Deception in dating

I am no stranger to the feeling of being rejected by women. In fact, by this point in my dating life, I have been knocked back so many times I feel almost immune to being pied. This is not because I have some incredibly thick skin, or am a sadomasochist who enjoys when a woman pushes back against my advances.

Rather, I have come to accept it as a law of life that as long as I’m single, and looking for the ‘one’, I will have come to accept that getting rejected is a cheap price to pay. What I refuse to accept is when either a man, or woman, misleads or worse, deceives somebody about their intentions.

Whether one’s motive is positive or negative, is what I would argue you have to be most skeptical about. And, I admit, I am no saint either. I say with no sense of pride or pleasure that I have mislead and deceived women in my distant past for reasons other than the pursuit of a genuine relationship. I don’t need to list these reasons.

If I was to ask a thousand men to truthfully answer, “Have you ever been rejected approaching a woman?” I would expect almost all of them to answer “yes”. If they said “no”, I would assume they either haven’t really ever tried or just got extremely lucky. Coming to terms with this reality, whenever I did, largely liberated me from the fear of making first contact with women (I still get nervous, but just a lot less).

Likewise, many women are conscious of this fact. It is a mark of maturity when someone can approach somebody they deem attractive, whom they have never met before, and know that the encounter could backfire on them horribly (ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it doesn’t). Mature people realise that the trade-off of sitting on the fence and regretting not making a move is the worst outcome of all.

Once you’ve made contact, started flirting, and organised to meet up, however, you have to be especially vigilant. If the person is somebody that is outside of your social circle, who none of your friends know, and you therefore have no background knowledge on, this is even more so.

There are so many variables you can take into consideration in the initial period of dating somebody. Things that are important to know when starting dating includes: how many partners has this person had, have they ever cheated, do they have stable personalities, etc. The list goes on and on.

But at some point you do have to just jump in headfirst. You can’t hold back indefinitely and continue to rationally analyse a prospective partner. Why? If you are too guarded and calculating you will struggle to build chemistry and a sense of trust.

In contrast, if you are too open, share too much, you may scare the person away before they really get the chance to know that your actually a decent human being worth knowing.

This is what I believe my generation has come to call ‘playing the game’. Nobody is attracted to somebody who depends on a relationship for their own happiness. Once you pass the initial overwhelming feelings of physical attraction, you have to start to consider who is this person? What are they looking for in a prospective partner? And, are they using you for reasons other than finding love?

Sadly, in our current culture, men more often than not seem to be unconscious of how hurtful their actions are when they mislead or deceive. And there seems to be an acceptance among ‘bros’ that this is acceptable, and that to ‘slay’ as many women is a feat to be idolised.

Emotionally educated twenty-first century women are by and large, very conscious of this fact. But what about when a women misleads or deceives a man? In my experience, it also happens to countless men whom I know (albeit less frequently).

Tricking somebody emotionally is a extremely corrosive and abusive act. Sure there are many more egregious acts one can commit in life than this. But unnecessary heartbreak is, in my opinion, a despicable act. So fellow gentlemen, if your reading this and genuinely believe that women are there to be used and then tossed, grow up. You lack maturity. And If you don’t change soon you will soon live to regret it.

The day will come when all the good ones are taken, and your left on the smelting heap of horrible human beings who have trampled over peoples hearts, and nobody will have sympathy for you.

And to women, if you think because our culture values men ‘playing’ women justifies you to do so, well, your just as guilty of this social crime. To be fair, this is rare, and men are much worse than women in my experience, but it does happen.

If you want to be noble and moral in your pursuit of dating, remember: be honest with yourself. If you don’t feel the ‘spark’ after your first couple of dates, just say it. The sooner you do, the less suffering you will cause for not only others, but also yourself.

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