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Look, the reality is that Valentine’s Day is irrelevant, and you shouldn’t care about it at all. Hallmark and Instagram are making you sad, that’s ridiculous, have some dignity, etc. etc.
The other reality is that, if you’re single, there’s a decent chance you do care about it, and you might be viewing your romantic life a little bit differently right now because, “Ugh! A bunch of people just went on dates, and I wasn’t one of them!”
You may be questioning more than usual why you’re still single, and you may be committing yourself to try out the awkward, emotionally unstable, STI-ridden horrorshow known as dating once again.
That could be a good call. I don’t know for sure. I don’t know you. Sometimes people are meant to be alone, and that’s totally cool. Fuck the occasional rando and otherwise play X-Box, or tend to your garden. I don’t care. Do you.
But if you are looking to give a relationship the old college try again, I think it’s worth looking into the research about what works.
The good news is, there is plenty of that.
Step 1: Watch Your Attractions
Attraction is the first part of dating someone, and for sure the most annoying. There are so, so many grown women who have to deal with liking a jobless weirdo who wears trucker hats all the time, and literally millions of teenage boys who look at the most vapid, annoying girl in their class and get a raging boner.
This only slightly improves once they get into their 20s.
The reverse also happens, where we struggle to be attracted to people who would be great for us. This can often happen because, when looking for a significant other, many of us have a dealbreakers. Sometimes these are legitimate, like “No violent criminals,” or “No one who leans their seat back on a plane.” But usually this means we have a mental block against things like certain facial hair, or girl’s profile picture, or anyone’s level of education–a.k.a. a bunch of stupid self-enforced rules that do nothing to help us find the right person.
None of this shit matters. There are no rules for attraction, so stop trying to apply these nonexistent rules to yourself. Do what you can to remain open, so that you can find what works for you, instead of pre-assuming what will work for your specific weird, infinite, fucked up brain.
But also, be careful because the statistical odds are that you are attracted to some absolutely dumpster fires of people.
A recent study has suggested that psychopathic men have personalities that attract women. Another study found that women–even self-identifying feminists–are more attracted to benevolently sexist men–that is men who view women as pure, nurturing, weak, and in need of extra care. Women are also more attracted to men whose feelings are unclear–which is just a more specific brand of being a vague asshole.
I’m not going to rub in your face how fucked up you are, ladies. That’s for your future psychopathic husband to do.
But I will say, I’m sure men aren’t equally fucked up…right?
Men find women with higher hip to waist ratios attractive (Which is fine! See? Men aren’t that fucked up!) because it’s a sign of youth (aw damn it). Men are also more attracted to women who are into other women–which also isn’t fucked up on the surface. But, while the study doesn’t specify this, we all know it’s at least partly because we innately think bi women are kinkier, and more sexual in nature, and of course, more likely to give us a threesome–which is separately sexist and gross.
Men are fucked up too, but in simpler ways. We all know dudes are more likely to pick someone if they look good for fucking and ready to fuck, even if it means they might be vapid, or spoiled, or prone to burning your house down.
So, in both cases, try to manage your attractions. Women can’t help if they’re attracted to a guy who wants to leave her skinned remains in his basement pit just as men can’t help feeling attracted to essentially the closest things to blowup dolls that are biologically possible.
But you can totally control what you do about your attraction. Men can crank one out to the lady on the dating app who looks like a prostitute, and is mostly likely actually a Russian dude trying to syphon your social security number. This will clear their head and allow them to pick a more productive option.
Similarly, women can feel their attraction to the mysterious asshole at the bar, then consciously decide that mystery and negging are fucking annoying and time-consuming, and go talk to somebody else.
In all cases, these are likely the right ideas. So remember: Your attractions might be fucked up, but your choices don’t have to be.
Part of this (especially for men) can come in step two:
Step 2: Manage Your Expectations
There’s also evidence that once in a relationship, expectations tend to lead to more unhappiness. The more you expect your partner to wash your feet and thank you for the opportunity, the less you’re going to actually enjoy the kind treatment.
More broadly speaking, there’s a very clear inverse relationship between expectations and gratitude, but it also infers a potential issue when entering a relationship: we raise our expectations up to unreasonable levels, and as a result, fail to appreciate what’s good–which when you view it in those simple terms, is an absolute fucking bummer.
Men do this by internally rejecting women who don’t like the ones they look at while masturbating, which is 100% true, and awful in basically every imaginable way.
The correct idea for men is probably to stop looking at porn, but as with all of us, I probably need to learn to tamper my own expectations, and not expect my self-help blog to end worldwide porn consumption. So for men, this is mostly about keeping tabs on what you’re expecting, and trying going on dates with human beings who seem cool first, and who might be fun to fuck second. This might seem LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE, but if you’re conscious about it, I promise you it’s not. And if you can do that, you’re much more likely to make decent decisions.
Women’s expectations get out of hand with this via the ever-popular and ever-ridiculous notion that they deserve to be treated like a queen.
This creates an unhealthy problem of expectations because, well, nobody deserves that. Queens don’t even deserve to be treated like queens. The way any royalty is treated is fucking ridiculous and unhealthy.
The correct idea is, “I deserve to be treated as an equal, and supported, and cared for as needed.” But after being mistreated for the first several millennia of humanity, (and in many cases, still today) that feels super lame to a lot of women.
But in this case, and all others, the rule of gratitude remains: If you expect less, you’ll enjoy more, and that’s, well, that’s just creating a better life for yourself.
Step 3: Truly, Actually Be Yourself (Assuming You Don’t Suck)
Not only do people not care about your imperfections, but they want your imperfections.
Research has shown that online daters don’t want someone who brags about themselves, or only mentions their best qualities. They don’t want a car salesman selling his dick to the cringing populace.
Instead, they highly prioritize the profiles of people who come across as actual people. People want to hear about your specific quirks, and bizarre flaws. They want you, and they want you right on the damn surface.
Yes, your obsession with horses will turn some dudes off–like, for sure. For sure, for sure. But to the right guy, it’ll be an asset, and to another right guy, it’ll be interesting texturing that makes you feel like a living, breathing being, instead of just a bunch of words and pictures.
In all forms of modern dating, I see people drastically overthinking just about everything–from their dating profiles, to other peoples’ dating profiles, to–oh God–the intricacies of emoji-usage in a text conversation.
Yes, there is a ton you could think about there. There are a million different ways you could describe yourself, a million different ways you could be interpreted, and a billion different ways you could interpret him replying to your text with, “Cool…”
But you can’t control how random strangers see you, and you’ll never know exactly what someone means unless they just say it, so fuck trying to figure all of that out.
Instead, in dating profiles, in text conversations, in real conversations, in pictures, be your entire self. Be radically forthcoming. Put your best foot and your mediocre weird left foot forward too. If you have a weird third foot you generally try to hide in your pants somehow, put that one forward too.
The point is that, as I’ve said before, being authentic will turn away some people, but everyone it turns away is the wrong person. Only potentially right ones will stick around. So fuck it. Be who you are. Put it all out there.
With all of that said, that mostly only works if you’re not terrible. So if you’re thinking, “But then I’ll have to tell them about my habits of watching old Care Bears episodes until four AM and yelling at waiters when they’re slow with refills, and nobody will want me!” you might be right.
So fix those parts of yourself, and once you suck less, then get out there and put your new less shitty self on brutally honest display.
This isn’t hopeless. Try to listen to your brain over your dicks and ovaries, seek out respect–not a pedestal–and be yourself. If you do this, then come next Valentine’s Day, maybe a greeting card company won’t bum you out so much. In fact, I’ll bet if you do these things, you’ll find yourself waist-deep in boners, vaginas, boxes of chocolates and all of the adoration you can stand.
Or at least, I’m pretty sure that’s what the science is saying.
