Post by account_disabled on Nov 2, 2020 9:36:34 GMT 2
The search for love is one of the most important activities we engage in. Nothing expresses our humanity more than the need for deep connection. And few things matter more to our health and happiness—even our sense of self—than our choice of life partner.
Yet so often the search itself is a bruising experience. What should be a trial-and-error process in which we learn as much about ourselves as we do about another person becomes an ordeal. Why is that?
Almost everything we’ve learned about dating is wrong, contends psychotherapist Ken Page, author of Deeper Dating: How to Drop the Games of Seduction and Discover the Power of Intimacy. “Dating is an inner game,” he says, but instead of searching from the inside out, we’ve been taught to approach it from the outside in, to accommodate ourselves to the mating market by making ourselves into something we’re not. No wonder so many people are yearning for “authenticity.”
I recently sat down with Page to discuss dating in the 21st century.
Ken Page
Source: Ken Page
HEM: What do you mean by inner dating?
KP: The inner game of dating is an inside-out approach. It recognizes that the fire of real intimacy starts from authenticity, not from fixing yourself from the outside in. The outside-in approach is misleading and damaging although it is recommended by most dating advice, which asks people to make themselves more attractive.
HEM: Right, how do you accommodate yourself to what the possibilities are out there—and turn yourself into something you may not be.
KP: Make yourself more “desirable.” The hidden message is “make yourself a more attractive you.” That may sound like it’s advocating self-improvement, but it’s really self-criticism in a sexy outfit.
HEM: Don’t we have to navigate a course through life based on feedback from the world we’re in?
KP: Absolutely. But if your first question is, What’s wrong with me now and how can I fix myself? you will cripple all future interactions. The first question should be, What do I feel? What do I experience? What is authentic for me? And then there is a back-and-forth process.
HEM: Not just What is authentic for me? but also What will help me grow, be the self that I am hopefully moving towards?
KP: Yes. There is a self-liking in that. It changes the direction your dating life goes in. There’s nothing wrong with self-improvement, but if you start from How do I fix what’s wrong with me? you create a cycle of insecurity-based behaviors, which always leads to bad things.
HEM: There is always a tug-of-war with life, not just in the dating realm but in every domain. Do I lead with my strengths or do I devote my time to remedying my weaknesses? I think people get much further by taking the résumé approach: On your résumé you don’t write I’m a jerk or I was fired from my last job. You summarize your strengths and lead with them.
Ken Page
Source: Ken Page
KP: Absolutely, although the danger in focusing too much on your strengths is it can turn you into an airbrushed version of yourself. Often, what we regard as our weaknesses and flaws are in fact our greatest strength. The parts of ourselves that we often feel embarrassed about or are timid to reveal are the parts that people are going to love the most. But we’ve been hurt, misunderstood, or taken advantage of in those places, so we haven’t learned to honor those qualities, which are our humanness. When we lead with our humanity, that’s when things really start to change. Of course there has to be an adult self that orchestrates that, but there is an essential dignifying of the human part of us; instead of trying to airbrush ourselves into an "irresistible" fantasy person. That is the psychic violence created by so much dating advice.
HEM: As psychologist Steven Hayes says, very succinctly, “We hurt where we care.”
KP: I call those place our core gifts. We find them by asking ourselves two questions:. What gives me the most joy and the most meaning in my relationships? And What hurts me and causes me pain and makes me shut down? Most of us minimize or dismiss those points of deepest meaning; we don’t honor or cultivate them enough in our relationships. And of the places of our sensitivity, where we get most easily hurt, we tend to tell ourselves, Oh, you’re just being too sensitive.
HEM: Why do we do that?
KP: Because we human beings are in some ways breathtakingly sensitive. The closer we get to the core of who we are–art understands that, literature understands that, psychotherapy understands that, but dating advice doesn’t—the more vulnerable we feel; the riskier intimacy gets. But also the more alive it gets. Conventional dating advice says, Toughen up. Act confident. The further you get from the center of your authentic self, the more airbrushed and defended you are.
HEM: You talk about the damage that dating advice does. I’d like to add a bad word for the damage that today’s dating websites do–all of them, although Tinder might be the worst. The fact of dating by app changes our very perception of who’s out there and what’s waiting for us. It affects people internally, weakening the desire for commitment because the perfect person for you—your mythical soulmate—is just the next click away. That’s a function of the vast pool of people online.
Yet so often the search itself is a bruising experience. What should be a trial-and-error process in which we learn as much about ourselves as we do about another person becomes an ordeal. Why is that?
Almost everything we’ve learned about dating is wrong, contends psychotherapist Ken Page, author of Deeper Dating: How to Drop the Games of Seduction and Discover the Power of Intimacy. “Dating is an inner game,” he says, but instead of searching from the inside out, we’ve been taught to approach it from the outside in, to accommodate ourselves to the mating market by making ourselves into something we’re not. No wonder so many people are yearning for “authenticity.”
I recently sat down with Page to discuss dating in the 21st century.
Ken Page
Source: Ken Page
HEM: What do you mean by inner dating?
KP: The inner game of dating is an inside-out approach. It recognizes that the fire of real intimacy starts from authenticity, not from fixing yourself from the outside in. The outside-in approach is misleading and damaging although it is recommended by most dating advice, which asks people to make themselves more attractive.
HEM: Right, how do you accommodate yourself to what the possibilities are out there—and turn yourself into something you may not be.
KP: Make yourself more “desirable.” The hidden message is “make yourself a more attractive you.” That may sound like it’s advocating self-improvement, but it’s really self-criticism in a sexy outfit.
HEM: Don’t we have to navigate a course through life based on feedback from the world we’re in?
KP: Absolutely. But if your first question is, What’s wrong with me now and how can I fix myself? you will cripple all future interactions. The first question should be, What do I feel? What do I experience? What is authentic for me? And then there is a back-and-forth process.
HEM: Not just What is authentic for me? but also What will help me grow, be the self that I am hopefully moving towards?
KP: Yes. There is a self-liking in that. It changes the direction your dating life goes in. There’s nothing wrong with self-improvement, but if you start from How do I fix what’s wrong with me? you create a cycle of insecurity-based behaviors, which always leads to bad things.
HEM: There is always a tug-of-war with life, not just in the dating realm but in every domain. Do I lead with my strengths or do I devote my time to remedying my weaknesses? I think people get much further by taking the résumé approach: On your résumé you don’t write I’m a jerk or I was fired from my last job. You summarize your strengths and lead with them.
Ken Page
Source: Ken Page
KP: Absolutely, although the danger in focusing too much on your strengths is it can turn you into an airbrushed version of yourself. Often, what we regard as our weaknesses and flaws are in fact our greatest strength. The parts of ourselves that we often feel embarrassed about or are timid to reveal are the parts that people are going to love the most. But we’ve been hurt, misunderstood, or taken advantage of in those places, so we haven’t learned to honor those qualities, which are our humanness. When we lead with our humanity, that’s when things really start to change. Of course there has to be an adult self that orchestrates that, but there is an essential dignifying of the human part of us; instead of trying to airbrush ourselves into an "irresistible" fantasy person. That is the psychic violence created by so much dating advice.
HEM: As psychologist Steven Hayes says, very succinctly, “We hurt where we care.”
KP: I call those place our core gifts. We find them by asking ourselves two questions:. What gives me the most joy and the most meaning in my relationships? And What hurts me and causes me pain and makes me shut down? Most of us minimize or dismiss those points of deepest meaning; we don’t honor or cultivate them enough in our relationships. And of the places of our sensitivity, where we get most easily hurt, we tend to tell ourselves, Oh, you’re just being too sensitive.
HEM: Why do we do that?
KP: Because we human beings are in some ways breathtakingly sensitive. The closer we get to the core of who we are–art understands that, literature understands that, psychotherapy understands that, but dating advice doesn’t—the more vulnerable we feel; the riskier intimacy gets. But also the more alive it gets. Conventional dating advice says, Toughen up. Act confident. The further you get from the center of your authentic self, the more airbrushed and defended you are.
HEM: You talk about the damage that dating advice does. I’d like to add a bad word for the damage that today’s dating websites do–all of them, although Tinder might be the worst. The fact of dating by app changes our very perception of who’s out there and what’s waiting for us. It affects people internally, weakening the desire for commitment because the perfect person for you—your mythical soulmate—is just the next click away. That’s a function of the vast pool of people online.