But no! That?s really not what I think. That?s what my ego feels. What I really think and feel is something completely different.
Do you remember those first loves in adolescence when there was more time to do the first steps? As we grow more ?experienced?, we rush a lot more into these things. We rush so much that we forget that there?s more to love than ego. Ego learns quickly what are the ?moves? to bring satisfaction and pleasure into our lives. It learns how to make itself irresistible to the other partner so that it would get the level of arousal it knows it can get. Then, it unfolds by allowing more information to be processed with other senses to capture more details into the picture and form the protective barrier. Because the ego can be hurt more after it got the initial satisfaction and boost. That was exposed as his strategy and now it might be vulnerable to being hurt so the same one that made the move to get the kiss, is then shy and pulls back a bit to see things from a distance.
That?s when we think deeper!
One morning in September, I was was woken up by my alarm clock and it was so intense that I woke up from a REM stage where my brain was busy processing the other night?s date. I am usually a light sleeper so waking up from REM awakes intense fears for me. And there it was, I felt it, the fear of falling in love.
I got that after the first date with a guy I thought I really liked the previous night. It was not clear to me though why he wouldn?t kiss me. And there it was now, my fear revealing the reasons why that is better. I finally had time to think and process everything because my ego was not fed and spend a ?hungry? night processing that in REM.
I saw red flags in the way he described past relationships and relationships with his close ones. I saw red flags in the way he treated waiters at the restaurant and me. I saw the distance between our expectations from life to finally reveal more reasons to not go on a second date than to do so.
As the title says, when a guy doesn?t kiss you on a first date, he gives you time to think!
You think of all the things beyond your hormone rush and your ego needs to tick a box, get a new relationship on the roll and get that dopamine of being validated right off the bat. You spend a bit of time in the deceptive moment of being a bit rejected or maybe just underprepared for the feeling of not having expectations met. You are left wondering whether you actually wanted the kiss to happen or not. And then suddenly, with a more objective mind, you realize you might not have wanted the guy in the first place. It was all ego! And now that your ego was sorted and it got its validation from the reasons you gathered about the lack of the liss being the better way to go about it, you all of a sudden feel much stronger.
You see, we often fall into the trap of hormones. Discipline is a hard thing to achieve when one is riding a rollercoaster of emotions and living their life through the preferences of the heart more than the leadership of the mind.
I’ve been in a relationship with a spiritual man. He told me at some point in our relationship that he prefers to do things from his heart rather than have always his mind checking on his heart’s desires. He said he?d end up living a miserable life if he?d always had to check with his reasoning for all his decisions. But the moment he told me that was a very delicate moment because I was questioning his moral values about cheating. That?s when it hit me that he was playing a defensive role for his ego as a cheater that would have a justified way to say that maybe I was no longer making him happy and he found happiness somewhere else. That wasn?t the truth but it does bring about the extent of the lies we are able to tell ourselves just to make us feel better.
We lie to ourselves about the relevance of living the moment and living the emotions we want and crave because it?s easier to say ?that?s what makes me happy now? than to admit we had no discipline to say ?NO? to a kiss or more when we hd a chance to have that with a person who was either unfit for us or simply in the wrong timing if we are in a relationship.
I?ve talked about the aspect of discipline before in a longer conversation about the compassion and empathy we need to bring in the way we train our discipline so that it won?t end up making us feel miserable like my ex-boyfriend complained it made him feel, but rather a matter of pride for being able to stand up for our emotions in the authentic way that they come and go.
Wanting to go with the flow is a natural instinct of conservation more than it is of liberation.
We tend to believe that going with the flow means to be wild, to go crazy, to be eccentric and to be fully open. However, that?s exactly what it isn?t. It?s being protective of a state of mind that brings comfort. And we all know that comfort zone is nothing but conservatory behavior instead of truly open-minded one.
Being open while staying loyal to our higher self is what takes us out of the comfort zone, imposes a discipline and then ultimately, by doing so it expands our horizon of what we are capable of achieving.
That?s what true openness is and that has more to with a build-up of hard work than having strong moral ethics that confine your horizons and decisions. I?ve been very long attached to the sweet comfort of moral ethics as a way to discipline myself until I realized there?s a better way to do that while also expanding and growing my insights into the world and philosophy of life.
How does it feel when you refrain your urges and cravings?
That?s a question we seldom ask ourselves. We most of the time fall into the lust and cravings of the moment and allow ourselves to take care of managing the outcomes of our pitfalls more than we take care of our initial impulses.
In Buddhist philosophy, the time between thought and action is handled by the breathwork. The more we take time to allow that breath to unfold, we can think of something better in response to the impulse than the initial act we have on autopilot.
That?s exactly what happens when someone is being denied to have the first response from another person on a first date when they have a set of expectations formed.
We can surprise someone with our response to their own suppressed emotions by being able to rise above the level of discipline they have and allow ourselves to express the need without doing the action.
Let me give you an example.
This week, a friend of mine went on a date with a guy who broke up with her a while back. They went again on a ?first date? and she wanted to kiss him but that never happened. I remembered my own moment of the date in September and I began asking her how does it feel now that she didn?t kiss him and does she still like him enough to want to go on another date with him. She already knew how things are with having a relationship with him and breaking up so it was much easier to help her push back her own cravings because there was not much curiosity pushing the urge like when you do that with a person for the first time.
The absence of curiosity turned out to be the best factor to help her calms down her need to go all the way.
We began talking about what it really feels for her to be with him. Things are less hormone-driven now that there?s no curiosity. It turned out like in most cases when we evaluate things from an objective perspective that it?s a bigger investment on her side to continue the relationship than it is a relief to fully live her cravings for affection and attention with him.
We often get carried away by the fact that we have a need and a person that might fulfill that need in our surroundings so we confuse the craving for that need to be fulfilled with the need to have that specific person next to us.
The need to be in a relationship is not the same as the need to be with ONE specific person
I found out for myself that for years I just wanted to pass the milestone of being in a relationship for longer than a few months. In 7 years I only had one relationship that passed 4 months and that was mostly because it was sort of long-distance. So to understand the need for a relationship vs the need for a certain person in our life we need to ho through another filter. We need to feel secure enough that we can have any person we?d want to have and then choose the one we?d be most suited to have a relationship with.
And also, don?t forget the logistics of a relationship. We often dismiss the logistics of the relationship in favor of an intense sexual desire for someone. But to be fair, logistics are a much bigger component for compatibility than we can think of. That, of course, doesn?t mean we need to go blindfolded for that ?really nice guy who?s rather boring and ugly but will cherish us until the day we die? because our mother/aunt, a best friend who?s married recommended us. Don?t rush to find the match until you?re really ready.
I wrote about commitment and being ready here.
But I also wrote about being emotionally available and what that means.
And ultimately I also wrote about discovering that he might not be the one but there?s always another chance around the corner.
And that if you really want to know if he is the one, you should fall in love with yourself first!
I hope all these help in your way of taking the time to date, think and know what you truly want from life, dating and yourself!
Practice lean dating!
