Endings

Let’s just get to it. Lindsay and I broke up. She broke up with me, I know that’s something people want to know. I told her I was going to write this blog post as well. Writing is my main way of processing these feelings and I just need to start going through those feelings.

What does that mean for me? Honest to goodness I don’t know. All I know right now is that there is a weight attached to my whole body that just won’t let up. I know that I’m angry. There’s always anger that comes with things like this. Never at her though, I couldn’t be angry at her. She explained why she wanted to break up well and had very good reasons. I won’t go into it because that’s entirely personal and between the two of us. Not something you put on a blog post.

It’ll take some time but I do believe we’ll remain friends. Some of you will say that this is a terrible idea, and you may well be right. It may lead to a lot more pain for both of us, but our friendship is valuable enough to warrant an attempt. We’re not going to try and pretend like we can just swap over to being friends again. They’ll be a lengthy period of time where we don’t talk to each other so that we both and process and move on.

It’s going to a lonely period of time, I won’t lie. I have wonderful friends in my life and I’ll be sure to spend quality time with them, but anyone who has been in a serious break-up knows that there holes left that no other person can fill. There are wounds that can only be healed by time.

I won’t lie, I didn’t see this coming. I’m devastated and I’m heart-broken. I’ll be alright though, eventually. I don’t think there’s much more I can say right now. It’s all so fresh. Later.

Last Seminar

I just don’t know what to say about this dating seminar anymore. I’ve been racking my brain for weeks now trying to figure out how to continue to write about it but absolutely nothing feels right once I put it down on paper or try to type it out. 

I just don’t know what to say about this dating seminar anymore. I’ve been racking my brain for weeks now trying to figure out how to continue to write about it but absolutely nothing feels right once I put it down on paper or try to type it out.

So here’s what I’ll say. I think 90+% of what I saw and heard in that seminar is just incorrect. I think this seminar was given by people who believe themselves to be experts in the field when in reality they’re far from it. Do you want to know what critical piece I think they’re missing from their seminar? It’s a woman’s touch. This was by far my biggest takeaway from the seminar, it was embarrassingly obvious that no woman had ever been consulted whilst this seminar was being created, in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if no woman had ever seen or heard any part of this seminar, even though it’s specifically designed to help men be more appealing to women.

How could I possibly guess at that? Well, I took what I heard at this seminar and presented it to women and asked what they thought. They all pointed out that they thought the information was bad and at times creepy. Now, this was a pretty small sample size so the information could have a pretty wide margin of error, but when it comes to what women want, I’d take the word of a few women over the word of someone who took dating advice from pick-up artists on YouTube.

I’m no expert in dating, but here’s my advice and I guarantee it’ll help you out. Make sure you’re happy with the person you are. Take a look in the mirror and really ask yourself how much you like that person. If you don’t ask yourself why and work on it. If you’re unhappy single the odds of you having a happy and fulfilling relationship are slim to none. The harsh truth is that most people at dating seminars don’t need dating seminars, they need self-help seminars.

If you’re happy and still unsure how to go about dating, ask your female friends. If you don’t have female friends to ask, sit down and really think about why that is, make some adjustments about how you behave around women and then go out and make some, and then ask them what they think is important in dating.

Don’t change who you are as a person though, its super cliche to say that the most important thing to be a successful dater is being yourself but it’s true. If you try to be someone you’re not, you might find yourself in a relationship, but the longer you keep up that charade the more miserable you’ll become, besides if you’re happy with who you are there really isn’t a need to change, you just have to keep looking (not hunting) until you happen upon that right person. It might result in a long wait for that special someone, but it’s worth it. Take it from me. Later.

So here’s what I’ll say. I think 90+% of what I saw and heard in that seminar is just incorrect. I think this seminar was given by people who believe themselves to be experts in the field when in reality they’re far from it. Do you want to know what critical piece I think they’re missing from their seminar? It’s a woman’s touch. This was by far my biggest takeaway from the seminar, it was embarrassingly obvious that no woman had ever been consulted whilst this seminar was being created, in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if no woman had ever seen or heard any part of this seminar, even though it’s specifically designed to help men be more appealing to women. 

How could I possibly guess at that? Well I took what I heard at this seminar and presented it to women and asked what they thought. They all pointed out that they thought the information was bad and at times creepy. Now this was a pretty small sample size so the information could have a pretty wide margin of error, but when it comes to what women want, I’d take the word of a few women over the word of someone who took dating advice from pick-up artists on YouTube. 

I’m no expert in dating, but here’s my advice and I guarantee it’ll help you out. Make sure you’re happy with the person you are. Take a look in the mirror and really ask yourself how much you like that person. If you don’t ask yourself why and work on it. If you’re unhappy single the odds of you having a happy and fulfilling relationship are slim to none. The harsh truth is that most people at dating seminars don’t need dating seminars, they need self-help seminars. 

If you’re happy and still unsure how to go about dating, ask your female friends. If you don’t have female friends to ask, sit down and really think about why that is, make some adjustments about how you behave around women and then go out and make some, and then ask them what they think is important in dating. 

Don’t change who you are as a person though, its super cliche to say that the most important thing to be a successful dater is being yourself but it’s true. If you try to be someone you’re not, you might find yourself in a relationship, but the longer you keep up that charade the more miserable you’ll become, besides if you’re happy with who you are there really isn’t a need to change, you just have to keep looking (not hunting) until you happen upon that right person. It might result in a long wait for that special someone, but it’s worth it. Take it from me. Later. 

Hands

Ok I’m gonna go ahead and be a little lazy today, just going to poke fun at myself quick.

Over the weekend I went up to Temple Square in Salt Lake City to see all the Christmas lights that get put up, I went with a bunch of my friends and my girlfriend. It was a lovely time. If you’re in the area you should really check it out, its a lot of fun. Just be aware that parking sucks this time of year so be patient with all of that stuff.

“Jonny you said you were gonna make fun of yourself.”

I’m getting to it, just chill. Whilst we were up looking at the lights our group came upon a store window with “mistletoe” written on it and after some peer pressure from friends Lindsay and I got a picture of us kissing underneath the writing. Isn’t that sweet? Sure, except for the fact that in the uncropped version of that picture you can see my arm dangling by my side  nice and awkward like, check it out. 

Oh yeah, look at that thing just… what am I doing?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ricky Bobby is now my spirit animal.

Why am I writing this post out, I could simply never post the uncropped version and get away with it couldn’t I? Yes, but my last couple of blogs (and surely some future ones) were poking a lot of fun at other peoples dating beliefs and practices and I wanted to remind folks that I’m not so arrogant to believe I am the one great authority in matters like this. I definitely do stuff that makes no sense when it comes to dating and I do a lot of silly things that deserve to be made fun of. So let’s all remember that when I write about dating stuff in the future that 1. I’m not saying everything coming out of my mouth is gospel and 2. We’re having fun here, not reading a TED talk. Ok? Great, later.

Charming Girls and Twisting Words

Ok so yesterday I worked through what I thought was some of the most dangerous thinking presented at this dating seminar I went to earlier in the week. Today I want to be less depressing and focus on some of the more silly things said. Let’s have some fun shall we? Also I think I mentioned this yesterday, but I don’t mean to rag on anyone in particular here, any issues I have are more with the general dating culture here than with any partiuclar individual, so relax. 

I’ll start today off with another quote,

“Women want a prince (or a high-quality man) to charm them until they simply can’t resist him any longer”

Yup, you nailed it, buddy. I mean what women doesn’t want someone who relentlessly pursues them until they simply submit themselves and go out with you. Sounds like true love to me. Maybe I’m not being fair to them right now and twisting their words, but come on! You really don’t have twist things very far to get to where I’m at! Like who uses word like “can’t resist” when they’re talking about dating and doesn’t expect people to give them this look.

If you’re dating life has enough opposition that the word “resist” is the first thing popping into your head than chances are your strategy needs a little refinement.

Now I can already hear my father typing up a comment for this, “Your mother ran away from me the first time I talked to her, I would call that resistance and it all worked out didn’t it?” Yeah, dad, it did, and I’m really grateful for that because otherwise I wouldn’t be here to make fun of you, but I think we can both agree that your situation is more of an exception to the rule than an example that proves it. Generally speaking, if a girl physically runs away from you that’s a sign to pack it in and take the L, make sure you hold on tight to it because you need to learn from this particular L. (Hats off to you dad for being oblivious enough to ignore that though so that I could exist! WHOOOO)

By the way I’m totally comfortable telling that story because I’ve heard my dad tell me it I don’t know… 7 billion times and somehow each time he tells it he owns it even harder than the last time. He’s actually totally unashamed about the whole thing. Honestly it’s one of the things I really like about him.

Back to the seminar though…

Let’s move onto specific terminology used. Hey, if I use the term “Social Proof” what springs into your head? Is it like a piece of paper you have that proves you know how to socialize with people in a non-serial killer way? Or maybe like a mathematical proof that demonstrates why nice guys finish last? Or perhaps its a reference to a term used in a sociological study looking into dating practices? Nope all wrong. Social proof is basically when you have cool friends so girls know you’re a cool person. I’m not a woman so I might be wrong about this, but I’m not currently aware of anyone who entered into a relationship with someone because they had cool friends. Sure I know people who set their friends up with people, but they don’t go on that date and have the girl say, “you’re friends with Billy so I know I should be attracted to you.” Like just… yeesh.

“Princes are able to elevate a princess to the station of a queen.”

Another lovely quote ain’t it? I’m sorry if I caught you off guard with the poetic beauty of it. It’s just such a well-crafted sentence it really des… I can’t keep playing this thing straight. Good lord this thing sounds like they took comments from r/niceguys and just plastered them on their PowerPoint (of course there was a PowerPoint! They’re professionals.) Like the sentiment is actually fine, if you’re a good person then you should be able to make your partners life better, but do we have to phrase it like that? Ladies just imagine for a moment a guy that you’ve been on a couple of dates with, they’ve gone ok but you’re not sure how you feel about him yet, then he drops this line, ” You are a princess, but I want to make you a queen.” If you got any sense it’s just like

There’s more to go through here, but I’m lazy and I’m kinda hoping to stretch this thing out until Christmas break so we’ll go over more of it another time. Later!

Princley Dating

“A prince knows he has many options.”

This is a quote from a dating seminar I attended last night. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Why are you going to dating seminars, Jonny? I thought you had a girlfriend? Did you already screw that up?” No I did not and yes I still have a girlfriend. She actually encouraged me to attend this thing. Not entirely sure what to make of that though… regardless that’s not the point,  I’m here now to talk about that quote because I think there’s a fair bit to unpack there and it’s just the first of many crazy things I heard last night. We’re going to be talking about this thing for a while folks. Buckle up.

Let’s being with what the speakers intended meaning. Basically, they were rephrasing the age-old saying of “There is plenty of fish in the sea” meaning that you shouldn’t get discouraged by rejection in dating because there are lots of people out there who could potentially be “the one”. (I say that even though I absolutely don’t believe in there being “the one” but that’s another thought for another time.)  You rephrase it so that people think the thought you’re having is a new and original one instead of something people have been saying forever. It gives you the authority in a sense. You have a unique view on a topic so people should listen to you. In that sense, it’s whatever. It sounds fancy and nice I guess.

However, I think there’s more to it though.

First off let’s quickly move through the use of a royal title to describe ourselves. You’re not royalty, neither am I. We’re ordinary people and believing that you are a “prince” is just cocky. Don’t get me wrong we should all believe in ourselves but not believe we’re better than others. How about “A good man knows he has options?” Is that too much to ask?

That being said what I really want to dig in on is the use of the word “prince”. Why use that word in particular? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use the word king instead? Why leave yourself with a lesser title?

Because the speakers do not believe that they or anyone in their seminar are kings. Kings are married. Princes are single. In order to ascend to the throne of fulfillment, you must have a queen. This is in my mind, is very dangerous thinking. Sidenote I’m not trying to rag super hard on these guys either, because while they are the ones that put it into a phrase I think this kind of thinking is very pervasive throughout YSA culture, especially here in Utah.  Far too many people here define their success in life by whether or not they’re a relationship. This leads them to believe that if they are single they are doing something wrong.

This is wrong.

Marriage does not make you a better person. In fact, crazy hot take here, but being married doesn’t really change who you are at all it just changes how you file your taxes. If you are of the mindset of dating just to get married so you can feel like a complete person then pal I’ve got some important info for you. Marriage isn’t going to make you feel better about who you are, not in the long run and if you get married because you think that being single is a lesser existence than I feel a tremendous sense of sorrow for your spouse.

Being single is a perfectly good thing to be, and so is being in a relationship. Moving from one to another doesn’t say anything about your character. Maybe if you become single because you cheated that says something, but that’s more about you being a cheater than you being single again. Being single and being in a relationship are just states of existence. Don’t worry about them, worry about trying to be your best self, find fulfillment in your own life instead of someone else’s. If you believe that you are not successful in life without a relationship you do not love yourself, and if you do not love yourself you cannot be a caring partner in a relationship, at least not to the level the other person deserves.

If you think you’re a prince, don’t go looking for a princess. Ask yourself why you aren’t the king of your life? Just don’t be egotistical about it. Remember, most of us are just ordinary people and thinking were the royalty of humanity is plain ole arrogant. Just be a good person and don’t worry so much about your relationship status. Later.