Toxic Relationship Advice
Currently, the internet is inundated with dating advise and relationship advice. Dating advice is in fact just a personification of our dating culture, and most of the advise is written by people who benefits and wants to keep the status quo. Many of us in desperation of having our hearts broken, have joined these pages, watched the videos and tried to follow the material in the hopes that it will improve our current love situation.
It is a reality that we all want love… but most advice out there is toxic and has a lot of similarities with the beauty industry. There is two reasons for this:
They tap into our insecurities, they tap into out innate fear that we will be alone forever. This is a common limiting belief. To know more about limiting beliefs check the page on Mindhacking.
They tell us a story where they make us feel like if we follow a simple formula, buy something, we will be forever spared from out love suffering and our lives will change forever. These are typical marketing techniques. But the reality is that the same as the beauty industry, the dating advice industry needs clients that do come back for more and more, so there is no really incentive for them to solve any specific issues, but instead it is better to keep you in loops of hope that things will get better.
The harsh reality is that dating advice is designed to keep you doing just that: dating! Meeting one person after the next without really deepening any of these relationships.
Let’s evaluate the common pillars of dating advise in our dating culture and how they don’t conduce to having a fulfilling relationship:
They advise to not “put all your eggs in one basket”
This means to not put all of your attention in one single person. At face value this might seem to work because a person who has beliefs about abandonment might feel better not giving a single person that much importance but instead getting attention from multiple people. This reduces the chances that they will all stop providing attention at the same time. So what is the problem with this?
In order to have a relationship, unless you are looking for an open relationship, you will need to actually eventually focus your attention on a single partner. If you haven’t yet address your need of getting constant attention from your partner, your partner will eventually disappoint you, because no one is built to give constant attention to someone.
Second, focusing your attention on multiple people reduces the likelihood of getting to know someone on a deeper level, you will simply interact less with them and it will be very hard to build the intimacy required for a relationship. Imagine watching 5 movies at the same time, would you be able to remember what each movie is about?
They advise you to play “hard to get”
This could also mean appear uninterested or not show your real feelings in the hopes that the other person will feel insecure about the lack of reciprocation and will pursue you further. Why this doesn’t work in the long run? As much as it feels like something that might work there is various problems:
You might be caught up in a situation where you are constantly pretending to be a person you are not. You actually might want to get to know someone better, show your feelings or care and appreciation, but in the hopes of not “scaring” them, you hide your feelings.
The other person might actually be very ok with something casual and might benefit from you not showing any feelings because that makes the situation comfortable for them. So instead of being in a situation that has the potential to turn into a relationship, you actually bind yourself to a situation that has no chance of ever becoming a relationship.
The other person might actually get convinced that you don’t care and move on. With everything that is not based in clear communication, misunderstandings might arise. One of them being the other person things you are not interested enough.
So what to do instead of all of these advice that is keeping us compliant with a toxic dating culture?
Work on your ability to be vulnerable. Nowadays we confuse vulnerability with weakness but actually vulnerability can come from a very strong place. You actually have to be very strong to own your feelings and be able to show who you really are to others. Most of the time the inability to be vulnerable comes from a place where we feel the world around us is not safe. But as you remove beliefs around self-worth the world appears a safer place.
Work on your communication skills and your ability to express what you are feeling to others. It is possible that, given your upbringing, expressing feelings is not something that comes natural to you. This happens to a lot when people have acquired limiting beliefs around communication and have learned other techniques to express yourself instead indirectly, such as withdrawing of affection or passive aggression. If you invest time in removing these limiting beliefs you will find yourself more able to be open about with feelings without feeling threatened.
Be clear about what you want in life and from a partner. It is a reality that we all don’t want the same things. Also people is sometimes going through different life stages. Create a clear vision of what you want from a partner and that way you will be able to quickly identify if the person in front of you follows the same vision or not. Being clear on this can save you a lot of heartbreak for you and your partner.
And last but not least, remember to always be yourself (as cheesy as that sound). And this is because actually pretending to be someone different than what we are just to attract a person is not a strategy that works in the long run. It will make you feel depleted and empty, while being yourself will empower you and in the long run will improve the relationship that you have with yourself.
