Don’t ask me to flirt with you

Why do we act like writing is dating?

“It’s not you, it’s me” (Any rom-com feat. a publication that rejected your story)

I sometimes think we’re treating publications as a crush. And we’re really millennial about it, you know? There’s a ton of social stalking. You read what they like, search for who they dated before. Then drown in vanilla ice-cream, in the belief you will never be enough.

As in life, most relationships are the result of the movement of one party towards the other. While the opposite still may happen, when it comes to publications the first step is usually on you.

In other words, you may need to get good at flirting.

I’ve been in therapy for almost 5 years. Breaking up with a narcissist brought me there. Two years after my break-up, my therapist and I were talking about me dating again. The bomb got dropped: I do not know how to flirt.

I’m going to get you through the process. Imagine there’s no COVID-19 and you’re in a crowded pub, sipping a Moscow Mule. A cutie eyes you.

a) You can FEEL it = You’re already way ahead of me. b) You didn’t notice = That’s my pal!

So, if you went with b) and the cutie was persistent enough to come talking to you, what would you do? Someone like me would MAKE SURE that the cutie leaves. I would try anything not to unveil anything about myself. Sarcasm. Rudeness. Shyness. My beahaviour can be summarized in the following: do not show any interest. Which ends up in not being interesting at all.

Getting dumped

About pride and shame

This brings us to my last story. I was proud of it. You know, that feeling you get any time you finish a draft? Like it’s your beautiful baby, who got from Pampers to graduation? That one.

Pride is such a good thing to your soul. Here’s the reversed side of pride: shame. My last story got rejected from the publication I sent it to.

I had a few others in mind but I got into the loop they would have SENSED I already faced a NOPE. That a major publication threw an Exploding Kittens’ card at me.

Truth is, that publication wasn’t the right fit. And deep down, I knew it. I looked at the articles they published and they were distant from me. They wanted people to be positive and show up how their experiences changed them from the better. I had no interest in that.

Being interested and being interesting is a two-faced coin. It defines success in flirting. It has a great impact on writing too.

With my therapist, we set some little challenges. She tried to induce me into some basic flirting. Though they were easy tasks, I failed miserably at most of them. I did realize, though, that she was helping me developing a bit of way to notice people enough to have them notice me. If you grew up with the belief that putting your best self to the light spot is showing off, both dating and writing could be nightmarish.

If I were good enough, they should have liked me anyway.

And if they don’t like me, I’m no good for them.

It happens in your mind when you believe you’re exposing your true nature and you face a big NOPE. It’s rooted in how society envisions being flirtatious. Better said, it comes anytime you equal efforts on likeability to insincerity.

Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy

About strategies on being liked

So it’s 2000something and I’m at a friend’s house party. He’s drunk as hell. Kesha is playing. My friend is a talented screenwriter who just came back from L.A. He’s talking about his first year in college. How he “studied” a strategy to figure out which people would have been compatible with him. He thoroughly analyzed which associations and activities to enter. He figured out anything he could do to ensure reaching people who would have liked him. I fell off my chair.

We can agree there is a bit too much effort in there. I never dealt with the idea people might ponder how to make friends and be likeable. I got to my therapist the day after with this enormous revelation:

“Some people believe they have to PUT AN EFFORT to have people like them!”

Scandal! Why do tabloids bother about the engagement ring of the ex-Duchess of Sussex when there’s something like that?

To understand why it was an enormous shock to me, we need to go back to high school. I got to hang out with anybody I wanted my whole life. Depending on my moods and days. The “cool kids”, the nerd ones, the alternatives, the punks: anybody would like to hang with me. I never felt isolated. I never got mocked or rejected by any of these groups. I realized late in life that that is a social miracle and a true blessing.

This fortunate event led me to two fake news:

a) you don’t need to put any efforts into fitting in;

b) anytime you try to fit in you’re mischieving your true nature.

And this is how you get terrible at dating and you risk missing out on your best writing.

The best red lipstick shade

About the difference between authenticity and the ability to act on an impulse

I’ve been a Chief Editor for a couple of years for an Italian TV magazine. I curated both episode’s reviews and pieces about soundtracks, which are my real fetish. Being an editor is in the difficult balance between two things:

What strikes you vs. what people are looking for.

In life, you will soon find out that the belief you're perfect as you are gets you nowhere. Not only we're all imperfects, but this assumption builds on a tendency of blaming others.

Unpopular opinion. Writing and dating actually have one thing in common: they are not about your value.

Our society makes an inappropriate juxtaposition between authenticity and spontaneity.

Two years ago, a friend of mine wanted to go back to the dating game after a period of "perfectly-fine singlehood". She always described herself as an outlier, but she is not. She's a stunning tall and skinny girl with a 5D bra cup size so that I never actually witness her not being noticed by a man. Yet, in those days she believed she was not getting any attention and that she needed to apply more. She started questioning a girl who had strong success with men. She took notes of what she usually talked about. How she replied to texts. What f****n' emojis she used. (SPOILER: there was a tiny catalogue of allowed emojis. Some were banned, including the ones that "laugh too much" and all winkie faces).

To me, it was Kesha all over again.

Whenever someone tells you to be yourself they will be prone to tell you to be bold. They will urge you to act on impulse as the free spirit you ought to be.

Having a strategy collides with this idea of authenticity. Calculating your moves, and apprehending other people's approaches sound like you're modifying yourself. It seems like you're cutting off your arm to put a bionic one. I grew up with that kind of resolution. And I feared no rejection as long as I could believe that what I was bringing to the game was my true self. I never thought about a better option in presenting myself.

The first time I told a boy I liked him, I was leaving his car and I said it before closing his car door.

Just like that: “Hey, btw, I like you”.

Clumsy and uncomfortable.

That’s me being spontaneous. That was also my only take on authenticity.

Yet, let’s imagine a different scenario. Where I actually took some time to think about my feelings. Let’s imagine I figured out a bit more about him. I realized he likes reading. I wrote a letter and I gave it to him in a situation that didn't look as I was leaving a grenade in the car. Well, that still would have been the authentic me.

That’s tactics. That’s flirting. It's putting your best lipstick on before going on a date. That’s writing for a specific publication.

Nothing has changed in your value. But you may have a higher chance at succeeding.

Your best lipstick shade won't save you from getting dumped

About approaches and rejections

We often consider the fear of something in the process as a fear of the result. Yet, there is an unvalued difference between fearing rejection and fearing approaches. The latter can lead you to the first. You may understand that and still not be able to cope with the idea of adjustments.

Rejection is not a bad thing. It is a normal thing that could happen to anybody. Whenever I start a new project I envision that I will make a lot of mistakes. I prepare myself to the fact that I may have chosen a task that is bigger than myself. I’m a strong believer that we should teach people at an early age that they will fail in life. That this will hurt them. They’ll learn to make it a little bit less personal anytime they can, and move one. They will have to figure out on their own how to face it, any single time. I'm a huge fan of "Emotive Education in Failing 101" in all high schools.

Life serves us a lot of stuff we cannot control. Results are often out of our hands. The processes never are. In both writing and dating, there’s a balance. Between claiming that you can do anything on your own terms and allowing yourself to change a bit to fit someone else’s standards. Depending on how much your mindset is skeptical about flirting, you may play two different scenarios:

a) I change. I take into consideration how to do it. I accept that there are styles who are more effective in reaching people. b) I go on my own way. I learn from others but I do not adopt, I keep pouring myself and moving out of instinct.

Any of the two options understand the importance of making adjustments. They both depend upon noticing what other people do to improve your ability in getting noticed. But they do not have the same outcome. What's important is that we detach the success rates from the value of the people.

Go smile at the cute publication you saw on Monday.

I don’t know if you will like each other. But I can assure you that - in spite of what any rom-com says about it - it’s not about you and it’s not about them.

Love is about finding the one person who likes you in a million who doesn’t. Writing gives you the illusion of being different since a lot of persons can connect to your work. Yet, being published is a dating game. You can spend your efforts on the best approaches. You may increase your chances of getting out the best of you, but there are no sliding doors when it comes to matching.

An most of all, you need to take the Pope of Nope for what it is: a card game that gives you the opportunity of remaining alive. And do better.