Dating, hooking up, and forming new relationships can bring up a whole host of delicious and icky feelings…joy, excitement, disappointment, and loss. The quest for a partner involves putting yourself out there repeatedly. It can be brutal and hard work.
When things aren’t easy, we seek ways to protect ourselves from feeling exposed. Sometimes, our attempts backfire.
Here are six behaviours you might be using to protect yourself in the dating arena without realising it. Understand why you might be acting the way you do, see how your actions could backfire, and explore what you could try instead.
1. Judgement and resentment
Sometimes we complain, judge and feel resentful towards others in an attempt to comfort and protect ourselves. It’s easier to resent things outside of ourselves than acknowledge the discomfort we feel inside.
You may resent dates for not living up to your expectations or wasting your time because this is easier than facing the frustration of how difficult your search for a partner has become. Perhaps as you harshly judge others, you rant at the shallowness of the dating scene, missing the irony, not realising that you are actually angry because you are fed up.
Or sometimes, we get rattled by an aspect of someone’s personality because it confronts us in some way. It happens to the best of us.
You might cringe at the desperation and fakeness you witness in others because, deep down, you feel desperate and fake. Or maybe you label dates as ‘full-on’ for diving into conversations about their relationship needs because you find their directness frightening.
Maybe you find yourself mentally listing the reasons why a new date is unsuitable for you before you’ve even squared the bill at the end of the night. This could be a way to avoid getting close to others, or an excessive attempt to safeguard against making a poor relationship choice, which you could later regret. Or maybe you fear being judged and rejected by them and hope focusing on their faults will stop this hurting so much.
Of course, it is important to assess whether you are compatible with a potential partner. However, judging too quickly could destroy an unexpected connection. You might miss the joy of exploring another person’s unique world. You could even be turning your back on the opportunity to be challenged and pulled out of your comfort zone and the chance to experience something new.
At the very least, judging others can get tiring and miserable. And if you endlessly rant about your frustrations to friends, you might not be the best dinner companion.
If someone winds you up, look inside and see what is being triggered. Are you in some way judging and feeling resentful towards yourself?
Practice being kind and generous in your assessments of people. Look for their positive qualities and meet them with an open mind.
2. Playing it cool
You might remember Monica in Friends singing to her ex-partner’s answer phone, “I’m breezy”. The joke, of course, is that she is feeling anything but. When we play it cool, we often try not to appear desperate rather than be genuine about our feelings.
If you are trying to protect yourself by being easy-breezy, you might:
- deliberately leave long periods between messaging/attempt to match or beat the other person’s slow responses
- avoid telling people how you feel
- ensure you are busy and your dates know you have lots of options and other commitments
- avoid expressing what you want or need.
Playing it cool can be a way of protecting one’s ego. You might convince yourself you do not care and push away strong feelings that could lead to pain or rejection.
Or maybe you feel anxious when someone else appears distant; rather than reaching out, you attempt to mirror their aloof attitude so as not to seem desperate or needy.
When two people attempt to be casual, each person can pick up on the other’s dismissal and become more and more detached. This risks preventing a connection from deepening and flourishing
Furthermore, if you long for closeness but act cool and casual, you can end up with a disconnect between what you want, how you act, and what you receive. You might block opportunities for the reassurance and attention you require to feel safe.
Sometimes, being aloof and playing hard to get can make people want you more. But how can a deeper connection form if someone only wants you when they can’t have you?
Think about acting towards other people precisely how you want to be treated. What kind of connection do you want? What level of contact and openness? Consider sharing what you want, and asking for what you need directly.
3. Control
If you feel anxious about a new partnership, you might think knowing everything about your partner will reassure you.
This is getting out of hand if you find yourself:
- constantly checking their social media to work out what they are doing and who they are interacting with
- incessantly checking messaging platforms like WhatsApp to see if they are online
- demanding to know where they are at all times
- not wanting to spend time apart, and resenting them when they have other commitments.
Whilst you might think this behaviour is comforting, the reality is that it’s more likely to feed your anxiety. It is exhausting and puts you in the perfect headspace to jump to conclusions.
You are also teaching your brain that in order not to feel anxious, you need to know everything. You pry rather than learning to tolerate uncertainly.
Would you prefer to see someone who has nothing going on in life? No friends, hobbies, or work they cared about? Would you wish for them to spend every waking second staring at their phone, waiting for your call?
With the right person, you can slowly grow your ability to trust over time.
Instead of following your anxious behaviours, focus on regulating your nervous system, for example through deep breathing, reaching out to a friend or finding a distraction.
4. Daydreaming
In the early stages of dating, you don’t know much about the other person, which provides an excellent opportunity for your mind to conveniently fill in the blanks. This is prime time for your thoughts to run away from you.
Suddenly, you fantasise about them on your arm at your best friend’s wedding. You’re mentally planning the backpacking trip you will take next summer. You are basking in the relief of knowing family Sunday dinners will soon be so much less excruciating with them there to support you.
Daydreaming provides an escape from the dull mundanity of life. You can escape the harsh reality in which your hair doesn’t always look right, and you sometimes struggle to know what to say, to a magical world in which you look and act perfectly, and nothing can hurt you.
Daydreaming protects you from the fear of reality.
Too much daydreaming also risks setting you up for disappointment. Real life can never mirror the beautiful and safe world inside your head — the one in which you are powerful and in control and your partner perfect and devoted in every way. Real life is messy and scary and beautiful in a much more nuanced way.
If you let your daydreams get out of hand, you risk creating a false reality of someone and setting yourself up with unrealistic expectations. You could end up making decisions about someone based on things you have made up about them rather than based on who they are.
Notice when you have lost yourself in a daydream. Distract yourself with a task or chat to a friend — anything that brings you back into the present.
5. Creating a false self
Everybody wants to show their best self on dates. You want to seem mysterious, desirable and like you’ve got your sh*t together.
And so you may exaggerate certain things and choose not to reveal others.
This is a natural attempt to attract people and prevent being judged or rejected. However, it can be problematic if being your best self stifles your true self. If you do not show who you are, you can never experience true acceptance. And you risk inadvertently telling yourself the real you is not enough.
Notice when you are hiding parts of yourself on a date, or altering facts. If it feels safe, challenge yourself to be open and honest about the thing you want to hide. You could even share a little about how it makes you feel vulnerable. You might find this brings you closer to new people, and creates the space for them to be more open too.
6. Disconnecting
Humans are so adept at avoiding complicated feelings that we do it without realising it. For example, you might disconnect by using drugs and alcohol, tune out of conversations, or disconnect from your body when being physically intimate. You might spend more time looking at your phone than into your partner’s eyes, or you might make sure you always have lots of dates on the go and avoid commitment so you don’t feel too invested or emotional.
Being more connected can involve gently acknowledging your feelings. It might include naming vulnerable and complex emotions and sitting with fear, insecurity, or doubt for a moment. Perhaps it could also mean feeling the presence of another person while being aware of these feelings. You might even communicate a little of what you are experiencing to someone else.
Try tuning into how you feel when you’re with another person. Sit with complicated feelings to learn to tolerate them. Rather than disconnecting when things feel scary, think about setting boundaries to make things more manageable, for example, by having shorter dates or delaying having sex.
In the complex world of dating, it’s easy to fall into patterns that inadvertently sabotage our chances for genuine connection. By recognising these common behaviours and understanding the underlying psychology behind them, we can begin to navigate the dating landscape with greater authenticity and vulnerability. This can lead to more genuine connections, a more enjoyable experience of dating, and perhaps a more fulfilling relationship at the end of it.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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