Why Trying To Be "Impressive" Will Ruin Your Dating Life

Today I want to cover what I think is the number one biggest mistake that men make in dating women. And this is actually one that women can make with men. But I'm thinking of it from the male perspective because it's one that I have lived personally. And this mistake is a mindset. It's one that permeates everything from the flirting phase to dating to in a relationship. And it's this mindset that might have even made you click this video. The underlying mindset is that the point of dating is to get this woman, this other person, to like you. You want to impress them. And that's probably what is the biggest mistake. That's why you clicked. You want to find out so that you can change it and not do it. And so this means that when you're going out, you're thinking, you know what, I better go to a nicer restaurant because I want her to be happy and I want her to like it. I want to impress her. Or maybe you're not going to a restaurant at all. You're going to cook, which is something that you would never do for your friends or maybe even for yourself, but you want to do it for her so that she likes you. Or when it comes to the conversation that you guys are having with one another, you. You stick to the topics that feel safe, the ones that she's really engaged in, which is fantastic. But you're not talking about the things that might interest you, that you might find funny, that are a little bit offbeat, idiosyncratic to you. You avoid those. You save those for later. And certainly this is a mindset that I had. It even is in some of the earlier videos that I have made. Because what do guys want? And even women as well, right? We want to know what to say to make that person that we're crushing on like us. How do we stand? What do I say? What can I wear? What. What can I do to increase my chances? Well, what will happen as you get older if you do this is you will eventually get everything you want, right? You will make that person like you and you'll date that person. The problem is, though, that you will date them and they will date the version of you that is the best foot forward version. And that means that it's a you that you kind of just showed up with that evening. You were trying to impress them. You're playing at the top of the top of your game. Not only the top of your game, you're playing to what you think they like, like. And you can Maybe keep that up for a couple months, but it starts to wear thin and one of two things will happen. You will begin to resent them and yourself because you feel like you've got to keep this act up. And now you're going to these restaurants that you don't really like, spending more money than you want to to try to keep this person impressed because they think that is who you are. Or you're having these conversations that you don't really want to have because they think those are the things that are interesting to you, or you'll begin to slip, you start to tear that Persona back, you show them more of who you are and they begin to resent and you, either way, you are now going to start fighting about things that seem random, inconsequential. But the core issue is that you're dating someone that didn't know who you were. And very likely they did the same thing. They had a mask on, they were their best foot forward version of themselves. And now you're starting to see the real them. After several months, I have a different solution which is one that will, well, it will result in far fewer first dates that wind up in second dates, but I think greater long term success in your romantic life. And it's the idea of putting your most normal foot forward, be the version of you that you could be in six months down the line when you're no longer trying to impress this individual. In fact, when you're going on a date or when you're flirting, a good question to ask is how would I be behaving right now if I had no interest in making this person like me? Now, of course, what would you do? Well, you'd still want to have fun because fun is fun for you too. You don't have to do that for them. But when it came to the conversation, you'd probably talk less about the things that you thought they would like and more about the things that you found value and were important to you. Now, that might alienate certain groups of people, but of course, the people that you clicked with would be ones that clicked with you much more effortlessly. And none of this is to say that you shouldn't work on yourself. It's to say that you shouldn't work on yourself to please any particular individual. If you're doing personal development, it's got to be to build a better, more well rounded you for your life in general, regardless of which individual person is in it. So this has a couple of implications. If you take this normal foot forward to its Logical conclusions. The first is for men and women when it comes to setting dates. Don't go anywhere that you don't want to go. Or is that outside of your price range in order to impress the other person? With men, this comes through with money, right? We're judged oftentimes by our financial success. We want to prove that we can be the person who provides. Really do not do that because either you're going to have to keep it up and it's going to be an issue or you're going to drop it. And well, that's something that they felt like you could do early on. So don't do that. Also, you can dress in a way that is fashionable, but don't wear anything that you're not going to feel comfortable wearing. Sometimes going forward. And as crazy as it sounds, for me that means that I don't wear button ups. I feel much more comfortable in a plain T shirt. The second thing is when it comes to the types of conversations that you're having, I mentioned this. Don't stick to things that are safe. It's often said no religion, no politics at the dinner table. Forget that. If it is important to you, speak about that. Run everything through the filter of is this either fun for me or important to me? Doesn't mean that you have to talk about politics. You don't have to agree on everything. But if it's critically important to who you are that someone is religious or shares your political views, definitely bring that up. It would be good to know early on. And the third implication, which I think is the most wide spanning and one that you can check, is to see if you have created a split personality, that is the dating you. Now what I mean by this is we often split our personalities. We've got the work you and we've got the social you. Work view is more professional, doesn't swear. Right. Social you, who knows what that person is doing. But there's overlap, but they can be very different. The question is, is there also a dating you? And the way to know that is have you ever been in a relationship and the person you're dating walks in a room that you're in with your friends having a conversation and the conversation stops, it has to cut or completely shift. If that's the case, that means that you have split off part of your personality? You're saying, I can't show this person the truth of who I am when I'm at my most relaxed because I have to pretend tend to be something else for them and for me this was the feeling that kind of started this whole realization is that that happened to me. There were these times where my ex girlfriend was walking into the room and conversation would just stop because she couldn't hear the types of things that we were talking about because I had decided that if she were to hear that she wouldn't like me. Well, guess what? She didn't like the entire me because I didn't show it to her in the first place. And maybe if I had, she would have so all of this to say this isn't about just being yourself. This is about choosing the personal development program that you want to be on, right? You can still grow, you can still evolve. But not doing it particularly and faking it for any individual in a dating context, put your most normal foot forward. I promise this will mean, and it has meant for me, that you have more first dates that feel like failures in the old paradigm because the person doesn't like you. You don't necessarily want to see each other again, even though you don't hate each other. But it's success in the new paradigm. And the new paradigm is that the point of dating and flirting and connecting with people in general is to find and surround yourself with people that you are a good match with. The time that you spend with them will be much less effortful and you will grow even more for it. So I hope this is at the very least been thought provoking for you. One of the fundamental underpinnings of this is this feeling of self acceptance. Way, way bigger topic. I will cover it in another video, but if you're interested in an exercise that I think is very useful, I actually made a meditation. It's I think a 17 or 18 minute recording. You kind of just lay there and you listen to it and you go through the mental exercise of accepting parts of yourself that you might not have accepted in the past. The cool thing about this is that when you begin to do this, you exude a confidence that makes other people, well, accept these things about you as well. And if they don't, great, because you filtered them out and you're getting more of the people that are going to be effortless connections for you. So if you want to check that meditation out, you can do so courtesy of the link in the description and our sponsor for this video, Simple Habit. Simple Habit is a app that exists on your mobile device. I've used it many times in the past for gratitude exercises, joy exercises. They've got tons of different meditations and you can access any of them for free with the link in the description for one week and that includes the two that I have personally made one on social confidence and this one that I just mentioned on self acceptance. You can do all of that for free for the week and if you like it and you want to come back to these because the truth is these are oftentimes practices right? Joy, gratitude, self acceptance. These are things that you want every day. You can do that for just $11.99 a month and if you don't like it no sweat you do not have to continue with the app. So if you want to check out the app that I made on either social confidence or self acceptance go ahead do that right now in the link below. I think they're pretty cool but of course I'm biased. You can let me know what you think in the comments on the app either way. I hope that you enjoyed this video and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.