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Identity

My dating journey story; spiral + stages perspective

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I am now at a point in my life where I am satisfied with my dating life. It has been quite the journey and I’m certain there are many steps ahead. I want to take the time to gather my thoughts here in this post, to look back at how far I have come and see the lessons I have learned. Hopefully, someone else gets something out of it as well ?.

Stage orange limbo phase; being with girls whilst growing up

Being with girls didn’t come easy for me. I remember some boys at school were just naturally flowing with girls. Accepting them into their life without any resistance. For me this wasn’t te case. I was stuck in my head way too much, unconsciously pushing them away. It wasn’t the case that I had no options at all or had struggles with being attractive. I was always one of the popular kids, getting along with everyone. All the way from lower school to high school there were actually quite a few girls that liked me and expressed that. However, those were not the girls that I liked.

I remember always feeling a lot of pressure from people around me, always worrying about what they were thinking. How would this effect other people’s opinion of me? Will people still like me if I do this? I felt this pressure very strongly when it came to girls. Not only would I worry about the girl liking me, or whether she would reject me, but also would I worry about what it would do for me socially if I expressed my desires for a girl. I have liked a few different girls over those years, but had a hard time even admitting that to myself. I would rather suppress my feelings and go on with life without dealing with it.

Due to this dynamic, I didn’t have any relationships during my middle- and high-school time. Neither did I have any experience getting physical with a girl. The first girl I kissed was at 17. At that point, I guess the pressure of not having kissed a girl started to outweigh the pressure of trying to kiss :P. Short after that, I had a one-night stand during a vacation with friends. The label of being a virgin disappeared. But that was it. Other than that, I was still in the same boat as I was before.

Stage orange starting phase; time for change

I think I was 19 when I realized I had to do something. At this point I was going to university, where I had surrounded myself with a large group of guy friends, no girls in sight. At this point being with a girl seemed so far out of my reality, it almost seemed like it wasn’t even a possibility for me.

Together with a good friend of mine who was in a similar position, I decided to start taking action towards getting better with girls. I watched a bunch of pick-up videos, mostly from RSD. First it was a lot of theorization, but pretty soon I started to take action.

I remember the first day we really made a serious effort, oh man. Me and two friends cleared our whole schedule for an afternoon to go hit on girls in the city. We started just giving girls a compliment, just to get used to approaching. The fucking anxiety attack that gave haha, it must have taken me 5 attempts just to gather the courage to do that.

Anyways, what I mostly did during this phase is going out to bars with a few friends and just talk to as many girls as I could. We would go on this rampage of just approaching girl after girl. Before going out I would watch some video’s, and afterwards me and my friends would have these hours-long analysis sessions, talking about all the interactions we had, what went well and wrong, etc. A lot was learned here.

It didn’t take long for me to see the first fruits of my efforts. I started to kiss some girls, and even had went home with a girl. A whole new world of possibilities opened up to me.

Stage orange middle phase; ballin’

After maybe half a year to a year of starting phase, things started to flow easier and easier. It had become second nature to go up to girls and talk to them. Results were flying in left and right. Me and my friends felt like we were owning the bars we went into. Hyping each other up, wing-manning, scheming. The video’s and analysis had been replaced with dancing, kissing and one-night stands. I felt really confident at this point, I had quite some mastery in the field, or so I thought…

Stage orange ending phase; darker times

After maybe a year of this, the high came down. I started to see the darker side of what I was doing. First and foremost, the whole pick-up act I had learned started to feel increasingly inauthentic. I was constantly trying to appear “valuable”, consciously controlling everything, from the things I was saying to body language.

I also could no longer deny the impact I was having on the girls I was with. Rationalizing manipulating girls into things they didn’t truly want. I definitely had sex with a few girls who didn’t feel good about it the next day. Even was with some girls who had boyfriends. I started to see more clearly how me and my friends were shoving all these things under the rug, and denying responsibility for it.

Although I was getting results, they started to become less satisfying. The sex I had with one-night-stands wasn’t great first of all. I also wasn’t able to keep girls around. I was only comfortable in the night-club scene, barely had any normal dates or interactions with girls outside of that. I was getting sick of all this.

Stage green limbo phase; turning inwards

Because I didn’t like how things were going anymore, I started to go out less. I was looking for ways to change the dynamics that were going on. Maybe I should start getting into ‘day-game’? Maybe I just have to be more authentic? Maybe I should go out with other people? I was in a phase of confusion and uncertainty.

At this point I also started to get in touch with my feelings more. Seeing how I was suppressing feelings of fear and insecurity, especially about sexuality. I was starting to see how I was lying with all my extravagant behavior to both myself and the people around me. How I needed alcohol as well to make all my shenanigans work.

My results radically declined. This period took around half a year. In that half a year I literally only kissed a girl once, that’s it. I went out a few times on my own as well. I felt like I needed to face this issue alone, head on. One night in particular I remember. I had been talking to this girl I thought was very cute for maybe an hour or so. She was into me, but I was just so scared to escalate with her physically. I was no longer suppressing my fears, but neither could I push through them. After a while she simply lost interest. I went home feeling so sad, laid in bed crying, feeling like I would never get out of this rut.

I was in this transition period, I let go of a lot of the inauthenticity and manipulation, more in touch with my feelings and desires, but lacking the self-esteem, self-love, self-acceptance and all this to be naturally more attractive. Also, my feelings often paralyzed me, making even interactions that were going well with girls end up nowhere.

During this period, I worked a lot on myself. Besides personal development stuff like meditation, reading, fitness, and those types of things, I did a lot of shrooms. The shrooms helped me to introspect so well. They helped me to see all the things that were going on, all the things that I was suppressing. Also, they helped me to build my self-esteem and self-love. Some trips I would be hugging myself for long times, or look into the mirror, acknowledging my own beauty.

Stage green starting phase; getting comfortable around girls

The turning point for me happened at a yoga retreat. My yoga instructrice invited me to go with her to a yoga retreat in Ukraine (I’m from the Netherlands). I went there with little expectation of getting girls, mostly to work on myself. I went out to dinner with her a few times that week and started to open up about my dating situation. When I told her I hadn’t had sex for over half a year she was shocked.

All this time I didn’t even cross my mind that it would be possible to sleep with her. Not only is she a lot older than me, she is also in a relationship. Little did I know she was in an open relationship. She went with me to my hotel room to “talk about my situation more”. I knew damn well where this was headed. When we came back to my room, I was very nervous and scared. I told her I had to go to the bathroom and was so shaky that I peed half in my pants, literally.

It was the first time I was being myself authentically and vulnerable when having sex. I was scared to escalate and shaky and all this, but she was very cool about it and made me feel comfortable. This experience was worth more to me than all those one-night stands I had had before. This happened around 4 months ago. Since then I have been meeting up with her every few weeks. This had made me so much more comfortable with myself and my sexuality.

At this moment I am seeing three other girls as well, meeting up casually. The whole way I interact with girls has changed. There is no need to play valuable or to manipulate. I am very honest and open about my intentions and desires. I meet girls at all kinds of places now, through university, on the street, in the train, whatever. I go on dates, just hang out with girls, and although I still get nervous at times, its very different. Way more under the motto of Zan Perrion; “A man that adores women is adored by women”. (Highly recommend his book The alabaster girl).

So that is where I am at now. Here are some things I see for myself in the near future:

-          Becoming more and more comfortable being around girls and with my sexuality.

-          Having more female energy in my life in general, not only sexual relationships but also friends etc. I have been around guys to long, time to restore the balance.

-          Getting into more committed relationship(s). Although all of this is very nice, I still haven’t had a relationship with a girl for a longer period of time. This is something I do desire and will grow me a lot, when the time is right.

Main lessons:

-          First of all, it is possible to radically change your relationship with women if you put in the effort. It is definitely a journey, but don’t hold yourself back with limiting beliefs. Even though it might seem impossible from where you are standing now, start chipping away at it and your reality will slowly start to transform.

-          Mastery in dating goes very much like George Lennard describes in his book mastery. Even though you are putting in effort consistently, you have long plateaus where it seems like there is little growth. Then, out of nowhere, you make a spurt upwards, sometimes preceded with a decline. Acknowledge this dynamic, keep it in mind, especially during the hard times.

-          Progressing in dating is all about inner growth. Don’t fool yourself and others with all kinds of tricks and gimmicks. Face the real reasons why you are not successful with girls. Face your fears.

-          Being truly comfortable with your sexuality is a massive component of successful dating. If you are not comfortable with your sexuality it is something that will keep you from attracting women all the time. It might not be obvious, but under the surface it will always be there. How can you expect a girl to be receptive of you when you hit on her, when really, deep down, you don’t want what you are asking for? It’s like going to a car dealership to buy a car, asking about all the features and negotiating and all this, whilst in the back of your mind you know you don’t have the money. It’s ridiculous really.

-          Girls are awesome xD

 

 


Realizeyourgrowth.com

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That's a well written story. Definitely a upward going growth line there. 

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Hey @Identity, love your insights & mix of phases with the spiral stages, as I've definitely felt some ressemblances from what I hear from your story. I'm a student too, and  like you after shallow orange relationships, I feel am at the stage green limbo/starting phase as I'm really starting to connect with one girl, but still hesitating to start it off as it's going to be LDR/ still want to discover my feminine side, hang with more feminine girls.Would love to know your future progress with the couple of women that you're connecting with! May the growth be with us ;)

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@Joseph ICU Thanks! Yeah, actually letting girls come close is suprisingly hard, I notice myself pushing them away quite often. May the growth be with us indeed ??


Realizeyourgrowth.com

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