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I can’t tell you how many times a week someone online says to me: “Matthew, I’ve had enough. I’m just going to give up on dating altogether.”
It may be because they are sick of getting their heart broken. It may be that they are exhausted from going on dates that don’t go anywhere, or online conversations that never even get to the point of a date in the first place.
It could be the frustration of never meeting people they have true chemistry with, or when they finally do, discovering that they aren’t looking for a relationship.
If you feel any of these things, I made this week’s video for you.
If you feel you’re close to giving up on this area of your life, I have no righteous ground to take in telling you you’re wrong. I completely understand it. It is unbelievably frustrating, especially when you want nothing more than to just get on with sharing your life with that special person instead of more time passing without them in it.
You’re not weak or crazy for feeling the way you do, so give yourself a break. But before you give up, just do me one favor – watch this video today.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:00
are you finding that you’re losing the
00:02
motivation to date
00:04
there’s a lot of contradictory feelings
00:06
that we have in our love lives
00:08
on one hand there’s a part of us deep
00:11
down that knows
00:12
i would love to meet someone i want to
00:15
meet the love of my life but many of us
00:16
hate dating
00:18
we hate the process and that’s
00:19
understandable it’s kind of like saying
00:21
i want to find the one i love but i
00:24
don’t want to go on dates with people
00:26
that aren’t them
00:27
and the list gets longer of things that
00:30
we don’t want to do in our love lives
00:33
we don’t most of us want to spend hours
00:36
and hours
00:36
scrolling mindlessly on dating apps
00:40
we don’t want to do activities that
00:42
we’re not interested in
00:43
simply for the purposes of maybe meeting
00:46
someone which is a small chance anyway
00:48
and of course many introverts really
00:50
feel this acutely
00:52
because the things that they fantasize
00:55
about doing with the love of their life
00:57
whether it’s going on a vacation
00:59
together whether it’s
01:01
going on a road trip camping being chill
01:03
at home
01:04
and watching movies or going on candle
01:06
at dinners these are all very intimate
01:08
things
01:09
and the opposite of many of the things
01:12
that we’re told we need to do in order
01:13
to meet someone which is be around lots
01:15
of people and play the numbers game
01:17
in some ways it could be argued that
01:19
this is like many things in life
01:21
many people want to be wealthy but they
01:24
don’t want to go through the hassle of
01:25
starting
01:26
a business many people want to have that
01:29
action hero body but they hate the gym
01:32
but i suppose the difference is that
01:36
when we go to the gym even though we
01:38
don’t get our ideal body that day that
01:40
week or even that month necessarily
01:43
we still feel like we made a little
01:45
progress that that session
01:47
counted and the same is true of running
01:49
a company
01:50
you may not feel like you’re getting the
01:52
results you want yet but you do feel
01:54
like you’re on the way to building
01:55
something that effort
01:57
counted in our love lives we can have
01:59
this horrible
02:00
feeling that none of the effort we’re
02:03
putting in
02:04
actually counts that we just had another
02:06
conversation or another
02:08
date with someone we clearly have no
02:10
future with
02:11
and all we’re left with is the
02:12
disappointment and the resentment that
02:14
that was time we could have spent with
02:17
someone we actually love from our
02:19
friends and family
02:20
or doing something we actually love
02:23
everyone
02:24
has had that experience of going home
02:27
from a date
02:28
and thinking i am done i don’t care
02:31
anymore i’m not
02:32
looking anymore i don’t want to do this
02:35
ever again
02:37
so what is the solution to all of this
02:39
first
02:40
don’t see everything that you need to do
02:43
in your love life
02:44
as only being for your love life i think
02:47
a lot of our resentment and frustration
02:49
and even
02:50
depression comes from thinking that the
02:52
things we have to do to find love
02:55
have no utility outside of finding
02:59
the person we want i think some of them
03:01
it’s hard to justify outside of
03:04
finding a person you know scrolling away
03:06
on a dating app
03:07
it’s hard to figure out what the good
03:09
reason for doing that would be
03:11
if it wasn’t to find somebody and it’s
03:13
hard to see it as not a waste of time
03:15
if we don’t find somebody but there are
03:17
other things that i think are worth it
03:18
for their own sake
03:19
enriching our lives going out there and
03:21
doing new things even if they’re
03:23
things that we don’t always want to do
03:25
or they’re not things that we would
03:26
normally choose to do i think those
03:28
experiences do
03:29
add color and flavor to our lives the
03:32
very least they give us more things to
03:33
have a conversation about more things to
03:35
have an opinion on
03:36
one of the things that i used to love
03:37
about anthony bourdain in the series
03:39
parts unknown
03:40
is that it always felt to me like he was
03:44
dating the world it felt like he was
03:46
somehow dating life
03:48
dating the planet that he was going
03:50
around and having all of these
03:52
adventures sometimes he traveled to
03:54
places that he wouldn’t normally go to
03:56
uh and maybe would never go back
03:58
sometimes he did activities
04:00
that maybe he would never try again but
04:02
at least he did them he had an
04:04
opinion on them he would sit down to
04:06
dinner with all sorts of different
04:08
people
04:09
and based on how many people were deeply
04:11
saddened by bourdain’s death
04:13
i clearly wasn’t the only one who is
04:15
inspired by that
04:16
so if bourdain can date the world
04:19
why can’t we and i think the richer life
04:22
that that will create for us
04:23
will be worth it even if it doesn’t
04:26
result in
04:26
someone who becomes a permanent fixture
04:29
in our lives
04:34
number two give energy simply to give it
04:38
part of i think what creates resentment
04:40
in our love lives is that
04:42
we give energy in a certain situation
04:44
because we like someone or we’re
04:46
attracted
04:47
and we want it back and then when we
04:49
don’t get it back we feel like a failure
04:51
and we decide not to give that energy
04:53
again
04:53
i think that it’s better to start by
04:56
saying
04:57
what energy do i want to represent in
04:59
life
05:00
what energy do i want to bring into a
05:02
room i think of the movie elf
05:05
when buddy the elf is a human but he
05:07
comes to new york
05:09
and is almost looked at like an alien
05:11
not just because he’s wearing an elf
05:13
suit
05:14
but because he has this almost naive
05:18
kindness about him that he just spreads
05:21
joy wherever he goes he walks into a
05:24
stuffy office
05:25
and compliments people and says sweet
05:28
things and
05:29
notices things and has a curiosity about
05:31
him
05:33
that brings other people to life that’s
05:36
not
05:36
only going to be a more generous spirit
05:39
than
05:40
being frustrated and upset until we meet
05:43
someone we love or
05:44
could love and then switching all of
05:46
that on
05:47
is also a way of attracting people that
05:50
we wouldn’t normally attract
05:52
because i do believe that’s like a beam
05:54
of light that we shine out when we give
05:57
that energy
05:58
people notice us differently and that’s
06:00
part of being the person
06:02
that other people see from across the
06:04
room and by the way that’s not why we’re
06:05
going to do it we’re not going to do it
06:07
because if we give this energy someone’s
06:08
going to come over
06:10
we’re going to do it because that’s
06:11
simply the energy that we want to
06:13
represent in the world
06:15
one of kindness and magic and
06:18
possibility
06:19
number three we will conserve more
06:21
energy in our love lives if we get
06:23
better at saying no to the wrong people
06:27
faster always remember this
06:30
we cannot control when we meet the one
06:34
but we can control how many people we
06:37
meet
06:37
and how quickly we let go of someone
06:41
who is the wrong one number four
06:44
pit stops r-o-k there’s nothing wrong
06:47
with taking a break from dating if you
06:49
need it
06:50
or slowing down taking more time for
06:53
yourself or other activities so that you
06:55
can
06:56
refuel and bring more energy to your
06:58
love life
06:59
a little bit later on just don’t allow a
07:02
pit stop to become a dead end
07:05
because that will be doing your life a
07:07
disservice
07:08
even if you reintroduce things that you
07:10
want to do for your love life
07:11
slowly at some point get the car
07:14
moving again and number five focus
07:18
on the person who is going to thank you
07:20
in the future
07:22
for not giving up today because
07:25
that person is going to be so lucky to
07:27
have someone as loving as
07:29
you in their life that person is out
07:32
there
07:33
right now as you’re hearing my voice
07:35
doing something out there in the world
07:38
hoping that they get to meet someone
07:41
like you
07:47
uh what probably wouldn’t be apparent if
07:49
it weren’t for the change in my hair
07:50
is that that video was made pre-covered
07:53
we released it now because we finally
07:56
felt it was irrelevant at the time we
07:58
shelved it because we said this isn’t
07:59
where people are at
08:01
let’s not release this and we were
08:02
forced to make all these new videos we
08:05
didn’t know we were going to have to
08:06
make
08:06
as a result of the changing times and
08:09
that i think
08:10
is kind of a metaphor for so many of our
08:13
situations this year
08:14
right it’s been the story of adaptation
08:17
our year
08:18
radically changed and we’ve all had to
08:20
adapt whether it’s adapting our
08:21
lifestyles our relationships
08:23
or just adapting our emotions we’ve had
08:26
to adapt
08:26
internally to all of these unexpected
08:28
challenges and the thing about
08:30
adaptation is that it can either be
08:32
unconscious
08:32
right it can either happen to us which
08:34
has happened for an awful lot of us this
08:36
year it’s just
08:37
we’ve been forced to normalize certain
08:39
parts of it we haven’t had a choice
08:41
but there’s also conscious adaptation
08:44
where we decide
08:45
how we want to grow how we want to
08:47
change what we want to create out of
08:49
this
08:50
one of the ways that we as a company
08:52
have chosen to consciously
08:54
adapt is well firstly we had to postpone
08:58
both of our live retreats this year but
09:01
one of the things that we’ve done that i
09:03
am so so excited about because we’ve
09:06
never done it before is to create a
09:09
virtual retreat that is going to be
09:11
happening
09:12
live in october
09:15
i’m so pumped about this because for so
09:17
many years we’ve had people who couldn’t
09:19
attend the retreat
09:20
for financial reasons we’ve had people
09:22
who couldn’t come for logistical reasons
09:24
because they couldn’t get a visa to come
09:26
to the states
09:26
we’ve had people that couldn’t come
09:27
because they were a teacher and the
09:29
dates don’t line up for their schedule
09:31
we’ve had people not be able to come
09:32
because their parents and they couldn’t
09:34
get their kids looked after
09:36
whoever you are for the first time ever
09:38
you are going to have the opportunity to
09:40
attend
09:41
my retreat look two things are true one
09:44
life didn’t stop happening because
09:46
covert happened we’re still dealing with
09:48
our own demons
09:49
our own insecurities our confidence
09:51
issues our self-worth issues
09:53
the problems with our lives regardless
09:55
of what’s happening this year
09:57
but we also now have the added challenge
09:59
that this year has made
10:01
massive changes to our lives that we
10:03
didn’t expect the virtual retreat
10:05
is going to be about conquering the
10:07
challenges we already had
10:08
it’s also going to be about adapting
10:11
powerfully to everything that’s happened
10:13
this year
10:14
so that we can go on to create our
10:16
masterpiece not just
10:18
in spite of what’s happened this year
10:21
but as a result of what’s happened this
10:23
year we can turn all of this into
10:24
something beautiful together
10:26
i don’t have all the answers but i do
10:28
have a process
10:30
a process that i’m going to be using to
10:31
hit reset on my life this year
10:33
and one that you can come and join me in
10:36
learning about in real time
10:38
with me as we apply it together so come
10:41
to
10:42
mhvirtualretreat.com i will see you
10:44
there you can learn more information
10:46
about it thank you
11:07
you
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This post was previously published on YouTube and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
The post Ready To Give up on Dating? Watch This… [Video] appeared first on The Good Men Project.