My palms wear sweating. My throat felt dry.
Here goes… “AAA Haaai…”
Shit, have they even heard me.
Another one.
“How you doing, guys?”
Silence.
Awkwardness.
Embarrassment mixed with odd-looking facial expressions.
That’s basically how my dating life looked from age twenty to twenty-four.
I’m almost thirty-one and thank god my dating life looks different now.
However, the process I went through is a topic for another post.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
1. Not everyone is going to like you
Nowadays, it seems obvious to me. Like, Duhhh. Why would every single person you meet like you. YOU don’t even like everyone you meet. As a man growing up, I always knew this to be true in the back of my mind, but it took me time to fully internalize this.
2. You can’t expect things from people
This is a big one. People tend to expect relationships, time, sex… all that. Dude, you can’t expect stuff from others. It’s unreal. People have different subjective experiences, emotions, and so on, affecting their decision-making, wants, needs. etc. And we’re not even considering that different people are at different stages of their lives. As I said, it’s unreal.
3. It’s easier to manage your emotions and relationships with someone when you have zero expectations from him/her, but all the fate in the world when you look at them
ANOTHER big one that changes my view. Now, when people hear the “zero expectations” thing, they’re like, “but it’s pretty cold, isn’t it? to not expect anything from others”. No, it’s not. It’s actually a relief for both sides. When you have belief and not expectations, you are there to purely give. it creates an environment with zero pressure and lots of freedom (and fun.)
4. You can market yourself, but you can’t sell; zero control
I used to work at a marketing agency, where we always had this discussion of “selling vs. marketing” yourself to other people. You can’t “close” the sale with women. You can only offer, inspire their interest, aka marketing. The reason is simple- you have zero control over other people.
5. If you’re patient with your emotions, they’ll develop
Just a fundamental law if you ask me. Now obviously, you need to have the courage to push yourself forward, make mistakes, learn from them and so on. You can’t just sit in front of your Netflix all day and hope you’ll reach new emotional understandings. Through courage and patients, you’ll slowly grow.
6. If you learned from a mistake- it wasn’t a mistake
I think it’s a Zen teaching I’ve heard. Simply put- learn from your mistakes and move on. Nothing to regret.
7. You have to go through all the “bullshit”
SORRY. If you want to grow as a human being, you have to try, fail, get disappointed, get up and try again, then again, until you succeed.
As with anything, people look for a “push a button” solution to deal with their issues. The hard truth is, it never works.