Being kinder to yourself and others in dating

It’s Mental Health Awareness Week this week and the theme is kindness and I felt like it’s a great opportunity to practice more kindness in our dating lives. 

What does kindness in dating even look like?

How judgemental are you of others?

One of the areas that jump to mind when I think of kindness within dating is how we judge people we meet. 

It’s so easy to get talking to someone and look for all the so-called red flags, looking for the things about them that turn you off or that you don’t want in your life. But the issue with his is that its easy to see evidence of what you are looking for. Take the conspiracy theorists during this pandemic that are seeing evidence of a great plot or global evil everywhere.

Take a more balanced view of the women that you meet, they are humans being like like you, with feelings and emotions like you, not a long list of tick boxes and attributes. Avoid being overly judgemental of women you meet, what you don’t realise is that by being judgemental you are planting into your mind that everyone is being judgement towards you and you start to fear that others are judging you all the time. 

If you often worry about being compared then I can be sure that you are often judging people.

Take women as they are, see the good in them and the beautiful things about them. It’s expected that you will see things about people that turn you off or not align with what you want in your life and that's fine, but you don’t have to judge them badly for not being all the things that you want. None of us is perfect, remember that.

When you are rejected

Rejection is a complex feeling when we are experiencing it. Where do you mind go when you are rejected? Do you blame them for not seeing the good in you or do you shame yourself for not being good enough?

We did a great episode about rejection with Stefanos Sifandos and we really got into rejection and how to overcome it. But one of the phases that I like Stefanos used was “Does rejection even happen?”.

It’s a great question because when you look at it it may well be a thing of our imaginations. We have stories about ourselves, sometimes called beliefs. For example, “I am not good enough” or “Women don’t find me attractive”. So we walk around the world looking to prove or disprove this story. 

So when you get talking to a cute brunette off bumble, but she starts to take a while to get back to your messages. What you do is unconsciously engage your beliefs about yourself when you are analysing was is happening. So if one of your beliefs is that “Women don’t find me attractive” you will look at this situation and ask, “Is my belief true in this situation?”. Your mind is very likely to see the evidence that she is rejecting you. 

The question is, do you blame her or shame yourself?

Neither is right or wrong, but neither is helping you, all it will do is make you angry yourself or her. And that anger isn’t helping you, all it does is make up more unhelpful stories about yourself, her and even all women. 

Look at it this way, she is looking for someone that matches who she is and might not have seen that in you, which is totally fine as you want to be spending time with people that want to spend time with you. 

If you feel that you didn’t show her the true you, then this is an opportunity to ask, “How can I show up in the world in a way that is really how I am” and if you want some help with this contact us for some coaching.

But if you are shaming yourself for not being good enough, ask yourself did the rejection happen or did you just assume it happened. 

Making yourself feel bad about rejection only increases your fear of rejection and in turn will stop you from taking action towards the things you really want. This is something we see in our coaching clients all of the time, you aren’t alone.

Look at rejection this way, “They are saying Yes to themselves and not No to you”

Being single

Do you ever think that you must be defective because you are single and no one else is?

I used to think I would never be able to be in a relationship, I’d felt that commitment was just too hard and restrictive for me. 

I used to be pretty harsh about myself when it came to commitment, I judge myself as different. It used to get me quite down if I’m honest. But what I needed was to just be a little kinder to myself. 

It’s ok to be single, it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. 

Being in a relationship isn’t a sign of success in dating. Having a great relationship with ourself is!

So next time you fall into a spiral of thinking that you are “broken” or “defective” because you are single, catch those thoughts and really ask if they are universal truths. 

Everyone is single for some period of their life. 

Be kind to your dates

As I said earlier, no one is perfect, but we are all perfect as we are. 

Let's treat each other in that way and have respect for each others time and existence. Our era of dating has coined a new term, Ghosting, where someone just stops communicating with someone that they have been dating. 

We have all experienced it in some way, either doing it or being on the receiving end. 

Often those doing the ghosting think that they are sparing the other person a shameful rejection but you are doing them a lot of damage by just not saying anything. You leave them clueless to what has happened, which leaves their mind to run wild with stories of all sorts. 

But the secondary effect, that is on the person that ghosts are that you admit to yourself that you don’t have the courage to treat others with kindness and respect. And I know from experience it always leaves a fear or worries when it comes to that person or situation ever coming back to haunt us.

I know that the conversation to tell someone that you don’t want to date them or see them isn’t always easy or what you want to do but it builds your resolve to do difficult things. And don’t we all want to feel more comfortable to do the things we find to be hard?