Hello, Internet! Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove, the only dating advice column dedicated to helping you jumpstart your dating life with a New Game +. Itâs the dawn of a new year and that makes it a perfect time for a fresh start. This week, we have a letter from someone who wants to do just that. How do you start over when youâre feeling the weight of your dating history on your shoulders?
Letâs do this thing:
Dear Doc,
I need a way to start fresh.
Iâm 2.5 years into a long streak of being single and failing to get a girl. I had broken up with my ex after a 4.5 year relationship. It was unhealthy, our lives were going different ways, and so, even with the pain of being lonely for so long, I still feel it was the best decision.
Since that time, I have failed multiple times in miserable ways to get a girlfriend. Once to a friend secretly sleeping with the girl I had been trying for, once to an unknown âhistoryâ a girl had with my brother, once to trying too hard and scaring a girl away, and once to simply living too far away.
Iâm even at the point where I invited a girl out to a big concert with free tickets I had won. She left right after the show with her other friends who happened to be there, told me we could chat more later, and Iâve yet to hear a word from her again weeks later.
These failures, compounded with failures to gain any interesting jobs with my degree (being an obituary editor does little to increase your appeal in speed dating scenarios) have left me feeling tiny and demoralized. They haunt me enough that I could swear Iâm cursed, and the looming shadow of my ex (now a successful pharmacist with a PhD and a good-looking, wealthy boyfriend) has demolished my entire sense of self worth.
I need a new start. I need a way to wipe away those girls, their rejections, and the lingering smirk of my ex so that I can move forward.
How can I dispel this curse and no longer feel haunted by my history of love-life failures?
Sincerely,
Voo-Dude
Oof. Hey, Voo-Dude, you have my sympathies. Break-ups suck and trying to recover from them can suck even more. Thereâs nothing quite like feeling like youâre on the verge of coming out of it when the universe decides to tap you in the nuts one more time. Enough set-backs and it starts to feel like youâre doomed to be single forever, watching everyone elseâs success with covetous eyes.
But hey, Iâve been where you are and I can tell you exactly how youâre going to break this slump. And to do that weâre going to have to look inward because your biggest impediment is⊠you. But itâs not in the way you think.
Right now, youâre fighting against yourself. Try this: perform some simple but non-trivial task: chop carrots, write a paragraph in pen, dance a waltz â while tensing every muscle in your body at the same time. Youâre having to fight your own body in order to accomplish your goal. This is what youâre doing to yourself: youâre resisting yourself, making everything harder than it needs to be.
Youâve made a mistake that many, many people have made, myself included: youâve made being a âsingle loserâ your identity. When you think of yourself, you think of yourself as âyeah, Iâm that loser who canât get a girlfriend, who has a sucky job, whoâs always going to be left behindâŠâ This constant litany of your supposed failures just reinforces your self-limiting beliefs in a continual cycle of negativity. You miss out on people who may be interested in you because you canât believe they would find you desirable, so you write them off. When you pursue someone you are interested in, youâre sabotaging yourself because you canât believe it would work out. And to make it worse, because youâre so desperate to not be That Single Loser, you get overly eager and come on too strong when you do have a chance. Then when you do fail, it becomes one more example of Why You Suck, which just makes the next failure more likely. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I should know. I spent over a decade as The One Who Wasnât Good With Girls. It defined me, it controlled me and made everything I did a referendum on the fact that I couldnât get a date. And until I was willing to challenge these beliefs and mindsets, my dating life would never be more than bad comedy (âŠStarscream).
What we need to do is teach you how to stop doing this, to stop getting in your own way.
Letâs look at what youâve been doing to yourself and how to break out of this cycle. The first step is simple: youâre going to stop looking for a girlfriend for a bit. Now, I know that âyouâll find love when you least expect itâ is an annoying clichĂ©, but itâs not entirely wrong, either.
See, when you get caught up in one specific aspect of your life, you end up losing control over all of it. Youâre in the emotional equivalent of trying to pass the jetski level in Battletoads â youâre so hyper-focused on trying to thread that needle that you canât do anything else. Youâre tense, youâre frustrated, youâre trying to rush past this one part because you want to get to that section where you keep slamming into the wall and goddamn it now you have to start all over again. And so you reload and try again and now you crash five seconds after you start motherpussbucketâŠ
But as any gamer can tell you: the key to beating that one section is to take a deep breath and relax. Take a step back from the game, come back to it a bit later. And when you do, you make it through! It may be by the skin of your teeth but who the hell cares, you did it!
So you need to take a step back from dating for a little bit while you work on yourself a little and rebuilding your life.
Letâs start with the obvious first step: youâre letting your self-esteem be dictated by events outside of your control. Your job isnât âinterestingâ⊠ok, and? Youâve had some shitty dates and youâre currently single: big damn deal. That doesnât say anything about you as a person; youâve had a shitty time for a while, which happens to all of us. Your ex has a job and a hot boyfriend. Again: who the hell cares? Sheâs your ex, you admit your relationship was toxic and you were better off apart. Sheâs not the love of your life anymore, so why in pluperfect hell are you making her your baseline for comparison?
Youâre relying onexternal sources for your sense of validation and self-worth and thatâs a giant mistake. Youâve made your self-esteem dependent on other people and external factors and that will never, ever satisfy you. You need to learn to value yourself, to recognize that you have worth and take pride in what you bring to the table.
To give you an example: youâre down on yourself because your job isnât âimpressiveâ; youâre an obituary editor instead of, I dunno, a literary agent or something. This is a prime example of external vs. internal validation. Your job doesnât define how cool you are or how interesting you are. Your job is not who you are, your job is a thing that you do. Who you are comes from inside; what you do is external and will change repeatedly over the years. Donât look to your job for validation, what are you passionate about? What do you love? What is it that makes you get up in the morning, excited because you get to do That Thing? That is who you are, not whatever you do to pay the bills and keep body and soul together. Your job is temporary; itâs something youâre doing for now. What do you want to do and how are you working towards it? That is something to take pride in â the progress youâre making towards achieving your goals and ambitions.
Another issue is that youâre defining yourself by failure rather than what you have to offer. What makes you an awesome person? What makes you worth getting to know and spending time with? I want you to think about this and I want you to answer honestly⊠and by honestly, I mean not just throwing your hands up and saying ânothingâ or âI donât actively murder kittensâ, because thatâs bullshit. Itâs easy to say that you have nothing to offer; itâs hard to be willing to give yourself credit for your good qualities.
But for the sake of intellectual exercise, letâs say you donât have anything going for you. Well, congratulations: youâre a blank slate, which means you get to create your new life from scratch. Your life isnât hostage to random chance; you are able to go out and build an interesting, appealing life by choice.
And thatâs what I want you to do. Youâre going to start building that new life you want and move past these bad dates and your ex and all the rest of the bullshit youâre letting define you. Itâs time to start finding those sources of internal validation and learning to appreciate that youâre awesome.
Start by deciding what kind of man you want to be and work towards bringing him to life; write out a list of the non-physical attributes and qualities your ideal self would have and set goals for yourself on how youâre going to achieve them. Donât worry about being âcoolâ or what would impress other people, think about the things that have meaning for you.
Spend some time exploring your interests. Try new hobbies, cultivate new experiences and broaden your mind. Try things youâve always wanted to but never could find an excuse to do. Try other things just because youâre curious. The more engaged you are with your life, the more connected you are with your passions, the happier and more fulfilled you will be.
While youâre building your new life, take some easy steps to make you feel better about yourself. Fix your posture by straightening your spine and pulling your shoulders back. Dress up sharp, with clothes that fit properly. Get a new haircut, one that flatters your face. It seems a little absurd, but these little changes will make you feel more attractive and more dynamic. Those little moments will help motivate you to pursue your other, more ambitious goals.
And instead of dwelling on your so-called failures â your ex-girlfriend, your job, your bad dates â practice gratitude and positivity. Yeah, I realize right now it feels like you donât have anything. You feel lower than a snakeâs ass in a drainage ditch. But you do have more than you realize and acknowledging this â appreciating what you have instead of focusing on what you donât â will make you happier overall and is proven to make you a more charismatic, attractive person.
Live an interesting life with passion â even if you donât have your dream job or your dream girl â and it will help define you and fulfill you. Making some changes to how you present yourself will make you feel more attractive and desirable. Practicing gratitude and positivity will help bring you satisfaction and true confidence. All of this will help you be ready to get back out on the dating scene and put you in a better position to date. Youâll be coming from a place of confidence and strength rather than hoping that a relationship will provide you validation and make your life better for you.
Straight talk: youâre going to get rejected. Dating is a numbers game; you are going to have dates that go nowhere, people you dig who donât dig you back and a wide range of people youâre simply not compatible with. Rejection happens to everyone, no matter who they are. Brad Pitt, Idris Elba, Ryan Gosling⊠all get shot down on occasion. One personâs dream date is another personâs âwouldnât touch them with a rented dickâ.
But by rebooting your life and building that base of self-assurance and passion, it wonât hurt, not the way it did before. And when you do find someone who is right for you⊠well, youâll be ready for them.
Good luck.
Do you have plans for reshaping your dating life in the new year? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments and weâll be back in two weeks with more of your dating questions.
Ask Dr. Nerdlove is Kotakuâs bi-weekly dating column, hosted by the one and only Harris OâMalley, AKA Dr. Nerdlove. Got a question youâd like answered? Write [email protected] and put âKotakuâ in the subject line.
Harris OâMalley is a writer and dating coach who provides geek dating advice at his blog Paging Dr. NerdLove and the Dr. NerdLove podcast His new book Simplified Dating is available exclusively through Amazon He is also a regular guest at One Of Us He can be found dispensing snark and advice on Facebook and on Twitter at @DrNerdLove
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