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How to Stop Hurt Feelings From DatingFeeling Hurt From DatingDid you just go out on a date and wonder how it went? Are you staying up all night wondering if he/she feels the same way you do? Are you afraid of approaching the person you like? Pretty much everyone has been in this situation at one time or another. Here’s why: The root of all pain like this comes from your imagination and an uncertainty about what to do. Dating The Fantasy When you like a person, you constantly think about them. You imagine yourself in a fantasy, where you go places and do things together. Your lives together are perfect. He/she is romantic, loving, kind, and does exactly what you want when you want it. The only problem is, this person doesn’t actually exist. He/she is a projection of your idealized version of the person you like. What happens when he/she does something different from how you’d imagined? You start to lose a piece of your fantasy. You’ll either feel hurt that he/she isn’t doing what you want “anymore”, and perhaps try to change that person (which will not be well received). So, to start off, try to not imagine what it’d be like, or how good it would be. This is where an intuitive mind trying to analyze tons of possibilities becomes extremely harmful. Date the real person, not the fantasy. The other thing that happens when you think about your future together too much is that you are analyzing too deeply down one branch of the possibility tree. Other parts of your life start to shrink because all your thoughts are focused on how good it would be together. You think about having kids, raising a family, sharing lots of romantic adventures together. However, these things are way in the future. That will only happen IF he/she likes you, IF you continue to like him/her, IF you decide to have a baby, etc. There are just so many things that can change that particular possibility. So then, what happens when you break up? All your planning has been focused on the two of you being together, so when the unexpected happens, you have no alternate plan! This is when people sit at home crying, blaming the other person for not fulfilling their dreams. Knowing Yourself This is why you need a backup plan. What would you do if you broke up? What would you do if he/she died? This does NOT mean that you should maintain relationships with other people “in case you broke up”. That would be a horrible breach of trust. I’m talking about what you would do if you were completely alone. Say there were no people in the world, what would you do? Now say there were 2 people in the world, what would you do? Then add various #s of people and plan out what you would do. This will allow you to understand what you want better and know what to do in most of the common situations. You’ll probably still feel a bit hurt, but it won’t be the end of the world because you’ll have a life outside of the relationship. You won’t feel the “my life is coming to an end” type of pain. Aren’t those situations of you being alone completely unlikely though? No! Not at all. Even if there are people around, you can still be alone. In fact, outside of very involved relationships, you are alone most of the time. Whenever you are focusing on yourself and don’t notice other people, it’s the same as if you were alone. Knowing what you’d do in this situation really helps you out in figuring out what you want. You have to learn to like yourself in this state because then, any kind of relationship breakup wouldn’t be so bad. Sure, you’ll feel a loss, but you’ll still have something pretty great to return to. Key To a Healthy Relationship That is the key to a healthy relationship actually, since even in a relationship, you’ll be alone some portion of the time. A relationship is just an extension of the economic model. You have something he/she wants, and he/she has something you want (sex, companionship, etc.) As a result, the both of you benefit each other. Over time, as the two of you trade more and more, you realize that it’ll be more efficient if you just stayed together. That’s how it is in a healthy relationship. When you don’t really know yourself and don’t have much to offer in your relationship, that’s when you become “desparate”. It’s also when the other person feel this exceeding neediness from you, which leads the the suspicion that you have much less to offer than what you’ll be getting. If that is the case, then of course the relationship would feel like the center of the world to you, as you are deriving most of your identity from your partner. It would also explain why you would feel very hurt and angry when your partner leaves, since he/she took away all that stuff you were getting. On the other hand, if you had a strong identity outside of the relationship, then you would simply return to the happy state you were in before you made the trades. You tried a particular trade and it didn’t work out. Now you’re left with what you started with, but with more experience. Do you realize that means you’re better off than you were before you entered the relationship? Life is series of ups and downs. You’re now standing at a point higher than you were at before the relationship (and either higher or lower than when you were in the relationship depending on how you look at it). Just stop thinking about it and start doing the things you love. The worst case scenario? You’ll never get into a relationship again and do the things you love until you die. Just be okay with that possibility. Think about it, isn’t that a great thing? Now, if a relationship happens to come along which will make you happier - Okee dokie! Sounds good to me. A lot of pain comes as a result of not knowing yourself and what you want. That’s because not knowing creates a lot of uncertainity in situations, which paralyzes you. For example, let’s say you just had a date and you sit around wondering when the other person would call. Days pass and no call; you become worried, not knowing where you’re at. That’s a common situation that causes many people a lot of distress. The truth is, it’s very easy to deal with when you’ve planned out all the possibilities. You can say something like, if I don’t get a call within a few days, I’ll call him/her back, then don’t think about it anymore. Is thinking about it going to make the other person more likely to call? Not even a little, so why waste time thinking about something you can’t change? Just do what you’ve always been doing - living a happy life. The old cliche advice really is the way to go. Just know what you love to do, do it, and you’ll meet people along the way. Do you want some more help? |
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