Yep, it’s another book review inspired blog. This time for the Aziz Ansari book of the same name. It’s a good read in itself, humorous, personal and pretty informative. He actually did a fair amount of research to come to his conclusions. Which, as you might imagine are varied.
As usual for me, it was really about balance in the approach to dating. That you need to have an understanding yourself of what you’re after. Are you ready for a long term commitment? Do you just want some “fun”. Can you be open to just having fun that turns into something lasting and meaningful? Personally the later seems a pretty good way of doing it.
A lot of his content is around the approach and style that people take in dating and relationships. It centres heavily on the US, but it’s applicable to other more Western-centric cultures. He also covers off some other world cultures too, but in less detail. Of course the point of my blogs is not to just do a book review, there’s plenty of other places to get that. My purpose is to signpost ideas and additional resources to further your understanding of them.
That way I believe you can make better and more informed decisions in your life. You don’t need me to unpick the book, you can dedicate a few hours to that yourself and get from it what works for you. What resonated for me, and in what I see in my Practice is that often the modern approach to dating with apps is rather overwhelming. It also creates a have it all and now feel. Avoiding the inconvenient truth that there’s a human behind each photo and profile.
Therefore when searching for someone, be respectful. Look for people you feel you can enjoy yourself with. Who you might be able to be yourself with. Try more than just one date, give the person (and yourself) a chance to get to know each other over a few occasions. Sure, if after the 3rd meeting it’s not working for you, then gently bring things to a close, in a manner you’d like to be told. A text isn’t really a respectful option!
Consider where to go for your dates, try to avoid things that limit conversation time (the movies). Look for stimulating activities that require minimal skill (crazy golf anyone?!). Then you can chat about the activity as a way to ease yourself in, after that you can start to share more personal insights and details. Try to avoid alcohol, you might think it’s a “disinhibitor”, but that’s just a psychological effect. You’ll be just fine and probably more engaging without it.
The overriding idea though is to have fun! It needn’t been hard work, hopefully at worst it’s something interesting to do and a way to meet new people. You might need to kiss a few frogs till you find your prince/princess but in the meantime it’ll be fun to see who’s out there and see the variety of humans available!