this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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Back as a young fella, striking out in the dating market a bunch ...
"Just be yourself!"
No, honestly, that was the problem last time - I was looking for something a little more granular and actionable.
This is one of those helpful and encouraging things that people say without necessarily really thinking it through. Deep down in intent, they're right - you can't fake your way to healthy relationships, being insincere or putting on a performance of being someone you're not isn't going anywhere genuine down the road. Absolutely correct, absolutely great advice - but it's never given in sufficient complexity and depth to be useful.
None of those grown-ups were like "Ah yes, definitely be sincere about who you are - but also don't spend a whole date monologuing about the book you just read or your favourite video game."
That you can be genuine and sincere about who you are, while still using your social skills and putting your best foot forward socially just ... didn't occur. At the time, my understanding was that it was a hard binary - either I was 100% me at 100% volume and whatever came out of my mouth was definitely the best thing I could say, or I was stifling myself and being 'fake' in order to build an equally-fake relationship.
It took a friend's brother taking me aside to make it 'click' - he was holding a can or a bottle and was like "So the whole object is all 'real you' yeah? But any time you're talking to someone is like right now - you can only see the side that's facing you. It's all you, it's all honest, but you still want to show them the best side, the best angle, of the whole thing. Don't sprint straight to showing them all of your worst angle just because that's what's on your mind that day."
You make a good point about common advice often being too simplistic and generalized to be useful. And yeah, dating is rough. Glad you got better advice in the end.
The problem is that "yourself" still comes out eventually. And sometimes it takes a long while to find "the one" because you kind of hid certain aspects from your partners for too long. This is generally why most of my longer-term relationships have failed. Too many "best faces forward" for too long, until one breaks that
I was mid 30s when I found the one that is "the one". We had our first date in our work clothes, and had a conversation that would sound insane to any observers. For the last 5 years, I've never felt the need to hold anything back or change the way I talk about things, and I dont think she does either. Because we still have insane conversations
Yeah, the simplistic "Just be yourself" advice doesn't take into account the "If you don't love me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best" type of attitude.
It also bypasses the fact that "yourself" is such a fuzzy concept anyway. So because I'm bad at public speaking, that shouldn't mean I should "be myself" and avoid it. I should merely be aware of my current limitations. That was an accurate way to describe myself in the past, but instead of accepting it, I worked on it, forced myself into a job that requires it, and now I'm pretty good at it.
I think almost everyone can look back 10 years ago and think of some way they ended up changing. So with that being the case, who knows who we'll be 10 years into the future? No need to anchor too hard on who we think we are right now, it's valuable to also give consideration to the kind of person we want to be in the future and take action towards becoming that person.