Putting Your Best Self Forward

In dating, especially when using on-line dating forums, there is a tendency on the part of prospective partners to disclose too much about themselves too soon in the dating process.  People do this in hopes of impressing their potential partner, or to get the negative "stuff" (possible deal breakers) out there right away, or to simply let the prospective partner see their "authentic" self in hopes of longed for acceptance.  In the case of women, in particular, but also men, this is a losing strategy. Revealing too much too soon robs you of "mystery" and there has to be some mystery for romance to bloom.  Showing too much excitement about the other person can easily be misinterpreted as neediness in the first four or five dating encounters.  Answering inquiries truthfully while highlighting the positives, remaining light, playful, and slightly aloof is by far a better strategy until the potential partner gets to know you better and wants to uncover the next layer to find a deeper, more genuine you.  Better to leave the person wanting to get to know more about you for the first half dozen-dates or encounters.

Taking things slowly and optimistically by presenting a carefully cultivated nonchalance that one may not genuinely feel, i.e., playing slightly hard to get, is age old advice from the old 1950's neighborhood coffee klatch, but it WORKS!

So don't list your accomplishments (they can Google your for that info).  Don't roll out a list of negatives, like informing the person of any health problems, poor family relationships, etc.  Simply enjoy the person and evaluate whether you have enough in common to continue seeing him or her.  After a month or two, when the person has gotten to know you a bit better, these conversations will arise naturally in response to inquiries from the other person and explanations will not have such a serious impact as they would earlier in the relationship.

So cultivate a little mystery and hold something of yourself back initially.  It will benefit you in the long run.

The Window

There is a window in young lives when most people find "the one" and start building a future together.  There are some, however, who disregard this window altogether.  They do so because they genuinely believe that anything is possible and that they need not worry about the future or because they cannot find anyone who meets all of their criteria, or because they are involved in a romantic-exotic-troubled relationship.  This is especially true for young women who may ignore their "reproductive clocks,"  nesting-/home building instincts,  the drive to mature and establish roots.   The person may be reluctant to abandon an unsuitable partner because they have invested substantial time and emotional capital into the relationship. Even knowing that the relationship will not withstand the vagaries of real commitment, they allow even more time to elapse during the crucial window without abandoning that partner and looking for someone more suitable.

Good things, especially in the self-awareness department, can sometimes come from these exotic romances.  But a young person involved in this type of relationship, which she knows deep-down will prove ultimately  unfullfilling and  unsuccessful, should hedge her bets.  If you are a woman who is fairly certain that you want children, but are not certain that the man you are seeing is the "one," serious consideration should be given to culling and freezing your eggs during your early to mid thirties.

An even better hedge is to forswear exclusivity and to keep dating others-- being honest with the person with whom you are having the exotic relationship. Your honesty about why you do not wish to be exclusive will give you and your partner greater insight as to what your relationship really means and how deep it is.

Rather than hedging, you may simply choose to wait without a partner.  This leaves you available when a suitable candidate does appear.  Clearly one can be concerned about not finding the right person during the window, but being involved with the wrong person throughout the entire window period and /or accumulating lots of emotional baggage during that time, only exacerbates the problem.

You can extend you own "window" by making yourself the most interesting attractive person that you can be and leaving yourself as emotionally free as possible.  Being involved with a person who is not going to end up the "one" when you have made a serious investment narrows opportunity and leaves you depleted for acting when someone with true potential arrives.  So, don't dawdle forever when it is apparent that the relationship is not going where you want it to go.  Hedge your bets if you can, or better yet, improve prospects by staying relatively free to respond when someone with genuine potential appears.

Hard Talk

To succeed in a long-term caring committed relationship, both parties need to develop the ability to say very difficult (sometimes insulting and downright emotionally damaging ) things to the each other.  These things need to be said in a way that the receiving party can hear, understand,  and ultimately act upon the information without taking such offense that the message is blocked out.  This skill cannot develop early in the relationship because it has the potential of destroying fledgling relationships.

However, at some point, in every relationship, one party must tell the other a hurtful truth, even if it has the potential of creating a large rift in the relationship.  The party receiving this comment must develop the ability to "hear" what the person venturing the information is saying, to downplay the "hurtfulness of it" and to act upon the information received.

An example of this is the husband who tells his wife after she has given birth, that she is too heavy and that he does not feel sexually attracted to her at her post-pregnancy weight.  Communicating this information to one's partner after she has been through the travails of pregnancy and  while she is exhausted from taking care of a new child seems cold and  heartless.  However, I take the position that it is a courageous act on the husband's part, especially in light of what can develop if he remains silent and does not share his true feelings.  By not communicating how he feels, perhaps out of love or being even ashamed to even have this feeling, he runs the risk of letting his sexual love and affection for his wife dissipate because of her weight while not even telling her (and presumably giving her the chance to address the situation).

Conversely, the wife in that scenario, (rather than being hurt, outraged, upset) had to develop the ability to genuinely "hear" what her husband was trying to tell her, so that she could act to preserve the sexual relationship, if she so desired.

Hard words in a direct confrontation are eminently preferable to repeated nagging, insinuation and ultimately uncomfortable acceptance of or ignoring the problem.  Hard words have the power to wound, but they also have the ability to stabilize and enhance relationships.

I take the position that hard words in frank conversations should rarely be necessary, but when they are, they give the receiving party the chance to defend themselves, agree, disagree, to change ( refuse to change), or to, at least, think about the feelings of the person expressing the hard words.  What do you think?