still existed.

Unfortunately, this emotional angst pops up continually in our dating lives. We have given it much more authority than it deserves in our modern times and even tied it in how we perceive ourselves. Many of us, fueled by this innate desire to be accepted, are prone to bargaining away the very thing that others find attractive about us.

When we attempt to trade our power in a relationship for acceptance, we present a less than desirable picture of who and what we are. The situation reeks of someone who does not value themselves and feels they have to resort to bribery to gain affection. Do Not let this be you. You’re better than that. I know you are.

The mask you want to wear; the portrait you want to convey, the one that turns heads, is one of cavalier disregard balanced with an up-beat attitude, a positive outlook, self-determined action, an insatiable curiosity about the world & the people in it, and a fixed determination to accomplish the goals you have decided are worthwhile.

Show the world this is the person you are and they will “beat down your door” to meet you.

In our point-and-click world of instant gratification and multiple choice living, were faced with more options about what to have, be and do than any other generation in history.

This is especially true when it comes down to choosing a mate. With the inroduction of the internet and the widespread use social media, our options have exploded. Where you were once limited to meeting someone in your geographical area, you can now meet people from all over the world.

Internet Dating, whose humble roots started in the back pages of the local newspaper classified section has lost the stigma of “desperation” and become and accepted and valuable time-management tool for students and young urban professionals on the go.

The promise is: your ability to meet thousands of singles who exactly match the criteria you have for a mate. This has lead some to adopt a “checklist” approach to dating.

The problem is: the longer your checklist is, the less people you will find who meet all your criteria. While this may help you to narrow the field of unlimited choices initially, you need to understand that as you add more attributes, you will be disqualifying people whom under different circumstances you might have called “The One”.

If you use your checklist as a “guide” and not a “must have” list of qualities, you will avoid the trap that many singles find themselves in while on their quest for love. Many times our lists contain attributes that are found across a range of personality types, and could never be realistically embodied by one person.

Here’s what to do:

Take your checklist and segregate it into 3 sections. Choose only your top five :
“must have” qualities
“would be nice to have” qualities and
“better not have” qualities

Keep it simple and you will find you are meeting a lot of potential partners. There are a lot of great people out there.

If you “buy in” to the media and societal message that your extensive checklist “soul mate” is “just around the corner”, you may find yourself being hyper-critical with the people you do date, to the point where you are continually disqualifying potential candidates based on minor flaws and never quite finding that perfect relationship you are so desperately chasing.

…never let it rest? Okay, that’s a good theory when it comes to working on your school projects or business ideas, but when it comes to romance, it could be recipe for perpetual singledom?

As you gain more experience in your dating life and attract higher and higher quality lovers, the more temptation there is to “trade up” when there’s a lull in the relationship rather than address the issue; even when, by most accounts, “everything’s great”.

Six months in to a stable, fulfilling relationship, shortly after the initial “honeymoon” phase, you may wake up one morning and ask yourself, “I wonder what else is out there?” Whether you act on that question or not may depend on how deeply influenced you are by the media reinforced cultural messages that:

1) there is always someone better for you out there
2) your odds of finding this person is inevitable given the number of singles looking for love in all the wrong places.
3) while your waiting to find your soul mate, you will have a great time hanging out with your single friends.

Fear of settling for someone who is less than perfect in every area and the belief that there are untold thousands of singles who will meet your specific romantic requirements keep many singles single.

The free and easy living depicted by Hollywood screenwriters and the romantic fantasies perpetuated by our television dramas and reality shows have somehow become the baseline expectations for our everyday lives. However, when the day-to-day reality does not match up with our entertainment ideals we are often left feeling disappointed; questioning and even devaluing the lives we have.

Don’t get caught in the trap of comparing your situation to the idealized versions coming through your television screen.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the best ideas for approaching and engaging someone you don’t know.

However, the best techniques in the world won’t help you, if you are not able to go over and say “something”. This is where a lot of people, especially men get stuck. Not only can they find it physically stressful, but hate the thought of making themselves vulnerable. Usually, they wind up talking themselves out of it, coming up with all kinds of reasons why they might get shot down.

I have been guilty of this in the past too. One particular St. Patrick’s day, I happened to be in a pub just after they finished serving breakfast. I spied a pretty colleen with light in her eyes, a seductive smile and a brazen attitude. She was there with some friends, her father and one of his friends.

I managed to befriend the group, but my fears had kept me from saying anything to the girl. At one point I end up in another section of the bar with the father’s friend, an Irish octogenarian. I confided in him my situation. He took a breath and looked at me with a combination of pity and understanding and offered his advice: “A faint heart never won a fair maid”.

While it hardly seemed helpful at the time, it served to remind me over the years that I had to get out of my own head and have the courage to take some action, if I was going to successfully interact with the opposite sex (let alone go home them).

So here’s your three step action plan:

1) Turn off, blot out, or kill off those nagging voices in your head that tell you you can’t do it or it won’t work out. They’re not real anyways.

2) Have something to say, preferably bold and humorous. Rehearse it beforehand. Know what direction you want to take the conversation.
This will be an enormous help when your emotions kick up and try to drag you away.

3) Realize that nothing bad is going to happen. Relax and enjoy the moment. See where the conversation leads you. This is just another human being you’re talking to, with all same hopes and fears as the rest of us.

So, you’ve been dating someone for a few months when you suddenly have the realization that this person is just like the last person you dated. And the person before that, and before that and so on. Or are they?

Why is it that no matter what some people do, they always manage to attract the exact same type of relationship, jobs and circumstances they just spent the last six months trying to get away from?

Well it’s not as bewildering as it might first seem. Just like I talk about in “7 Tips To For A Killer First Date“, while you are growing up you absorb a lot of information about how life works from your environment and these “imprints” affect your choices to this day. Even though you no longer have any connection to that original experience.

When it comes to romance, you likely have certain preferences that you screen for when selecting a partner. Some are conscious choices you have made over the years and others are unconscious decisions based on these childhood imprints and your beliefs about what you deserve, how happy you think you should be, etc…

Relationships are dynamic. We are constantly adjusting our actions and communication. In a game of badminton, one player lobs the shuttlecock across the net to the other player. The other player interprets the aim and responds, adjusting his serve. Something not so different is happening when you interact with your significant other. If you are constantly & consistently communicating in the same way and doing the same things every time with each successive partner, it might not surprise you that they all start to react to you in a similar fashion.

Another one of the amazing things our brains do is that they love to pick out and analyze patterns, sometimes where none exist (conspiracy theories, anyone?). Part of that is taking your experiences from past relationships and pointing out when situations seem familiar.

So, if it seems like you are always in the same relationship, even though the people are different, you might want to stop a moment and see if it could have anything to do with:

1) Your Preferences: Your conscious and unconscious decisions about who you want to be with.
2) Your Communication: Are you indirectly creating the same circumstances over and over?
3) Your Beliefs: Are you placing limits on them or yourself because of how you think the world should work?

Any one of them could be the reason you’re getting that oh-so-comfortable familiar feeling mixed in with a heavy dose of unnerving awareness.