Anecdotal Nonsense on Dating and the Dreaded Red Button...

Aaaaannnnnd.. she's still awake. Perplexed and unable to escape her thoughts.

Nothing new about that, eh?

On Dating


I was thinking..

Isn't it funny the things we say - the person we sometimes become when we're in the dating stage of life?

Silly, really.

Wouldn't it be so much easier to just take a deep breath and be ourselves?

So, why the hell don't we?

This game of anxiety and nervousness.. overanalyzing every little movement and word. Part of it is the romanticism of the thing itself, I suppose.

But, when, WHY did people ever become so scared? So fake...

I see it as an invisible box that we put ourselves into. When you're first meeting someone, your mind initially shifts to the "socially acceptable" box (which, let's face it - no one truly knows the answer to what this is - thus begins the circle of confusion.. winding us into an abyss of god knows what's next) feeling the ins and outs of what might make this person find you crazy or odd.

Anxiety is a funny thing.

But what really got me thinking, besides the obvious danger of the socially acceptable box thing (throw that one away - forever. Do it right now, I order you), is the red button.

The dreaded red button....

What's the red button, you say?

Remember when you were a kid and there was "that" thing - that One thing that was the equivalent to Not pushing the red button? The One thing you weren't supposed to do?

Do you remember the way you felt when they (in this case, probably your parents or older sibling) told you not to do it? Do you remember asking why? Do you remember how Badly you wanted to do it after they said Not to?

So, in this case, what's the red button?

The red button is accepting the box. It's not flushing it down the toilet and being yourself. It's doing the opposite.

O.k. So, now think. The last time you went out on a date, started a new job, or met some new people. What did you do?

I bet lots of you said to yourselves. "O.k., me. Just be yourself, and you'll be fine."

You just told yourself not to push the red button!!

And I'll bet you failed.
I bet you pushed it.
I bet you were as far from being yourself as is humanly possible.

Moral of the story?

Don't say it. Don't think about it. Don't even consider it.

As a matter of fact - do something else.

Take a bath. Meditate. Pray. Listen to your favorite cheesy band on the way. Do things that make the red button story seem like a silly little anecdote that you never intended to remember, or read again.

People are weird. I, myself, enjoy being one of the weirder ones. Go have fun doing the same.