Your Efforts in Dating Won’t Equal the Outcome You Want

The Reality of Expectations in Love

I was recently listening to a wonderful podcast on dating anxiety and one statement stuck out to me: The mistake of assuming that our efforts will lead to specific outcomes.

That if we show up a certain way in our dating life, we’ll be gifted with the relationship we crave. As the host so brilliantly explained, this mindset couldn’t be more wrong and what’s more, is that so many of us get confused believing it to be true.

Let me elaborate further. I’ve been there myself. Feeling like I’ve done all the right things and said all the right words only to be met with inevitable rejection despite my lofty expectations. It can be a frustrating experience, to say the least. You free up your plans, you say what you think they want you to say, you act how you think they want you to act, make yourself available…

And nothing.

Not one ounce of return for all the effort you put in.

What went wrong?

Well, you went wrong.

There Are No Guarantees When Dating

Assuming we can control the outcome of a situation where control can’t be found is insanity -and many of us are tip-toeing the line-. We believe that if we act a certain way, we’ll be gifted with the love and relationship we so desperately crave.

Not only is this wrong on levels we’ll touch on later, but it’s setting ourselves up for a tremendous letdown. We can’t control someone else’s behaviors or preferences -point blank and period. Just because you are choosing to act a certain way to win their approval does not mean you’ll get it. As Mark Manson says;

“You can’t control other people, you can’t control nature, and you can’t always control your own body. When you get frustrated over something you cannot control you’re pretending you’re God.” — Mark Manson

Recently in my own dating life, I was faced with consistent unavailable behavior that I thought through letting slide, I’d avoid rocking the boat and keep the other person sweet. I made the mistake of assuming that if I people-pleased and resisted conflict, they’d suddenly become available — but they never did.

I believed that acting a certain way would bring about a certain result.

Of course, I then got annoyed at them for not cooperating with my secret contract. “I’ve abandoned my morals and kept quiet, how could you not want me?” It’s the classic case of the nice guy being nice assuming they’ll get a return for their “hospitality” only to curse the other person when they don’t.

It’s subtle manipulation -and a lot of us do it.

But why?

A Need For LOVE

There are a plethora of reasons why we choose to go this route and over-extend ourselves in dating. To believe we can act a certain way to get the relationship we crave.

One of the most prominent is a lack of self-worth. The belief that we have to act a certain way in order to get what we want as being ourselves simply isn’t enough. Love becomes an opportunity to validate our existence rather than a meeting of two sides. In that, we turn to people-pleasing and behavior change in an attempt to get the validation we crave.

Societal and familial pressures can also make us believe we need love. Maybe you’re a woman and have been socially conditioned into believing that you need to be married and have a family by a certain age. At home, your grandma asks you regularly when she’s getting a grandchild and others make comments on your bad track record in dating. None of this helps, as you’re now desperate to find love and prove them wrong. So much so that you approach dating from this state of desperation that pushes you into states of people-pleasing and self-abandonment.

Whatever the origin the endpoint is the same. We feel inadequate without love and are fueled by fear to get it — however much we need to self-abandon in the process.

The Implications Of This

When we move from a place of fear we rob ourselves and others of our authenticity. No longer do we move through dating with ease but are fueled by an undercurrent of anxiety that has us questioning each and every move we make. Will this appear good to them? What if they find out I’m a fussy eater, don’t like horrors, or don’t drive? And if these are our surface-level concerns it’s any wonder how we approach deeper issues such as our emotions or mental health.

The stress we endure trying to mold ourselves into who we THINK someone wants us to only add fuel to the fire of our eventual rejection. So much time and energy spent in a state of anxiety, and for what? Nothing. What’s worse is that we then take this rejection to beat ourselves up further. It can become a vicious cycle of dating and disappointment.

None of this is worth the possibility of winning somebody over and even if we tried, there are no guarantees that our efforts will ever work.

Moving Through This

In order to move through this problem, we must become comfortable with rejection and the fact that dating is wildly unpredictable. Easier said than done for those of us who suffer from anxiety and low self-worth, I know, but believing otherwise only causes us more harm than good.

We all move at our own pace, despite what society, friends, or family may tell us. When we can begin to move through dating with ease and understanding that we are here to experience whatever this experience brings for us, our lives become significantly easier.

No longer do we move through dating feeling anxious over how we’re coming across; we enter it instead from a place of knowing who we are and accepting that the right person will love us for that. Anything less or any rejection is nothing more than a sign that the two of you are incompatible.

Not only this but in freeing ourselves from the grips of our fears we allow ourselves to make our own logical choices. Someone in an anxious pursuit will overlook red flags and self-abandon because the goal of a relationship is worth more than who you actually end up with. When we relax into dating we remove the rose-tinted glasses and we take back control of what will truly be good for us.

As you move through dating bring awareness to this. Try your hardest to sink into the experience without changing who you are. Inevitably, we all want someone to love us for who our authentic self is -not some make-believe self-abandoner whose facade we could never keep up anyway.

Thanks for reading this article. If you enjoyed it, I’d be very happy if you could leave it a few *claps*. In the meantime, feel free to check out similar articles below.