Dating sucks, and as someone that has primarily dated men in the lower mainland until I met my long distance fiancé on Twitch, it’s extremely frustrating to think about the people I used to meet. And perhaps it’s because I’ve had my share of being pursued or pursuing potential partners, there are times when plenty of my straight male friends and acquaintances approach me for advice. From time to time I wonder why my male friends ask me, not because I don’t care about their happiness, it is because it is far too often that it goes on deaf ears. So, to put myself on the hot seat, it will be up to you to see if I give either terrible advice or the people I provide advice to didn’t want so much as advice as they wanted validation. You be the judge!
Are you sure she’s really into you?
Before a relationship can even begin there needs to be a spark, but it can’t just be from one side. And I get it, when you have a crush on someone you can’t help but have a little hope in your heart that they will have feelings for you back, or at least will eventually have feelings for you in the end. And even though you are too nervous to say anything, as long as they give you a chance, your crush will discover how perfect you are for them!
To be clear, the main issue I take issue with is the over confidence some people have. It is too often that the person is more focused on the qualities that they have and not about the feelings of their crush, whom shows little to no signs of mutual interest. I imagine that you may be thinking, “Nah, no one is that oblivious.” But I have seen this happen twice! And one time I was even friends with one of the crush targets so I could directly ask them for their opinion. On one hand, I get it, it’s nice to live in a fantasy that one day they will return those feelings. However, if your crush barely replies or sends messages to you and they aren’t going out of their to interact with you to some compacity on their own time, I feel that is a sign that the feelings aren’t mutual.
One thing you need to know about me is that I don’t like to sugar coat things. I don’t like the idea of passively encouraging my friends to pursue someone that has shown barely any interest. And if those guys were showing me screenshots of their interactions, despite me having little to no context, can see that the interaction is very one sided, I have the urge to say something. Perhaps because I would personally see it as borderline harassment, but I also have a problem with my friends wasting their time on somebody that doesn’t care much for them. They should have someone that can’t wait to talk to them or send them random messages just to say “hi”. But when I provide the advice of “Hey, I don’t think that person is interest in you. You should spend more time finding someone that would be excited to spend time with you.” On both occasions, I got a, “Why are you trying to bum me out? You don’t understand.” The best I can do is shrug my shoulders and let them continue the fantasy and stop talking about the topic.
Photography by Quinn Dombrowski
Don’t play the comparison game
I have unfortunately experienced this myself, and as such I believe that this is a terrible mental game to play on someone. If you are confused, this form of negging involves playing with someone’s insecurities. Essentially you “casually” mention your interest in someone else, but then reassure whomever you’re seeing that they don’t need to worry because they’re number one. Why can this be problematic? Wouldn’t this be a good way to boost their confidence? On the surface that can seem to be the case, but in actuality, especially if you are the one to initiate it, you are manipulating someone by establishing a ranking system in their mind. That if they aren’t “good enough” they will lose out on the ultimate prize, a relationship with you. And while this may seem like an over analyzation, surely it isn’t that deep, the underlying message is there, “I have options, see how someone else peaked my interest, what’s stopping me from leaving?” Ultimately it also does not feel good to constantly compare yourself to someone, especially if they’re a random stranger you will never meet. It spikes anxiety and it feels rather unnecessary to even mention it.
I also feel like it oddly comes from a strangely casual misogynistic mindset of comparing women as if they’re items in a store. It’s dehumanizing because you are placing a value to a person, typically on societal norms. However people are complex and are more than often you and I may not perfectly fit into society’s standard way of sorting us into groups. Therefore a ranking system, even if hypnotical is an unnecessary cruel mind game to play on someone, because it isn’t out of comfort or reassurance, but to create an air of superiority for yourself and false security for the person you are seeing. Never play the comparison game, especially if you’re aiming to have a mature relationship with someone. Focus on the person you are dating and find the qualities that you enjoy being with them for. Other people should not need to feel the need to compete for your affections.
If you want love you need to give people the opportunity to meet you
This may sound a little odd, but there are quite a few people in my life that have expressed interest in dating, however they don’t make themselves available to be found or they really limit their circle of people. When it comes to meeting anyone, regardless of relationship desires, if you limit the amount of opportunities to meet someone in general, dating becomes a near impossible task. A perfect example would be my fiancé. He is a homebody and prefers playing games with a close circle of friends, he works from home, occasionally visited his friends, slowly stopped taking transit in favor of e-biking to avoid having strangers in his space, and he didn’t do online dating. His social circle became extremely small to the point in which, unless he was specifically introduced to someone by a friend or coworker, the chance for him to meet someone, let alone get into a relationship, was extremely low. What changed was that he decided to try streaming his drawing and gaming hobbies, thus slowly opening himself up to opportunities for people to meet him. While I can’t necessarily recommend Twitch as a great way to find someone to date, what I can recommend truly is getting out of your comfort zone and making an effort to meet new people in some shape or form. Sitting around and waiting for someone to fall into your lap happens very rarely, and meeting THE one is just as hard. However the goal is to increase the chances, give people a chance to meet you, don’t hide away and hope that a relationship will happen without some sort of effort.
And these were advices that I have given in some shape or form to men in my life. Granted these advices don’t apply only to men, women can easily use this advice as well, but this is specific to the people I have met and who have ignored it over the years. Finding love isn’t easy unless you’re extremely lucky, but I hope that some of my advice might help you the next time you’re looking to get into the dating world.