Dating: Why Am I Single? It’s Complicated. No, Really. It’s Quite Complex.
I’ve been busy this month — busy dating. That’s right. While other people were starting businesses or joining fitness programs, I was busy spending a lot of brain power formulating various text messages to swoon different women, without mixing one’s name with the other.
Maybe it’s the New Year and our resolutions or the left over feelings from the holidays reminding us we are the only single people left on the planet. It has to be something in the air responsible for the uptick in my dating activities. In just three weeks, I’ve encountered four different women. Not including the smart lady I just ran away from or the other sweetie our age gap placed a gap between us. I’ve interacted seriously with four different women in (what seems to me to be) such a small period of time. And, I learned something. Yay!
You see, dating is only fun (for me) at its peak. The ascension is less fun for me, the decline is absolutely no fun at all. Just the peak. This is a period where I know I am interested in who I’m talking to and want to really hear what they have to say. My brain gets busy planning the next adventure and I try to calm myself as I wait to see them again, that’s so fun. Unfortunately, I reached the decline stage for all four before our ascension was rooted.
When you are sowing in the wrong field, nothing you do is right.
It would not work with girl number 1 because — public opinion. Getting likes is more important than getting what she likes.
It would not work with girl number 2 because prima donna plus distance. Even if you can force it, don’t force it.
It would not work with girl number 3 because healing. Therapy can help.
It would not work with girl number 4 because exhausting. Have you felt battered and just worn out from having a conversation? It doesn’t feel good.
Easy for me to say, the problem very well could be me. Probably is, haha.
Ask any of the women and they will tell you how I messed things up. I remember number 3 saying I speak in parables when asked questions, until she doesn’t care anymore to ask questions. Number 4 said my answers are in riddles. Sensing a theme? Might just be I am the one in need of serious therapy. A simple question is not simple to me and therefore does not prompt a simple answer. You could ask me “how’s the weather?” And my response somehow includes me telling you about the guy who invented the idea of forecasting the weather. A simple question is an opportunity to dissect the formulating principles of the world and our perspective. What?
I realized something today. A principle that is shocking as it is eye opening. I sit here thinking how my ignorance of yesterday was more comfortable. You see, I’ve been trying to “get better” to reach the current standard set for me (which is focusing only on women I actually want, and not just take on or consider women I can get). I’m still trying to reach this standard of higher performance but today, the standard that I haven’t even reached yet has just been ridiculously increased. Much more work and energy is now required than I care to exhaust.
To the best of my ability, I have been doing it all wrong. Yet, I do not have the strength nor desire (surprisingly) to aspire for what I now understand to be the right way. When you do something the wrong way for so long and do not get the results rewarding of your efforts, you do not just get over the wasted effort, you get over the whole concept — even if the right way to do it is now more visible than ever. You’re just over it. Almost as though you do not care anymore. In the state of mind where you think: what’s to say this would even work, though it looks like it could. But what’s to say? I cannot try again just for it not to work. After so many failures, it’s very easy to believe it just isn’t meant to be or another try just isn’t going to work. Another try just isn’t worth it. It becomes about you and how you’ve been disappointed by past failures and less about the mission.
Anyways, let’s get back on track. Dating. Here’s the principle. Take from it what you will.
Do not get a wife for where you are. Get a wife for where you are going.
This is painful to read. It’s like I have to be this amazing person that I do not have the energy to be. Like this future self of mine who’s just complete. It’s a rub in the face. I’m tired. Dating is exhausting. Now I have to do what?
Let’s dissect the principle.
You should be dating not a person you match with today but a person you will match with tomorrow. A person who is right for your future self. A person whose life’s work is in line with your future plans.
You should be dating a person right for your future self. You should be dating your future. Not your present. Definitely not your past. A girl who’s where you’re going, not one who’s where you used to be. Your aspirations are her day to day life. Let’s make it simple. If your life’s goal is to make movies, then date and marry a movie star. If your life’s goal is to operate a charitable foundation, then date someone who works at a non profit or at the very least volunteers. Do you know how difficult it is to convince a penny pincher to donate $10,000? Imagine all the fights a couple would get into when one likes to give and donate while the other hates to “throw money away”. You should be dating a person right for your future self. Personally, I do not want to or care to know a thing about Medicine or Pharmacology but if it’s financially enticing with altruistic benefits, I would definitely fund a hospital. Your life goal has to match the path they are already on. Imagine opening a hospital, when your partner is already an MD!
Good as it sounds, let’s come back to the real world. It’s tough enough finding someone sensible — but now I am not just tasked with finding someone sensible, I am being tasked with finding someone sensible who’s already on the life’s path of traveling and helping people across the globe. Where in the world am I to find her? It’s tough enough finding someone sensible! Unfortunately however, every other relationship has a very low chance of working out otherwise, so ignoring this principle is at my own peril. God help me.
While others think: “Why marry someone you could have hired?”, I am being tasked (forced) to think: Why hire someone you could have married? I am not ready for this much growth! This level of thinking is too advanced for my present self.
You should be dating your future. Not your present. Definitely not your past. A girl who’s where you’re going, not one who’s where you are and definitely not one who’s where you used to be.
How do I attract her? You don’t. She attracts you. When you meet a girl, stop talking about where you are and what you have. Do not waste time talking about where you are in life. Start talking about where you’re going. Definitely forget talking about your past. What’s the point of talking about your past? Your past holds no record of who you’re to become. Talk about your future like it’s happening tomorrow. Only then would you be speaking her language while simultaneously filtering out everyone who doesn’t match or agree with the future you are tasked to create. You are not looking for people to convince, you’re looking for people already on fire.
Spend all your conversational energy talking about your future. Your plans. What you want to make happen.
I would not be surprised if Barack knew he definitely, at all cost, wanted to be a Senator, then maybe, just maybe a President (and talked about it all the time) before he married Michele. Think on that!
Wow. I remember years ago my Pastor saying, paraphrasing, he knew he wanted to be a pastor a long time ago (when he was 15), and that meant he couldn’t marry a stripper (or a similarly heavenly endowed woman, I presume), he had to marry someone who would be a respectable “first lady” (with no scandal from previous life). It’s all coming together now. Tough pill.
Date your future, not your present. Because your present might have a different future. Don’t date your past, because you’ll regress.
In every close interaction, one person influences the other. Chances are you probably would not influence her (a girl whose present life is the life you’ve left behind) into emulating your present attribute. Simplest reason being people do not want to change, at the very least not because someone else told them to change. If you used to smoke and no longer smoke, dating someone who smokes is most likely going to bring you back into smoking than it is to bring them out of smoking. Do not date someone who’s where you are because if her future is different from you and she’s forced to follow your path, she would resent you and not forgive herself for a world she had to give up.
Plus it’s a heavy baggage to place on your shoulder, dating someone who is living your past. You’d continuously sound like a preacher and judgmental against “their habit” and who they are — because they are reminding you of everything you’ve chosen to leave behind. If you’re a pornstar who wants to quit and become a fashion designer (bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this), do not date a fellow pornstar, do not date someone who aspires to be a pornstar, do not date a pornstar who aspires to quit, instead date someone who’s in the fashion industry. Someone whose life’s work is agreeable to the person you want to become. If you’re to be the head and she’s to support you (being the neck), it is easier for her to support you when your life’s work is in line with her expertise.
Dating someone who’s living your past pulls you back. As you’re trying to learn and progress, you’re also dealing with bringing up your partner to where you are and trying to be patient for them to learn. You don’t know if they want to learn. You don’t know how long it’d take for them to learn. Why all the heartache? Just to break up anyways. All the time and energy you could have spent on your own improvement. Time you could have spent dreaming about the world you want to create. What’s more likely to happen is for her to influence you to your familiar past where less energy is required for a mediocre existence.
That’s a mouth full. While it seems like an easy to understand “This is what you’ve been doing wrong Stephen. And, that is why it didn’t work with those in the past and will not work with the girls you’re yet to meet, if you keep ignoring the girls you’re supposed to want to meet”. I still want it to not be true!
To imagine that some men are intimidated by (and run from) women who are doing better in life than them (women gifted where they’re not), when those are the actual women the men should want and prefer — is mind bending.
Tough pill. God help us all.
I would rather just know I’m looking for someone with some sense (who’s single, sober, educated, local with a global mindset, mentally healthy and also likes you — which is a lot to ask for these days— but I would rather be searching for that), than carry this burden of looking for someone with some sense and a similar perspective. That’s like finding the top 10 percent of the 1 percent. Where a lifetime is not enough to go through the 99 percent to identify the 1 percent. I also have to know with absolute certainty the lifestyle I would be living in the future. Imagine the audacity!
No wonder parents ask their daughters if she’s really sure she’s found the one.
I’ve been busy dating this year. I was busy dating last year too. Lots of good moments. Lots of good moments I will forget. Last year, I remember asking a girl “How do you plan to help the world?”, because I plan to help as much as I can and her response was “You cannot help the world.” Needless to say, she stayed in my past.
Perspective is everything. It cannot be bought, and I don’t want to have to teach it.
Bill Gates opens a charitable foundation but he already married a wife with a heart to run a foundation. When he realized he’s hired someone he could have married, he then marries someone he could have kept an employee.
Your wife will look Presidential, if you know to marry someone Presidential long before you become a President. It costs a lot to teach someone to act Presidential and they might still curse on live TV or wear the skimpiest dress to a ball party. While it only takes a refresher for someone who’s already been practicing acting Presidential to look, feel and be Presidential.
First: Think hard about who you want to be in life.
Second: List the core skill sets you’d hire to help you become that person.
Third: Find a girl who has one of those core skill set.
I think of Joan Didion from the ‘70s. According to Joan, she’d write and hand her work over to John (her husband) to edit. John also a writer, when he wrote would hand his work to Joan to edit. Each giving up control over their work because the “editor” can edit the writing however they please. Talk about involving your partner in the process. Talk about vulnerability (of the writer) and trust (that the editor would edit without malice). Joan says on outings with John she didn’t have to speak because they were so in tune John could speak for her and she actually preferred to be silent as she observed the environment. This level of intimacy (keeping in mind no relationship is perfect) is enjoyed by those who apply the principle of dating your future. The connectedness between Joan and John would not be so if say John was a mortician or a carpenter.
Your life is yours to do what you will. The standard is set. Don’t pray the bar was lower. No one cares if you’re exhausted. If you want to live the best life you can live, a lot of the time, you will be exhausted. But the exhausted are not the same as those who are out of the race. They are instead those who cannot be stopped. And that’s who you are — someone who cannot be stopped! Don’t you recognize you? You have the strength to attain every single good thing! Your joy for the rest of your life depends on it. Would you rather give up close to the finish line because you see there’s a barrier you have to jump before reaching the finish line? Would you rather be left in the desert because you’re too tired to ring the bell, calling for rescue? Do you not recognize who you are? You — cannot — be — stopped. What’s a little more energy to sacrifice, if it means an eternity of never having to sacrifice that same energy?
You want to be great? Marry someone who’s alright with being great.
All this time, my friends say I’m looking for a unicorn, turns out finding a woman who can and likes to cook is not as important as finding a woman who’s a warrior for a battle I haven’t yet started. Build your clan. Don’t go to bed with the enemy then wish they’d miraculously no longer be an enemy when you marry them. The whole time you could have been with someone who’s already on your crusade. A headache is not better than a peace of mind. Headache is not cheaper than peace of mind. The difference between the “lucky” and everyone else is the “lucky” would rather die trying to crawl onto the path that’d get them to where they’re headed. While everyone else would rather stay where they are, as long as they get to be alive.
Your life is yours to do what you will. Do well with it. Know where you’re heading so you can bring the right people with you.
With Love,
Famous Steve.
