#baddatingadvice

Let me first be clear: I do think that many of the things in that pie can be harmful, especially when said offhandedly by someone who doesn’t know me very well but is smug about their married status and thinks they have it all figured out. As another amazing friend puts it, these are the “just add water” comments. When said by people who love me and just want me to be happy (which is probably most of the people who have said this stuff to me), I can usually take it in the loving way it’s intended. None of it is terrible; it’s just not all that helpful.

Summer of 2016: I was at the wedding of two very dear friends with Mr. Almost But Not Quite It. The night before the wedding, I met a friend of theirs, a fellow spoken word poet who entered the scene after I left. (As an aside: I developed an immediate crush on him—he’s a total sweetheart. If he’s reading this and didn’t know that, well, now you know). At one point in the evening, I was sitting on the steps of the venue getting some air, and behind me sat this poet, who was single and stuck in a conversation with someone who was saying pretty much the entire Help the Single Victim pie, one slice at a time. I wasn’t single at that point, but I had an overwhelming urge to just reach back to him and say “it’s okay. I get it.”

We know you mean well. Really. So, at the risk of speaking for all single people (but not really, because that would be ridiculous), here’s my attempt at sharing with everyone what could be more helpful to say instead. Caveat: these suggestions only really apply to people who are single and want to be in a relationship.

Pre-pie thought: please recognize that we live in a world where being coupled is a privilege. I know not everyone wants it, and some people love being single. I know not every relationship is happy and fulfilling. And, there are a lot of advantages to being in a relationship, particularly a long-term domestic partnership. Just acknowledging that you have that privilege (if you do), and that you don’t know what it’s like to experience being single and wanting a relationship the way your friend does (unless you’ve recently been single) can go a long way.

Executive summary: if you want to skip the rest of this post, pretty much all of it boils down to this: listen, ask questions, try to get it, reflect your friend’s feelings, and support them in living an awesome life while they’re looking.

So now, let’s look at the pie one slice at a time:

“You have to love yourself before you can find love”: As I said in my last post, self-love is awesome, so think about how you could encourage the single people in your life to develop this without having it be a condition for them being loved by another. Maybe start with “I’d love to see you loving yourself as much as you want to be loved in a relationship, while you’re looking. How could I support you with that?”

“You’ll find love when you least expect it/when you’re not looking”: Maybe just don’t say this, k? It’s ridiculous. Have you ever tried to “least expect” something you really really want? Also, have you spoken to a woman with a ticking biological clock? There’s no turning off looking. Also: not even factually accurate. Do you know how many relationships start online, with people actively looking? If you’re insistent on the sentiment underneath this (which hopefully is that you want your friend to be living a fulfilling life vs. having their entire focus on finding a relationship), then you could ask your friend what they’re doing that brings them joy while they’re looking.

“Don’t worry, your time will come”: This is where straight up reflecting that your friend is having a hard time (if they are), while also affirming how awesome and loveable you think they are can be really loving. Something like, “I know this is really tough for you. I’m sorry it sucks right now. I want you to know that I love you and you are a super-lovable human I’m grateful to have in my life”.

“Enjoy it while you can; relationships are hard work!”: If your single friend is not already acutely aware of this, they’ve been living in a cave. If they’re anything like me, they want to do that work. There is growth that can only happen in the container of a romantic partnership. This comment, though, stands in for any “grass is greener” argument. What to replace it with? More of the encouragement to be actively living and enjoying their life now, without making single life some utopia (to which you maybe think you wish you had access).

“Dating is a numbers game. Just keep at it!”: You guys, dating can be really fun, and it can also be a total grind. I rewatched some of Sex and the City Season 3 on the plane yesterday, which includes the episode with Charlotte’s iconic line: “I’ve been dating since I was 15. I’m exhausted! Where is he?!” Story of my life. All of this to say: “just keeping at it” is not as easy as it sounds when you’ve just come back from your third mediocre coffee date of the week, or your epic second date with a total unicorn that ended in the heartbreaking disappointment of finding out he doesn’t want kids anytime soon (just as, you know, an example…). It is hard to get yourself out there again and keep a smile on your face. So how can you help your single friend? First, get their disappointment. Ask them what it’s like for them and how they’re feeling about dating lately. And then, if they’re open to it (and only if they’re open to it), you could gently help them reframe things (tread lightly, though; this could be annoying unless the suggestions are sought after). One thing that’s really been working for me lately, courtesy of my awesome love project coach: I try to find things in every date that are evidence of what I want showing up, even if I didn’t connect with the dude.

“You’re just being too picky”: There is a fine, fine line between calling someone too picky because they legitimately have a ridiculous list of criteria that no one human being could ever fulfill, and calling someone too picky because you think they should settle. I know you think you’re probably pointing out the former, but for most people hearing it, it sounds like the latter. I am picky. I have done a lot of work to see if my criteria are actually ridiculous, and to loosen up on some things that are maybe a little too much to expect, but would be awesome bonuses. And: I want someone as awesome as I am, so I am not willing to get less picky at this point. So, if you want to be genuinely helpful, ask your friend about what they’re looking for, and really get why that’s important to them. Ask them what’s underneath those criteria (like for me, I discovered this year that underneath my criteria for an intelligent partner is that I want to be stimulated and inspired, and that could look a lot of different ways). Do this in a way that is curious, not accusatory.

Back to the worst offender: “you have to love yourself first”. Even while knowing that it is partly (or perhaps wholly) true, I have always been bothered by this advice. Are you seriously telling me that every single person who finds love could honestly say that they love themselves? I doubt it. Well, maybe some (or even most) of the ones in happy, long-term relationships, but I would bet that many of them learned to do that along the way.

Self-love is awesome. I’m not saying people should not be working on this. That said, this type of advice is actually pretty harmful: if you are telling people that they need to feel whole/love themselves/etc. in order to be loved, you are essentially creating a scenario where a) people who are struggling feel that they aren’t worthy of being loved unless they “fix” themselves, and b) people hide their struggle because (a). That’s super dangerous, y’all, and as Brené would tell us, the opposite of what actually contributes to authentic love. 

This is not, of course, a theoretical thought exercise for me: over years of not being sure if I really did love myself, of feeling incomplete or like there was something wrong, this particular piece of advice stuck with me and made me feel like I didn’t actually deserve love, and contributed at least in part to the drive to fix whatever was wrong. (See my earlier post on responsibility—I acknowledge my propensity to turn taking responsibility into blaming myself, creating a vicious circle in this particular scenario…I think too much.)

Regardless of what happens with my love life over the course of this love project, I will maintain that this is terrible (or at the very least, supremely unhelpful) advice to give to single friends (of whatever gender). As I said: I still think self-love is a pretty great idea. Just not “in order” to find a relationship. In no small part, this love project I’ve embarked on has been about learning to fall in love with myself, in a real, authentic way.

One of the biggest pieces of feedback I’ve gotten consistently over the years is that people wish I’d actually see myself the way they see me. I have long known cognitively how much I have to offer, and the difference I make in the world, but have still struggled to actually live into that like the truth, to show up as that, to truly own who I am and let it show.

I started working through this process earlier this year. This work wasn’t explicitly about an end goal of self-love (or any end goal at all, really), but more generally the ongoing work of settling into myself and what I want for my life. I’ve made a lot of changes in the name of taking better care of myself. I created a vision for the future of my career that actually serves what I want for my future, not just my firm’s, shared it with my colleagues, and started taking actions toward it. And through this love project, I’ve started looking at myself in the mirror and actually seeing someone I not only like, but think is pretty freaking awesome. (No joke, you guys: I actually say nice things to myself when I look in the mirror now. It’s pretty adorable.) Somehow, in consciously completing 2017, which has been a hell of a year (for must of us, right?), I realized that I now actually feel what I’ve known cognitively for a while. I am owning who I am in the world, in pretty much every respect. People have started noticing and commenting on this new confidence without me even sharing anything about it.

And it’s shown up on dates. Some of you know that as part of this project, I’m doing a dating game, where I go on at least two dates a week (and at least one has to be someone new). I took the second and third week off (without entirely meaning to), but am now back in the game, and my goal has been to be myself no matter what on each of these dates. Typically, if I like someone, I get distracted and start trying to present myself in the best light and get weird; if I don’t, I withdraw and just try to get through it until I can politely end the date. Now, I’m just full-on being me, and I’ve gotta tell you, it’s been a hell of a lot more fun. I even had a date with someone who seems to be a real live unicorn on Wednesday!