September 27, 2012

• Everybody Play the Game

  [CM] has some friends who are going through relationship issues at the moment.  One of them has just started dating someone; one looks like he’s being “friend-zoned”; and the final one seems like he’s just been rejected.

  I don’t often extend myself as a dating advisor, but here are some general thoughts about things that I know I see as consnant problems with other peoples relationships.  They probably apply more for guys than girls because I speak from my experience as a guy, but you could probably genderswap the advice and use it anyways.

  In no particular order, here are my thoughts.  This list isn’t exhaustive by any means, it’s just what came up in thinking about their situations.

   

  -=-=-=-Don’t have standards that are too high.
  This is for all you people out there who are looking for Ms. Perfect.  If you’re having trouble getting a relationship off the ground, maybe you have to consider a few things first?  Such as: are you worthwhile to Ms. Perfect?  While it’s true that a girl might go for someone who is a total underachiever for whatever reason, it’s also true that if you’re going to scoff at more ‘average’ girls you better be pretty over average in all the ways that count to her to make the grade.

  If you’re not willing to do things such as keep your personal life in order, maintain a job, keep good hygeine, have interesting hobbies, keep yourself in good shape, etc– why should you be deserving of someone who perfect, when you’re so imperfect yourself?

  Ask what YOU can do for your GIRL.  And if you can’t do much? You probably need to work on becoming more of a man, because you probably don’t deserve her.

  In that case, maybe you need to start working on yourself, instead of trying to find a Ms. Perfect who is all amazing and who just happens to like you for the underachiever you are.  You don’t get a girl with luck– that’s just what gets you the first meeting.  What maintains the relationship is the substance of your character, interacting with hers.

  -=-=-=-Don’t have standards that are too low.
  This is addressed to people who date people left right and centre.  There is one advantage to this method– you do get a lot of experience in dealing with a lot of different types of people, which is very important.  Relationship experience  helps you define very specifically what it is that you do and do not like in a relationship.

  However, if your relationships tend to be short and involve more sex than anything  substantial, chances are you’re going to start developping a dysfunctional view of relationships.  Which is fine, if you want to have short lived relationships all your life.  But if you want to settle down?  You need to believe in some sense of permanency and stability, and some sort of substantial, sustainable  goodness.

  You need to feel that you deserve a happy ending, and you need to define a GOOD happy ending.  And then, you must make the promise to yourself to stop settling for bad relationships.

  Quantity doesn’t substitute for quality.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-If your method isn’t working, change it.

  The two above rules are basically stating the same thing– if your way of doing relationships is just leaving you constantly heartbroken, you need to have the courage to try something different.  That doesn’t mean to just date a different person– it means to consciously make the effort to challenge yourself and date a different TYPE of person.  Try a different age group,  ethnic background, socio-economic-class, education level– these things have a huge impact on personality, and force you to evaluate your own personality because you’ll necessarily have to interact differently.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-Deal with your self-esteem / Cultivate Substance

  The  above problems usually happen as manifestations of a single root problem– self-esteem issues.

  If you don’t already know what’s causing your self-esteem issues (we all have them)  one of the way  identify what you’re great at.  Now, try to function in your life without what you’re great at.  As in… imagine yourself at a first date, and not being allowed to talk about how you’re a rocket scientist.  What’s your backup plan?

   

  Everyone has talents, but what a lot of people tend to do is overuse them to compensate for their weaknesses, or to cover them up. In a worst case scenario, being great at something  defines you to the point where you’re oblivious of other worldviews, because it makes you insufferably passionate about something.  If your first love is a particular hobby, then real relationships aren’t for you.

  Relationships are a push pull sorta give take thing.  If there is anything about your character that is absolute and immovable, that’s going to be a problem.  It’s not so much that you can never have an extreme point of view or personality trait– but if you’re going to have it, you have to make sure that you know your reasons inside out for being that way, and you need to know how your extremes affect other people.  Absolutes are what block people out and turn them off.  In a relationship, it’s about finding connections, not establishing gaps. 

   

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-Connect

  And this is where it takes a bit of finesse.  Women always say that men don’t listen.  Even CM tells me that every now and then when we’re fighting about something.  Why?  Because it’s true– we don’t.  But nobody’s perfect, and we get points for trying. 

   

  However, this isn’t that day in class where everyone is doing presentations and telling what they have to tell… relationships aren’t about an information exchange.  It’s not about making backup copies and just uploading your data to a separate brain where it’ll just be filed away.  It’s about collaborative problem solving.  It’s about co-op missions.  It’s about engaging and interacting. It’s about beta testing your world views, personality, and substance in a different operating system: hers.    And you should let her do the same with you.

   

  So many relationships are, frankly, useless– nobody says anything interesting.  The partners share no passions, and they share no interests.  How will that ever work?

   

  For a relationship to work, there needs to be some sort of unified direction.  Sure, you can’t find this out on the first date– but what I am saying is that from the first date, you can try and make a conscious effort to connect.  People feel it when you try– and there’s a human instinct to react to those efforts.

   

  -=-=-=-=-Nutshell:

  You need to do two things: understand the world in your head, and understand your head in the world.

  • 7:22 am
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