I got a notification from Quora yesterday. If you’re unfamiliar with the app it basically allows you to ask a question and people from all over the world can answer. I used the app frequently back in the day.
The notification I received was from a question I answered seven years ago. The question was, “How do I respond if a guy asks me to be his girlfriend? I like him a lot but I don’t know how to respond.”
I was bemused when I read it and apparently I was bemused when I answered seven years ago because I laughed and told them to just go out with the guy.
But then I realised in rereading everything that my answer was far too simple. What this person was really saying was that they were afraid of getting hurt or that something bad would happen in the relationship.
Things haven’t changed much since seven years ago. People are still afraid of relationships, or more specifically, they are afraid of not knowing how to deal with problems in a relationship.
People have been lied to, abused, cheated on, or abandoned for a myriad of reasons. People lie, abuse, cheat and abandon for a myriad of reasons. It makes sense that people would be afraid.
The real question is, “What do I have to do to be in a healthy relationship with someone I like, despite the various issues that can threaten any relationship?”
Virtually everything I talk about in my posts point to the transformative power of love. But I can’t just tell you to love people because the utility of love is limited.
So let’s make it more practical, shall we?
If there’s someone you like, stop focusing on what you like about them for a moment. Instead, consider what you don’t like about them. Is it their tattoos, a personality trait, strange things they said, is it something on their face that renders it less perfect, is it something on their body that renders it less perfect, etc.
If you say you can’t find anything about them that you don’t like, you don’t know who this person is. Even if you tell me you’ve known this person for years, all I hear is that you are either ignoring what you don’t like or the other person is very good at managing impressions.
When you have that trait in mind, I want you to be honest with yourself and embrace that you don’t like it. I mean it. Get comfortable in the truth that you’re not a fan of that trait of theirs.
What will this two step process do? It will allow you to use the ultimate relationship hack. It will allow you to be honest.
Anybody can give love when it’s easy. In fact, if you look at society, love is typically given when two people give each other exactly what each is requesting from the other. It’s paradise!
However, this is not a talent. This is not a skill. No one is going to put a gold star in your notebook and tell you good job! when you’re doing something that literally anybody can do.
No one is impressed by your ability to focus on things you find attractive. This is why the beautiful woman and the attractive man are rarely ever moved by your admiration of them. Who cares that you can love what is lovable? Even an idiot can do that.
So we must ask this question: can you embrace the fact that there are things you simply do not like about this person and probably never will? This is the real ticket to a successful relationship because you and your partner will finally be honest.
Let’s say I meet someone and it’s fireworks. This feels great but I MUST consider what I don’t like about them. One reason people feel nervous around their crush is because they know nothing about them. All they see are the positives so the admired person comes off as perfect.
It is no wonder why dating apps and social media are a hotbed of deceit. You talk to people who literally only show you their highlights.
But as you probably already know, once you get to know someone, they’re not that intimidating. They’re just a regular goofy person with traits you like and traits you dislike.
How many times do you need to experience this before you accept this fact?
It is tempting to want to bask in the glow of love and attraction forever but love is only one aspect of the relationship. The other aspect of the relationship is what you don’t like about the other person and how that affects the relationship.
If you can acknowledge this, it’ll save you a world of hurt because you won’t deceive yourself and then blame the other person. In fact, loving yourself involves being honest with yourself.
You can actually use logic (yes, it’s possible!) because you’ve short-circuited the overwhelming tide of love and attraction by getting more grounded.
You can then determine if the relationship makes sense or not because you’ve allowed the likes and dislikes to be weighed.
Paradise turns into paradise lost very suddenly when you choose to be dishonest. And yes, that’s exactly what I’m calling it because half-truths don’t get you anywhere other than halfway along the journey.
The practicality of honesty helps because when you acknowledge that you don’t like something about someone, you have the opportunity to question two things:
1. Is that thing I don’t like a legitimate threat to a relationship, or
2. Is it just a trait that they value but I don’t value?
Maybe the thing you don’t like about them is that while they are successful they’re busy all the time so you’ll never see them or the relationship will be long distance.
Maybe you don’t like how vain they are or the friends they have, or maybe you don’t like their choice in TV shows or how dependent they are on their family.
Some of these things can be deal breakers for some, for others they pose no threat to the relationship.
Whatever the thing is, now you are equipped to spot the people who are simply different from you versus the liars, abusers, charlatans, and cheaters because these people, while deceptive, tend to expose who they are because they literally can’t help it.
This is why when sh!t goes down we often say, “I knew he/she was like that! I knew it from the start!”
Yes, you probably did spot it from the beginning but because you focused solely on what made the person attractive and never spent time focusing on and accepting what you didn’t like, you and the relationship were doomed.
Being honest allows you to know if the journey even makes sense to begin with. Is there enough gas in the tank? Can they read a map? Hell, can they even drive? Are they going to crash the car?
Troubleshooting
Deep down I don’t think people are unaware of the importance of honesty. But it is massively underrated. Having a manual override to curb the deluge of love is good as it makes you see the reality of the person and the relationship.
However, it is important to go into more detail as to why people can’t do this or won’t do this.
If the model of love you grew up with was a poor one, you are at a disadvantage compared to your securely attached peers because your concept of love is partly based on all the things you needed but never received growing up.
This predisposes you to being attracted to people who will treat you the same way your primary caregivers did when you were a child.
Knowing this is important because this truth, this honesty, can equip you in making safer decisions and will cause you to have to focus on acknowledging what you dislike about the person.
Children idolise their parents and this dynamic, when repeated in romance, can spell disaster. Again, this is just another goofy person. Not someone to worship or to think is more important than you.
But when a child is mistreated or isn’t loved enough they can’t think of their idol as the bad guy, and so they make themselves into the bad person, the spoilt brat, the needy rugrat, the problem child.
As you can imagine, this is massively dangerous and will predispose the child to grow into an adult who adores people who will continue to treat them as if they are a problem and inherently flawed.
The solution here is to be honest with yourself. You need to know what you need in a relationship and to be with someone who can provide it.
But again, they will not be perfect. Humans tend to use each other as objects of stimulation and ego-gratification until the inevitable day comes when one acts in a way that their partner does not like.
Don’t make the same mistake your parents did and withdraw love when someone does something you don’t like. But don’t ignore what you don’t like. Don’t force yourself to like it.
Instead, realise that love is about being honest enough to admit what you like about others and yourself, and what you dislike about others and yourself.
And remember, this isn’t about telling the truth about what you don’t like so that you learn to love it. The truth is that you might always dislike it. That’s okay.
Believe it or not, you can dislike something and it doesn’t have to be a threat to the relationship. But when you see something that is an actual threat to the relationship, you can acknowledge it, and move to a safer person.
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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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