The Wait Is Over

I sense there’s a little status quo about typical dating advice you hear in various places.

When I say typical dating advice, I mean the kind of advice that suggests you to follow certain steps to make him/her fall in love with you so you won’t have to worry about being rejected, because rejection sucks and hurts like hell, and because you are afraid of showing up as who you are.

The reason why I consider this approach as a status quo is simple. It keeps you away from the delight of loving and being loved, which I believe is what you ultimately hope to get from following that kind of advice. If that’s the case, there’s no point in taking this approach.

This status quo is all about waiting to be loved, because loving actively can hurt you. What I suggest instead is to love actively. The wait is over.

Reclaiming the Delight of Loving and Being Loved

I’m assuming here that your aim is to enjoy the delight of loving and being loved. If your aim is to collect phone numbers from every attractive girl you see at a party for the sake of collecting these phone numbers or to get cute guys you fancy to make a move on you for the sake of getting attention of these guys, then this approach may be for you whether it’s ethical or not. But as a reader of this blog or someone who didn’t go away after looking at “Your Life Is Your Art. Love Is How You Create It.” on the top of this site, I believe you are interested in the delight of loving and being loved.

But why can’t you get this delight by following typical dating advice as above? Roughly speaking, I think there are two major problems in the approach suggested by such advice.

The first one is that when you are following a certain step, you can’t put yourself 100% into the interaction you’re having with the guy/girl you like. What goes on in your head is probably something like, “OK, what she said sounds interesting, but hey, I think this is a situation where I need to show her that I’m indifferent to what she’s saying and this way she will be more interested in me, because I’m not like other guys who would be all over her” and of course, you aren’t listening to her as much as you could without thinking about a step you’re supposed to follow.

The second one is that it’s only a temporary solution for your fear of rejection. The reasons for deciding to follow such advice may vary from person to person, but I have a feeling that most of people who are attracted to such advice are afraid of rejection. Instead of teaching that you don’t need to worry about rejection, it teaches you how to reduce the risk of getting rejected by using psychological tactics. So, if you are currently worried about being rejected, what I’m suggesting you to learn is how to realize that no one can reject you (unless you reject yourself) instead of trying to protect yourself from rejections that don’t exist or matter to you.

I believe a solution for this second problem will provide a solution for the first problem. If you aren’t worried about being rejected as who you are, you don’t need to try to follow certain steps to get people like you and that would help you focus more on interactions you have with people you like.

So, what’s a solution for the second problem then? I believe a little change in the way you think would help you solve this problem.

Change The Way You Think

Let’s say your whole approach to dating and relationship is based on the idea of getting guys/girls you like rather than creating meaningful interactions and connections with them. Does this sound familiar to you?

In this approach, if you don’t get them, then that means you’ve been rejected. If you tell a guy that you like him and he says, “Sorry, I have a girlfriend” or “Look, I’m married”, then you can’t get him and you feel rejected. But, what if you aim to enjoy these little interactions and to create some romantic moments instead? Whether you will get him/her in whatever sense you mean by “getting him/her“, you give him/her a gift of being desired and loved for who he/she is.

Your goal is to give this gift without asking for something in return. Whether they will take your gift or not is up to them, and it doesn’t matter to you as much as your giving it to them. In this picture, whether to give this gift is up to you and the act of giving is the most important thing. So, no one can reject you unless you reject yourself.

Love Actively

Even if you do understand this new way of thinking, you might still be afraid of loving actively, because there are possibilities that your love won’t be returned at all. But here’s a question – instead of taking risk to love people (and things you do and your life) without the guarantee that you’ll be loved in return, do you want to wait for love to come to you? It may come tomorrow, or it may never come.

I do believe that you’ll be loved if you are willing to love first, but even if you don’t get loved for your entire life at all (hypothetically speaking, of course…), if you love actively, you will at least enjoy the joy of loving. I believe that’s better than the situation where you keep waiting for love to come, it will never come to you, and you don’t even get to enjoy the joy of loving because you’re too scared to love. Am I making any sense here?

Why don’t we move on from learning how to make others fall in love with us, to learning how to fall in love with others? It’s not about attracting people to you, but it’s about getting attracted to people… the right people.

Let’s love actively and make the world more romantic.