I am so tired of all the advice I keep running into that makes it sound like getting into a relationship is this impossibly difficult endeavor that requires tactics. If you do X and Y and Z, then you’ll have the relationship of your dreams.
Typically, this involves a lot of tricks and traps. You should be hiding your true feelings, this advice suggests. You have to find some kind of hook, a way to stand out from the pack. And it doesn’t even need to be authentic.
In this spirit, there are a lot of behaviors peddled as surefire winning tactics. For example, delaying your text responses to create artificial scarcity — and therefore value — is older than cell phones. It’s the offspring of “wait three days to call back after the first date.”
Blech blech blech.
Beyond the example I just gave, I could spotlight some individual behaviors to tear apart, but here’s the problem with that: It’s not even about the specific behaviors themselves. Not really. It’s the whole approach. It’s coming up with tricks to perform in the first place.
Because, you see, you shouldn’t have to trick someone into dating you. When you’re looking at dating strategies like dance moves (or worse, battle tactics), you’ve already lost.
If you’re trying to be someone else’s ideal for a short period of time in order to woo them — and then become your regular self after you have them in your clutches… oh no. Oh no. That’s so depressing. What a disappointing relationship long term.
That’s why I’ve made a commitment to just showing up as who I am. Being honest about that. And if they like me, great. If they don’t, no problem. (And of course, it’s equally important that I like them, too.)
Yes, it means that a lot of connections fail in the initial stage. But it saves you so much time and heartache down the road. The less time you spend on relationships that shouldn’t happen, the more time you have to discover and explore the ones that should.