Eff the Fear

I spent this last weekend at various parties and one very fun beer festival (as you do when the 4th creates a three-day weekend). Because I’m a dating writer and coach, the subject of dating inevitably comes up in conversation and so, much of my weekend was spent (happily) listening to the dating issues faced by both sexes. I heard lots of the normal “I never meet anyone”, “All the good ones are taken” and “What’s with all the crazy bitches / douchebags I keep running into?” But the number one stated by both sexes? “The people I want to talk to never come and talk to me.”

Obviously this begs the question as to why we don’t initiate conversation ourselves more often, to which the answer is usually some version of: “That freaks me out”, “I don’t know how” or “I want them to make the first move.” Every guy I talked to this last weekend said that they’d love for a girl to initiate conversation, and every girl I talked to complained that guys don’t initiate conversation often enough. From that, the solution would appear to be that we should all just talk to each other more. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. There are egos, fragile feelings and fear to contend with when we think about talking to someone we like, and much more often than not, those things prevent us from actually pursuing that hot guy/girl and instead leave us with some nice fodder for the next time we’re bored and want to fantasize.

However, if we all take a deep breath, let go of our fear, and — the next time we’re in the same vicinity as an available cute someone — talk to them, we might be surprised at our success. Sure, it’s not going to work every time, and yeah, our egos may take the occasional hit, but in the end if it works out with one of the people we talk to, that’s one more person than we knew than before. Letting fear rule — fear of failure, fear of rejection and fearing that we don’t know how — isn’t how I bet the vast majority of us want to live our lives. So eff fear in the name of reducing the number of dating complaints: talk to the next person you think is cute.

Yours in sunshine and rainbows, S

(Credits: Image by svintus2010)


Originally published on the PickV.com blog (a new dating site that matches people based on music, movies and book likes and dislikes), where I am the weekly love/relationships contributor.