Dating nowadays has become such a tough obstacle course, full of heartbreaks, depression, frustration, and time-wasting. I heard that love is a great beautifier. That love isn't supposed to hurt. That it is supposed to be cheerful, enhancing, and fulfilling. But why are we such in pain because of it? Why is dating now so hard? Was it this way years ago? What are we missing? And is there anything we can do to make it better? That's some of the questions I was hoping to find answers to when I started following Alison's Armstrong workshop almost two years ago. Since then, I come to understand myself and the way my peers and I act and behave in our daily lives and in our relationships (see «Understanding Women»). I got also to understand how men think, and how and why they conduct the way they do thanks to «The Amazing Development of Men». The less I can say is that we are indeed VERY different! Yet, we are still drawn to each other. So, how can we manage those differences and be able to build something great? From how we are out of sync, through what it takes to be in sync, to how to keep the partnership going, «In sync with the Opposite Sex» will provide us with the tools we need to stop being hurt, stop hurting people and start living true and authentic love. Thank you for being here. Enjoy!
What is love?
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more
Baby, don't hurt me, don't hurt me
No more
What is love?
Yeah
No, I don't know why you're not fair
I give you my love, but you don't care
So what is right and what is wrong?
Gimme a sign
What is love?
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more
«What Is Love» - Haddaway, 1993
Glossary.
Opposite: Situated on the other or further side, or on either side, of an intervening line, space, or thing; contrary in position; facing. Synchronize: In technical senses: to cause to coincide in time; to operate simultaneously or in synchronization. Sex: The sum of the structural, functional, and sometimes behavioral characteristics of organisms that distinguish males and females. Instinct:
Inborn tendency to behave in a way characteristic of a species: We tend to believe that the way we date comes from our past. But it has less to do with our personality and our culture than our species and specifically with our gender.
A natural unacquired mode of response to a stimulus.
Primal, biological urge, impelling a response that brings relief of tension.
Glee: A feeling of happiness, usually because something good has happened to you, or something bad has happened to somebody else. Adversarial: Involving two people or two sides who oppose each other: of relating to, or characteristic of, an adversary or adversary procedures. Adversary: One that contends with, opposes, or resists: an enemy or opponent. Date: A social engagement between two people that often have a romantic character.
Ordeal: An ancient method of trial in which the guilt or innocence of an accused person was determined by subjecting him or her to physical danger. From which he was supposed to be divinely protected if he was innocent.
Possible: Being within the limits of ability, capacity, or realization.
Partnership: Persons on the same side of team, persons engaged in some enterprise sharing its profits and risks.
Trust: Firm belief or confidence in the honesty, integrity, reliability, justice, etc. of another person or thing; faith; reliance.
Engage: To pledge oneself; promise; undertake; agree. To occupy or involve oneself; take part; be active. Strategy: The science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations. A plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result Express: To transform (ideas) into words; utter; verbalize. To show or reveal; indicate.
False: Not in accordance with the truth or facts. Not genuine, real, or natural; artificial; fake.
Advertise: To warn; caution; to present or praise (goods, a service, etc) to the public, esp in order to encourage sales.
Authentic: Of undisputed origin or authorship; genuine; accurate in representation of the facts; trustworthy; reliable. Genuine: Of the original stock; purebred; really being what it is said to be or coming from the alleged source or origin; not counterfeit or artificial; real; true; authentic Sincere: Pure; unadulterated; unmixed; not hypocritical or deceitful; open; genuine.
Purpose: The reason for which anything is done, created, or exists.
False: Not in accordance with the truth or facts. Not genuine, real, or natural; artificial; fake.
Deal: An agreement or an arrangement, especially in business. To break: To (cause something to) separate suddenly or violently into two or more pieces, or to (cause something to) stop working by being damaged.
Be willing to: To be happy to do something if it is needed.
Bellringers: Something that succeeds or makes a hit. Here, things that make a person want to have sex.
Are you in a relationship?
Yes, I am in a relationship.
No, I am single but I am a heart to take.
What is love? Am here for the money!
What is the purpose of this workshop?
There are two parts of us: the human animal and the human spirit. The purpose of human animals is survival. It is operating by instinct (Fear, scarcity, competition, and glee.) It is also our natural tendency when it comes to dating. The human spirit's purpose, on the other side, is to enhance or fulfill life. At the level of the human spirit, we operate by choice. The experience is without effort (happiness, intimacy, connectedness, partnership, generosity, power). This workshop aims to transform dating. By shifting from the expression of the human animal to the expression of the human spirit. To be able to do so, we have to understand human-animal on a date.
4 ways we're out of sync.
1. The difference between the hunter and the gatherer:
Men and women think differently. As hunters, men are single-focused. Women or the gatherers, have diffuse awareness that gives them a scan vision and allows them to maintain a connection while doing other things. Which is almost impossible for a man to do. When a man disconnects, because he can't focus on more than one thing at a time, the woman will tend to believe that she's not loved enough, that you don't care about her.
Situation 1: The hunter and the gatherer on a date.
As a hunter, you always have a result to produce. On a date, your first result is getting her to the restaurant (get to the parking, get a table, get the drink, get the food). While the gatherers are trying to establish a connection. Gatherers's goal is: to make connections. While hunter's is: get the result. Even if you just stand or sit there and you are happy and don't say anything, that would make him happy too. A man, hold himself accountable for you having a nice evening. He is producing a result for you. But don't forget that man needs transition time between two events. So, after you get to the table, he will need to sit for a while, and get situated and the environment before he starts to engage the conversation with you. Before it whatever you say goes like 'blah blah'.
2. Bigger and Strong vs Smaller and Weaker.
The differences in men's and women's biology have given us different sets of instincts. The instinct for a man is to be a provider, a protector. As smaller and weaker, women become pleasers, out of dependency. Men are seeking to provide, women are seeking to please. All our instincts are impelling us to do so because we believe that if we don't please you, you won't provide and protect us.
Situation 2: The provider and the pleaser trying to make plans for a date.
When trying to make plans, the provider wants to protect and take care, give the pleaser, what she needs, make her happy, and, at a minimum, impress her. So he will say: Where would you like to go? Hoping that she would tell him where she would like to go, so that he could produce that result. Except that who he asks: Where would you like to go is the pleaser, whose instinct is telling her: “Don't be too much trouble.” She wants to give the impression that she is flexible. So she'll say: Anywhere is fine, thinking she is being kind by being flexible and easy to please, but in reality, she just gets the guy into much more trouble because now he has to guess.
3. The way we talk and listen.
Hunter and Gatherer have two completely different purposes and intentions for talking and listening, and this puts us way out of sync. Men are listening to the point and when they sense that the point isn't coming, they start to get bored. Meanwhile, the gatherer, feeling that the connection is being lost, tries to fix it by talking more. What hunters have to understand is that the only point gatherers have is when they are done talking. A woman has an enormous gatherer database, and she's collecting the information that will allow her to please you better. So she's digging for information, trying to find out what you like and don't like, etc, and she wants as many details as possible. So, for instance, when a woman asks you what you like and you go straight to the point, she'll interpret that as you being shut down and uncommunicative, like you don't want her to know you. So she gets in a panic because she doesn't get enough information to ensure that she will be able to please you.
4. Men mean what they say, women don't.
Hunters don't have much room for cavitating. When they want to say something, they just say it. But women as pleasera, are not sure if what they say is going to please you. That's why men mean what they say and women don't. At least not when they are on human-animal mode. And because they don't mean what they say, they also think men don't mean what they say.
Situation 3: Consider this dialogue between a client and Alison.
- Client: I thought everything was going well between us and I asked him to meet on Saturday and he said: he's busy! What does that mean?
- Alison: It means he's busy.
- Client: But does it mean that he doesn't like me anymore or did I do something wrong?
- Alison: No... It means he's busy.
- Client: Oh no! That can't be. I'll ask my girls.
7 other ways that we're out of sync.
Adversarial relationship.
Men and women have an adversarial relationship. How we are set up to relate to each other is as adversaries and what sets us to have this type of relationship is dependancy. Whenever you have dependancy you will have an adversarial relationship. And because men are bigger and stronger, and women are smaller and weaker, women for a very long time (and DNA has a long memory) have been dependent upon men, to provide for us and to protect them. So women have an adversarial relationship with men because we've been dependent and our DNA keeps telling us that we're still dependent upon men to provide for us and protect us. Men have an adversarial relationship with women because they are dependent upon women for sex and attention. Women are sexually attracted to the men who are most able to provide for them and protect them and men are the most sexually attracted to the women who are appealing to their sexuality.
🚩Why do we attract the people we don't feel attracted to?
First, I gonna give you the answer to that question: What do to with the people you're the most sexually attracted to? -RUN! In the opposite direction. Why? Because they are the person in the face of whom you're the least powerful, you're the least yourself, you're the least expressive, you're the least true to yourself. This is by the way, why the people you're less attracted to fall in love with you. Because they are the ones that are actually getting to meet you, meet the real you. The others don't like you because they never got to meet you. You're not you with them.
As a woman, when a man says he's physically attracted to you, you would think: He's attracted to my body, my physical, but in reality what he means is that the part of him that wants to be with you is his body, his sex drive. Which differs from emotional, spiritual, and intellectual attraction. So you, and by you I mean man and woman, are better off looking for a partner that your 'something else', your spirit, is attracting to them. Only then, you are going to approach this person from your true self, from who you are, from your strengths instead of the most primitive and weakest aspect of yourself.
2. Men and women date differently.
Because men are single-focused, they live much more in the time, in the present than women do. By definition, dating means having a social engagement with a person of a different sex. The problem is that men date and women don't date. Why is that? Because women project themselves very quickly. Even though all you have exchanged is your phone numbers, if you please she will start a relationship with you. This is why women have trouble dating more than one man at a time because they will wrongly feel disloyal.
“If you can't date more than one person at a time, you are not dating, you're having a relationship.”
The relationship actually starts when you say: Will you be my boyfriend? Or will you be my girlfriend? And then the two of them agree to start being girlfriend and boyfriend. By the way, the concept of dating exclusively is only a lure, and as a woman, if you're dating exclusively, know that you're not dating. You're in a relationship.
3. The ordeal.
For most women and men who are 'hunting' for a wife, dating will become like a job interview. With the lack of information that the pleaser gives the provider, dating can become an ordeal for a man. He's gotta produce results without enough information, and when the pleaser keeps failing to please the man she's trying to gather it can also make it an ordeal for her.
4. Natural unfolding vs Timeline and benchmark.
Men in a relationship will look for a natural unfolding, from single-focus moment, to single-focus moment. Why? Because they can reproduce forever, whereas women have reproductive limits. And because of this, time occurs differently for men and women.
Situation 4:
If you talk to a man who spent 3 years in a relationship that was great, and in which he got what he needed and got also to provide, and then at the end things get wrong and they broke up, the man will say that he's been 3 years in a great relationship. The woman on the contrary will think she wasted 3 years of her life because it ended and he didn't end up being her mate, so she wasted her time on him. For women, if it didn't end up in marriage, it was a waste of time. This concept of time-wasting has women approach dating as an interview. While in a relationship, you as a man will notice that after 3 months she will be pledged by the question and concern: Where is this going? Is this going to progress toward marriage, toward commitment, toward family, or not?
All women have these benchmarks, and because they have it, they think that men have it too. If after those 3 months, she can't have the answers to her questions, she'll assume it is going nowhere, and you will start noticing a shift in her behavior. After 9 months in this situation, she might even start looking for your substitute, all driven by instinct.
🚩A different relationship to the future.
Women think that the future depends upon how they feel, while in reality, how they feel depends on the future. The future is like a room that a woman has to fill. If her feelings outdistance the future, she will either try to nail down a bigger future (look for commitment) or she will have to pull back her feelings, to where it's safe. This will cause her to be in a battle with herself and, therefore, not nice to be around for this period of time. One reason women want marriage is because marriage (that forever future), is what gives them the room to love passionately, unreservedly, and to be devoted. The promise of a foverer future gives them freedom to love. When a man speaks: possibilities (ex: You will make a good mother), a woman listens: plans and promises. (ex: He wants me to have his children), and the future for her gets bigger and bigger. Her reaction to that point depends on whether or not you (the guy) is pre-qualified. If you are, she will listen to plans and promises. If you are not, she might break up with you because she will think you came on too strong. And this is how men think women came on really strong and men think women came on really strong because we are not listening to each other the way the other person is speaking. So, if you are a guy, stop thinking out loud, and stop talking about possibilities until you are sure of yourself. As a woman, if it has no date and time associated with it, it is not a plan.
5. We are out of sync sexually.
Another way we are out of sync has to do with the so-called love hormone: oxytocin and its effect on men and women. Oxytocin is released in the body when there is a fly/fight reaction and it is also released in the body upon orgasm. Oxytocin is called the bonding hormone because it causes us to bond. The effect of oxytocin is enhanced by estrogen and diminished by testosterone. Research has proven that the effect of the bonding in women is 2 to 3 weeks, while in men it is 2 to 3 days. Oxytocin will cause a woman to get attached to the man until she finds out she's not pregnant. Then, if she has another orgasm, the cycle will repeat. The more orgasms a woman has, the more she'll get attached to the man who made her feel it. So both may think well before having sex. As a woman, ask yourself if he is a guy you will want to get attached to. As a man, ask yourself, is she a girl you will want to get attached to you?
Unless a woman is past menopause and doesn't do any replacement therapy, she will not be able to experience the freedom about sex that men can experience. Women pre-menopause can mentally try to get there but their body reacts like any active sex is a potential lifetime commitment and until the appearance of birth control, it was also a potential life-threatening commitment. So it's very difficult for women to take sex lightly. Mentally they can try to, but everything in their bodies, all the hormones being released and all the instincts going on, is telling them that this is not a light thing. You'll probably notice a shift in a woman once you have sex. She'll tend to be much more sensitive and her self-confidence will take a hit. So, when you're in the process of dating and you want to include sex, you have to be aware of this and also consider that sex will change her. Sex also affects men regarding their age and the drops in their testosterone levels. When they get older, sex will become something more serious, and more intimate for them.
6. We are out of sync culturally.
For a long time, our instincts and our culture were fitting together. But now, we live in a time where we are no longer in survival mode. We live in a culture that is about the fulfillment of life. The combination of the feminist movement, being in an information age, and birth control, have caused the instinctive drive to find a mate to be out of sync with what our culture is now telling women to be. It's very confusing because, even if we decide that what we want is to have a husband and lifetime commitment, instinct has us looking for a provider. Instinct has us looking for a man who is bigger than us and has more resources. Except that what we used to want a man to provide for us has evolved.
In the past, what we used to want a man to provide for was mostly financial. Now, in addition to that, women tend to want to have more emotional and physical support. Women expect a lot more from the man in their lives depending on how they are doing the 'men role' in society. Because they are still compelled to please men, they now think that how to please them is to be like them. So, they will try to demonstrate how independent, self-sufficient, and productive they are hoping it will make them more attractive because of how little trouble they might appear to be. They are being taught to be someone a man would never pick up because a hunter doesn't ask a hunter out.
7. We are out of sync with what's possible.
An extraordinary thing happened in the last 30 years. With the advance of science, women won their independence from the timeline. But now, they want their independence from men. What that independence makes possible is an entirely new paradigm. Dependency creates the paradigm of an adversarial relationship where they have to fight over power, manipulate and emasculate the men, worry, and strategy. Women being independent of men, no longer needing men to survive creates whole new possibilities including the possibility of being partners. It creates the possibility of being together because we choose to be together. The adversarial paradigm impelled women to:
“Find the best enemy they can and marry him.”
But now we have new possibilities that we can see but have a hard time reaching out because we are still approaching the issue the way our ancestors did. We can't reach what is possible now because what is possible now requires an entirely different approach. The pursuit of sexual attraction doesn't work to produce the result the people say they want. It works for what it works for: reproducing. It doesn't work for happiness, partnership, fulfillment, communication, intimacy, etc. So now, we'll explore the tools to transform dating that we have to use if we look forward to building something more solid. To the extent that you use them, you will have the result. It will be simple, but not easy. It will require courage, honesty, communication, and self-examination and you'll have to overcome the two greatest experiences of human-animal that is: fear and scarcity. We will also have to let go of the popular yet untrue concept of THE one.
🚩THE one myth.
That idea that there is such a thing as THE one is an idea of scarcity. This has both men and women get stuck into relationships that are no longer working, that are even toxic for them. We stay in it because we think that our chances of finding someone else are low. Especially for women, but it's not true.
Look, we are over 8 billion people living on this Earth in 2023. Therefore, there is no scarcity of potential mates. The issue is not finding. The issue is sorting. How fast can you sort through the possibilities? But because we come from scarcity, we think we have to make the most we can out of the current relationship we are in, even if it's clear that it will never work the way we want it to. That scarcity thing has us hang in there, way after the relationship doesn't work. The point is not a find 'the one' issue, it's sorting through all the possibilities until you find a 'fit' or until a 'fit' finds you.
What does it take to be in sync?
1. Shift our approach from adversaries to partners.
Except for the sex thing, it is easier for men to shift from adversarial relationships to partnerships than it is for women. As women, the first step we can take is to give up the right to emasculate men. Being partners means sharing the profits and the risks. When you are going to share the risk with someone, there is something you are gonna be looking for, one quality that is more important than others: TRUST. You cannot create a partnership with someone you don't trust. When it comes to sorting, if you wanna sort fast, start by asking yourself: Do I feel like I can trust him/her? If not, then there is no point in going any further. Note that you will need discipline because nothing in your instincts will compel you to do so. So the first step towards partnership is that you've got to be sorting based on trust.
The next thing is to, catch strategy and shift to engaging and expressing: We are primarily inauthentic in dating. We behave the way we think the other will want us to. To shift from an adversarial relationship into a partnership, you will have to stop reacting to what you think someone else does. Stop being careful, concealing, and strategic. Stop adapting to other people when it sells you out. Start expressing and engaging. Become the person who's been reacted to. In other words, be yourself, say what you want, and what you're up to, and let other people react. Keep being yourself and the people who like that will come back. Those who don't will do you the favor of going away without you even having to send them away. They will sort themselves out.
🚩What if no one likes me?
Be yourself, and let them respond, if they like you they will stick around, if they don't they will do you a favor. Have you ever noticed how attractive people are when they're telling the truth? How attractive they are when they're being authentic? If you can see that with other people, trust that it's the same way with yourself. Because that's what authenticity does. Why? Because it is so hard to achieve and when someone has figured it out, it is really beautiful.
“Authenticity is so attractive. It’s hot. It’s sexy. It’s a keeper. It’s not a trophy wife. It’s a partner for life.” — Amy Sea.
So ask yourself: If I were being myself, what would I be expressing that I normally don't? If I were being myself on a date, what would I be wearing? Saying? What topics would I bring up?
2. Giving up the principle tactics in the dating strategy.
Step 1: Give up false advertising.
To get in sync with the Opposite sex, we have to give up false advertising.
False: Not true, in error, incorrect, untruthful, lying, dishonest, disloyal, unfaithful, deceiving or meant to deceive, misleading, not real, artificial, counterfeit.
Advertise: Comes from the Old French which means to warn or call attention to, tell about, or praise publicly so as to make people want to buy it.
We falsely advertise either by hiding our imperfections, lying about our age, weight, or height, exaggerating our accomplishments, plastic surgery, fake hair, false buttocks, acting tougher/softer, playing low, dressing up/down, living beyond our means, or even pretending we are not interested, etc.
Step 2: Be authentic, genuine, and sincere.
If you want your relationship to be an expression of the human spirit then what you wanna have in your criteria is that the person sitting across from you is someone with whom you find yourself being authentic, genuine, and sincere. If you can't be authentic with someone, that would mean that was not the best person for you. Here are the things you're gonna need to be authentic about:
(1) Be authentic, genuine, and sincere about your dating purpose:
What is really the end result of your dating? Try to see it as far as you can. Is it to have fun? Having a companionship? Have a girlfriend or boyfriend? Have a boyfriend or girlfriend with the possibility of marriage? Getting married? Having a life partner with or without marriage? Go ahead and try to answer it:
What is your actual dating purpose?
I am looking for a sex partner.
I am looking for companionship.
I am looking for a boyfriend/girlfriend.
A boyfriend/girlfriend with the possibility of marriage.
(2) Be authentic, genuine, and sincere about your deal breakers.
Deal breakers are what stop or end relationships. Your deal breakers are the things you are not going to compromise with, the things you won't live without. Women have a hard time with deal breakers because they have this survival need to be married, that men don't. Instinct has us driven towards marriage. So, things that we would say we won't tolerate, we actually do. We will sell them out for chemistry, for if a man is a great provider, and also for love.
“Because women don't honor their deal breakers, they tend to not honor men's deal breakers. They think that they aren't really deal breakers, they think that they are negotiable. They think you are going to change your mind about that when you'll love them more, just as it is for them.”
Areas that deal breakers typically are children, religion, drug and alcohol use, when to get married, smoking, money, sex, pets, politics, and race. When talking about deal breakers, be as specific as you can. You can also find your deal breakers by looking for what didn't work in your past relationships.
(3) Be authentic, genuine, and sincere about your give/get.
Starting with your purpose for dating, there is something you are going to figure out yourself: What is it that you want to give in that relationship and what is it that you want to receive?
Assuming that you're in the type of relationship you were looking for, what are you willing to provide for the other person? (Sex, financial support, listening?)
What are you hoping to provide? We all have gifts that we are just dying to give. We just so wish somebody wanted it from us. These are the things you just wish someone would appreciate because it's what you wanna give to them.
What is it that you need from your partner? Whether it's your sexual partner or your lifetime partner? ndlr: Need: What you will be upset without.
What will make you happy? What are the bonuses?
All of these might be said before your first date, before any attachment. When the investment is at its minimum, put it out there. If it doesn't work it's okay. Rejection is not bad, there are millions of people. If they don't want what you want to provide, if they don't want to give you what you wanna receive, then you don't want them in your life. Once again, be the one who's being reacted to. We have this idea that if we are not authentic, then we won't be hurt, if we don't make ourselves vulnerable, we won't be hurt. It's just another kind of long-suffering and hurt, without ever having a chance to see your dreams come true.
“Everything wonderful that happened between men and women happened because someone was vulnerable. Everything wonderful is an expression of human spirit.”
3. How to keep the partnership going?
Partnership is a fragile thing. We will get pulled out into instinct. That's why it's important to understand and recognize instincts and be able to work with each other's instead of clashing all the time. The more we understand that, the more we can adjust to each other. Keeping a partnership is gonna require a lot of understanding of each other's humanity, and each other's instincts.
To keep the partnership going,
Ladies, you'll have to
Practice dating: One social engagement at a time and when he's expressing all the possibilities about how you fit in his life, see them for what they are: possibilities.
Be responsible for the effects of the bonding hormone: Consider when you are ready to be attached to a man before you have sex and how it will change you and change what's happening next in your relationship.
Provide quality information: Tell them what you need and what will make you happy, but not how to produce it. If you tell him how to produce it he won't do anything. That is his ownership, his adventure, his challenge.
Watch the amount of details you provide: Watch when you're drowning him. And if you want something other than him listening to the point or the problem you'll have to set him up. Be specific in how you want him to react.
Men, you'll have to
Be aware of the unconscious timeline: (the 3-month and the 9-month marks) and address them for what they are instead of ignoring them.
Accommodate, as much as you're willing and able the need for more communication than you are inclined to provide. Stay in touch more often.
Be responsible for the effect of the bonding hormone: Consider whether or not you are ready to have a woman be attached to you like that before having sex.
Watch out for the way you listen.
🎁 Bonus:
+ For a man, draw the line at a woman being impressed by who you already are. If she's not impressed by who you already are, your life will be miserable.
+ As a woman, make sure he likes your body the way it is.
“Women need to be desired. A part of us die if we are not desired. The biggest gift a man can give a woman is just loving her body, the way that it is.”
I enjoyed the process of writing this article and I hope it will help each and every one of us in our journey of finding the right life partner, and exempt us from unnecessary heartbreaks, time, money, and energy wasting. As the author said:
“It's gonna be simple, but it's not gonna be easy.”
It's gonna require communication, tolerance, courage, self-discipline, sacrifice, perseverance. But in the end, it's gonna be worth it. Since I am not a native English speaker, I apologize for the eventual translation errors and words that can be misunderstood. Thank you for reading. May God bless you, take care.
Was it helpful to you?
Yes, definitely!
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