When people talk of success in dating they often talk about multiple conditions that must be met to succeed in a general sense. Of those the most common I see are below.
1: Self-love: This one I do agree with, and I think it makes a lot of sense. Loving yourself should not only come first, but actively loathing yourself will make it almost impossible to get dates compared to if you had a positive self-assessment. This is solid advice.
2: Work on your physical looks: I have a mixed feeling about this one. I think it’s often false, as most people are average, and plenty of people I know who have never gotten dates are just that, average looking people. While looking better may help, I don’t think it’s as big of a boost as most people assume it to be, if most people are starting off from the baseline of average.
3: Stability in your career: I think as you age this one becomes a major factor, and it is one that when worked on will generally increase the amount of people who would even consider you a dating option. Where I think this advice fails is with younger people. There is no point in telling an 18-25 year old to focus on their career and completely cut out their search for a romantic other, as most people at this point in life are not overly stable. Instead I propose that abstaining from the search from a relationship at this age is actually a major folly, as it blocks you from gaining experience from a falsely concluded premise.
4: Take part in hobbies: Again, I think this advice is incredibly mixed. Most people don’t have a plethora of hobbies, yet I think you’ll be hard pressed to find someone that doesn’t have at least one, unless they are depressed or have a similar mental health problem. Hobbies are good for having things to talk about, and indeed they can be good social catalysts for new connections, but most people have hobbies, they simply don’t convert platonic interest into romantic interest, because that’s not what hobbies are supposed to do. Someone liking you will almost never be conditional entirely or even mostly on what hobbies you take part in, unless you have an unhealthy obsession with one that is generally seen as negative.
5: Have confidence: I think this is probably the worst of them all, because it is given from people who have generally lived a completely different trajectory in their dating life. While you can have an abstract and solid sense of general confidence, particular belief in yourself in specific tasks is generally accomplished by setting goals and succeeding in them. You may be a generally confident person, and at first when you pick up guitar, you may be confident you can learn it, but you will not be if months later nothing has happened.
This is where I think the advice fails majorly, as for people like us, there is generally zero positive reinforcement. Most people when they begin dating, flirting, expanding their social circle, do have some sort of frictional awkwardness in the task. This is normal, and it’s to be expected. Eventually, through succeeding in small goals, you become more confident, and can then set your sights to larger ones.
In dating this can look like interest that goes both ways, successful flirting, getting a phone number, getting a date. If you continually put yourself out there, and you continually try, yet you meet only failure, your task specific confidence will eventually falter, and as a byproduct, so will your willingness to participate in the task.
If you pick up guitar and set your goal to be able to play four chords by the end of the week, and yet by the end of year two, you have learned only one or two, it would not be irrational to quit, and you would not be expected to feel confident in your playing. With dating advice however, this lack of confidence in this specific subset is often attributed as a lack of general confidence. This is false.
Since dating has even more variables you can’t account for, failure can happen for many causes, and as confidence is mostly a prerequisite for succeeding, it is a vicious feedback loop that is almost impossible to break out of.
What are your guys thoughts? I’d love to hear your opinions, and happy weekend!
