Okay, so there are two pieces of advice that I often see here, that are well-meant but often counterproductive.
Keep in mind while writing this, that in my opinion the main goal of dating is not to date as many girls as possible - I think the goal is to land a healthy relationship with someone who will genuinely make you happy in the long term. My advice will not be tailored towards getting many dates, it will be tailored towards getting good dates.
1. "Don't be a nice guy"
I have varying degrees of adversion towards this advice, because sometimes it's better explained than others. The problem here is not so much in the intent behind the advice, but in the use of the misleading term 'nice'. It seems that many people take this advice very literally. Friendly guys who have had very little success in the dating world, complain that they can't get a girlfriend - 'I mean, I'm nice to her, always help her, always do what she asks, etc.'. Then someone tells them 'yeah, don't be such a nice guy, girls don't like that.' Result? The guy leaves Reddit again, thinking he has learnt the secret to dating girls: you must not always be nice to them, you should tease girls and insult them, that works way better.
Of course, I'm exaggerating for a bit here, but that is the turn that quite many of these conversations take. And I can't blame anyone for that. Not the former 'nice guy', not the people giving advice. Because 'don't be a nice guy' sounds so misleading. We should not just tell people to stop being a nice guy, we should also explain to them what ‘nice guy’ means'. Being nice is a good quality. But what people really mean when they say that being a nice guy is bad, is that you should not always try to please the girl you like. You should not say you like something just because she does. You should not do something only because she asks you to, if you don't want to do it. You should not say things to please her if you don't mean them. You should be yourself, as cliché as it might sound. Tell her what you are interested in, what your hobbies are, what you are good at, what you are bad at. But make sure you are honest. Lying about having interesting hobbies might grant you more dates initially, but remember, that's not what we are here for. Those dates will eventually find out you lied and cut off the dating. Or they will not find out and you are stuck in a lie, which will make you feel bad too. Remember, guys, the goal is to get into a good relationship. Not to get as many dates as possible.
By being honest about yourself and not compromising for her, you filter out the girls that are good matches for you. The ones that don't like you for who you are and get mad because you don't do everything they want, are people you don't want a relationship with anyway. Better to not waste time dating them in the first place. What you are left with, are girls who like you for who you are and are genuinely interested in having a relationship or at least a good friendship with you.
The second most important step to become 'dating material' instead of 'friend material' is to become more physical with girls, but that's another point entirely, and I will not cover that here. The first is to be open and honest, non-compromising. And please, please, stay nice.
Tl;dr - don't just tell people to not be 'nice guys'. Explain to them what is meant by that as well.
No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover is a good read for anyone who has mild suspicions that the might fall under the ‘nice guy’ category
2. "Wait a bit before replying to that text"
(Spoiler: most of this advice is copy-pasted from a post I made earlier today)
This advice makes me cringe everytime I read it, because I used to believe it myself and because it brought me nothing but frustration and no results. The idea behind it is that it makes you come off as 'non-needy'.
But here is the catch: there is nothing needier than pretending to be unavailable and answering messages later while you could answer them right away. Girls know these tricks. They don't honestly think 'he replied after ten minutes instead of one, he must have so much to do, he must be so attractive!'. No. In most cases, they think 'awh, yet another one that is pretending to be hard to get, how needy,' or 'oh, he pretends to be hard to get - I can play that game too!'
Waiting longer than necessary to reply to a text has bad consequences. It:
- Shows that you are needy
- Makes the girls that are actually worth your time stop talking with you because they see through the games you play and realise that you are insecure because you need such tricks. They move on to someone who is not afraid to show his interest without playing games
- Leaves you with the girls who are not genuine and play games too - and this will in 90% of the cases not lead to a happy relationship. Either you land a relationship based on games rather than a real connection, or you will not even lead a relationship
The real solution is not pretending to not be needy - it's being non-needy. How do you become non-needy, you might ask? You realise that you yourself are the most valuable person in your life and that you don't need no girl to make you happy. Work on yourself. Improve, spend time doing hobbies that you find fun, spend time with friends, read self-improvement books, meditate, go to the gym, and so on. By focussing on yourself, you automatically adopt the mentality that it doesn't matter if a girl rejects you - because you are happy with yourself anyway. You can live on without a girlfriend if you have to, and you have all the time to pick one of those other fish out of the sea.
And that, that is true non-neediness. That will eventually shine through in your actions and at some point you will find yourself in a relationship with a girl who can actually make you happy, rather than one who only plays games.
Tl;dr answer messages if you can, don't answer them if you are not available. Don't pretend to be non-needy. Actually become non-needy by focussing on yourself instead of girls.
As /u/sagtastic correctly pointed out, it is okay to take your time when replying if that time is going to help you write a better reply. If you don't immediately know what to say, there is no trouble in taking a few minutes' time to think about your reaction. The problem is waiting for the sake of waiting. If you have time to reply and know how you want to reply, just do it. Don't wait for an unnecessary amount of time.
Last bit of advice: read Models by Mark Manson for a better explanation of these two principles, and great dating advice in general. If you want to read even more, Daring Greatly by Brené Brown is great material for teaching you how to open up.
Peace,
Connor
[link] [comments]
from Dating Advice https://ift.tt/2LBz36o
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment