There are a lot of ways a date can go wrong. But how can you measure a good date?
What if a good date meant a date where you didn’t abandon yourself?
There are a lot of ways we’re used to abandoning ourselves to please others, and this can be exacerbated while dating. When you’re hoping to make a good impression, hoping someone will be charmed by you and want to see you again, it can be hard to identify the line between charm and people pleasing that veers toward self abandonment. Dating is a vulnerable process, and rejection is scary so of course we try and protect ourselves from it–whether we realize that’s what we’re doing or not! What does it mean to abandon yourself on a date?
Abandoning yourself on a date can look like:
-
Holding back or not speaking your mind
-
Agreeing to things you wouldn’t normally agree with
-
Acting/responding how you think the person wants you to act or respond, instead of how you’d authentically show up
-
Getting pressured into moving faster than you’re comfortable with physically because you don’t know how to say no, put a stop to things, or don’t feel like you have a “good reason” for not wanting to move things forward
-
Not knowing how to establish/enforce boundaries or remove yourself when they aren’t respected
Where do attachment styles come in?
Being aware of how your attachment styles generally show up within relationships can help you identify some of these self abandoning tendencies as you put yourself out in the dating world! As we said above, dating is a vulnerable process–you’re asking a stranger to try and see, understand, and desire you, which is a brave and not very easy thing to do. It’s also something that can really activate our emotional wounds if we haven’t addressed them.
Our attachment styles are typically formed by our relationships with our caregivers–they teach us how to function in relationships, and how secure, safe & vulnerable we are allowed to be in close relationships. If our caregivers didn’t provide safety and trust for us to be vulnerable or need them, then we weren’t able to develop that secure attachment in that foundational relationship, meaning we don’t have the roadmap to do it elsewhere. That doesn’t mean we can’t form secure attachments, it just means we have to identify what our attachment styles are so we can see what it is we do need to foster that sense of safety and security.
A quick, basic rundown of attachment styles:
-
Anxious– folks with anxious attachment have strong fear of abandonment in intimate relationships
-
Avoidant– folks with avoidant attachment have difficulty fostering intimacy and closeness in relationships
-
Disorganized– folks with disorganized attachment have a complex combination of both anxious and avoidant attachment in intimate relationships
-
Secure– folks with secure attachment are able to feel confident, safe and trusting in their intimate relationships
Different relationships can also foster different attachments–when you feel safety and trust, you are more easily able to form a secure attachment, which is why we are able to develop secure attachments through new, healing experiences even if that’s not something we ever experienced with our caregivers. But, since we don’t start at a place of security and trust on a first date, we aren’t starting from a secure attachment.
Knowing your attachment style on a first date can help you consider:
Am I looking for evidence of abandonment or disinterest instead of taking the experience at face value?
If you have an anxious attachment, it can be easy to interpret commonplace behaviors as loaded with meaning. But the reality is that on a first date you just don’t know someone well enough to read into their behavior with any sort of accuracy. Instead, your own fears and baggage are likely clouding how you’re interpreting what you’re seeing, adding hidden meaning where there likely is none.
While it is much, much easier said than done, trying to take what your date says and does at face value will give you a better, more accurate experience when you spend time with them. Instead of looking for evidence that you’ve done something wrong, that the date went poorly, or that they’re secretly waiting to abandon you, try to listen and pay attention to what they’re actually saying and doing, and ask yourself “Am I looking for evidence of abandonment or disinterest?”
Am I avoiding opportunities to let someone get to know me?
The purpose of a date is to give someone a chance to get to know you better! While there is an understandable desire to want to put your best foot forward or make a charming impression, if those goals are actually impeding your ability to let someone get to know you, you’re actually doing yourself a disservice. Remember to give yourself a chance to be known, even if just a little bit.
Am I so preoccupied with the idea of who I think this person wants me to be (either due to fear of abandonment, or fear of rejection) that I am not actually showing up as myself?
Not every date is the start of a long term relationship, but no matter the length or the seriousness of the relationship it starts, ask yourself how long you can keep up being someone other than yourself? How much enjoyment will you be able to get out of that anyway? Won’t that just add unnecessary anxiety about “slipping up” or revealing how you really think, act or feel about things? In the long run, doesn’t that seem like a lot more work than giving yourself a chance to show up as yourself on a first date, before anything has really begun?
BLOG AUTHORS ALL HOLD POSITIONS AT THE GENDER & SEXUALITY THERAPY CENTER (G&STC). FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR THERAPISTS AND SERVICES PLEASE CONTACT US.