Knowing When To Let Go...A Reality Check

[izza]

You are entirely missing the point.

LOL it wouldn't be the first time.

I was asking a serious question though.

If a woman no longer makes you feel good about yourself, most of you will hang on for dear life to the way she used to make you feel and be convinced you've lost some great love. Nonsense! You just need to learn how to elicit those feelings FROM YOURSELF through bettering yourself and building confidence and NOT rely on women to make you feel them...especially if you are clinging to a woman who used to make you feel great but now makes you feel like crap. Know when to let go and move on...

I learned that the hard way.

Infatuation...let's take a nice, hard look at how this works. When you are infatuated with someone you feel "in love". Those feelings are NOT feelings you have FOR the other person. It's all about how YOU feel about YOURSELF when you are with that other person. If a woman is fun to be around, it will make you feel like you are fun too. If a woman is sexy, it will make YOU feel more sexy. If a woman is a good conversationalist, it will make you feel like a good conversationalist. If a woman laughs at all your jokes, you will feel like you are a funny guy.

I've read that love for a woman is the same way. Amen about finding all these emotions single. I'm single now, and I am working my arse off to love and accept myself. In fact, I'm going to give myself some chocolate for no reason.

What you say accords with my experience.

 

[Wyldfire]

You can be infatuated right off the bat....but you can't really love someone that quickly. You may eventually grow to love each other...but that always takes time in romantic relationships. There is only one instant love that is genuine...and that is the love a parent feels for their just born child.

 

[izza]

For the record, I don't think I misread what you said, I just made some tangential side remarks.

Which is why watching a baseball game with me is like, "Swing batta batta. Say, do you think nucleo-peptides have consciousness?"

I tend to define love as simply an emotion. I guess my best guess would be that we can feel love at first sight, but only for an impression of a girl. If that impression doesn't turn out to be true, well, then you'd have a short Asian girl refusing to dry your back and calling you passive-aggressive all the time.

(To anybody who knows what I'm talking about, I'm just kidding, that was true love )

Love is an emotion, and as Pascal says: "Le coeur a des raisons que la raison connaît point."

The heart has reasons which reason knows not. When we feel the emotion, we feel the emotion, and sometimes there's not a lot of rhyme or reason to it.

I quoted Pascal in French, because I'm trying to demonstrate value. I doubt it's working.

Much love,

Fo' Shizza

 

[Wyldfire]

Nope...that impression is fantasy...a very unhealthy fantasy.

We all have this ideal image of the "perfect" mate. Like morons, one of the first things people do when they meet a potential partner is ask "What are you looking for in a man/woman?"...and the other person asks back the same question. Then you both tell each other what your "Ideal mate" looks like. So both of you want to bad to make that little fantasy real that you try to make yourself their ideal mate and you convince yourself that they are a perfect fit for your fantasy as well. So there you both are, busting your butts trying to fool the other person (and yourself) into thinking you have all those qualities they are looking for...and they are doing the same thing. That lasts for awhile...

Six months down the road....

You both get lazy and comfortable...think you are in love. You're not...you're just infatuated with each other and how you've found the perfect person for you and everything is beautiful. Then it happens...you each notice that your partner has "changed"...and they aren't that perfect person anymore. Well, no one changed really...they just stopped pretending to have all those qualities they didn't really have and in reality you don't even REALLY know each other.

That's why you hear so many people say "He/she changed...he/she used to be this way/do this or that...but they aren't like that anymore." They didn't change, they just stopped pretending and everyone stops feeling good and the relationship eventually ends, with anger and resentment.

The moral of this story...NEVER ask the question "What are you looking for in a guy?" and NEVER answer the question "What are you looking for in a girl?" If people would stop asking and answering these self-sabotaging questions they would be much more likely to waste time and energy. If you want any chance of finding that "perfect mate" you have to stop looking for them and trying to make every person you meet fit your ideal. Meet the people, get to know who they really are and THEN think about how close they are to your ideal mate...don't try to convince yourself that they fit the ideal right from the get go...especially if you ask and answer those stupid "What are you looking for?" questions.

 

[typical]

Now that I must admit is solid advice im gonna be a idiot and give rep points haha

 

[izza]

I feel like all my impressions of everybody is fantasy. My impression of my mom is influenced by what I want my mom to be, and by what she wants me to be. And she knows me better than anybody else.

In other words, I have no problem telling a girl what I'm looking for out of her from day one. As for "living up to her expectations", I just express who I am from day one. I never try to fool her with some sort of facade. So she'll either like me from day one, or she won't.

What happened to me in my LTR, I think, was that at first we were having sex and it was great. Because we'd never had sex or that kind of love before. Then we both got satiated... we had gotten our fill. That's when it became more difficult to keep things lively, and I had no idea how to do it. That's when I started being somebody I wasn't in order to impress her. That was a bad idea. That was my spin on events though.

Izza

Nope...that impression is fantasy...a very unhealthy fantasy.

We all have this ideal image of the "perfect" mate. Like morons, one of the first things people do when they meet a potential partner is ask "What are you looking for in a man/woman?"...and the other person asks back the same question. Then you both tell each other what your "Ideal mate" looks like. So both of you want to bad to make that little fantasy real that you try to make yourself their ideal mate and you convince yourself that they are a perfect fit for your fantasy as well. So there you both are, busting your butts trying to fool the other person (and yourself) into thinking you have all those qualities they are looking for...and they are doing the same thing. That lasts for awhile...

Six months down the road....

You both get lazy and comfortable...think you are in love. You're not...you're just infatuated with each other and how you've found the perfect person for you and everything is beautiful. Then it happens...you each notice that your partner has "changed"...and they aren't that perfect person anymore. Well, no one changed really...they just stopped pretending to have all those qualities they didn't really have and in reality you don't even REALLY know each other.

That's why you hear so many people say "He/she changed...he/she used to be this way/do this or that...but they aren't like that anymore." They didn't change, they just stopped pretending and everyone stops feeling good and the relationship eventually ends, with anger and resentment.

The moral of this story...NEVER ask the question "What are you looking for in a guy?" and NEVER answer the question "What are you looking for in a girl?" If people would stop asking and answering these self-sabotaging questions they would be much more likely to waste time and energy. If you want any chance of finding that "perfect mate" you have to stop looking for them and trying to make every person you meet fit your ideal. Meet the people, get to know who they really are and THEN think about how close they are to your ideal mate...don't try to convince yourself that they fit the ideal right from the get go...especially if you ask and answer those stupid "What are you looking for?" questions.

 

[Wyldfire]

izza...even if YOU don't try to fit what she wants...most people will subconsciously do this. They don't deviously plan to trick each other...they are just full of hope and let their imagination run away with them. If you are someone who can avoid behaving that way...good for you...but it's highly unlikely that the woman will avoid doing it. This is something that is so deeply ingrained in most people that they don't even realize they do it.

I figured this out when I was actively using online dating. I made the mistake of answering that question to a guy and before I wrote the answer I had looked at his profile. I have a very good memory. I remembered what he had written in it. He went and edited his profile to perfectly fit what I told him I looked for in a man. I was like WTH is that? From that point on I have never answered that question. I get asked all the time, too. People don't like it when you won't answer it, either, lol. I've had lots of guys say stuff like "Well if you don't tell me what you look for how will I know if I'm that kind of guy?" I tell them, "Well, you don't need to know because if you aren't I will be sure to tell you.", lol.

 

[izza]

Ok, goodbye Wyldfire.

Right most people don't realize that it's what's different that makes a relationship work, not what's the same. And yeah, all i can speak about is ME, I don't understand how you claiim to know what most people do. Even from observation, that is pretty tough.