Last week I went speed dating. As usual, no one I liked was interested in me. I was talking to my sister who is trained as a counsellor about it this weekend. Talking helps you think through things.
I try to be a nice person. But nice isn’t a quality that people should be looking for in dating. Being nice should be a given. If nice is your only quality, then you have no qualities. Being interesting and exciting are what people look for. I come off as boring in speed dating.
I am embarrassed about being me, so I am not being myself. The only hobby I feel comfortable talking about to strangers is my ultra distance running. I am probably coming off as a brain-dead jock with no other interests. I am so used to having my hobbies of D&D, comics and science-fiction being looked down upon, that I don’t celebrate that part of myself. And I’m not even getting to the Level 3 part of my life.
And yet, earlier that SAME day I had a job interview. There, I absolutely was myself. I already have a job, so I wasn’t pressured to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. Failure WAS an option. I could give them full frontal Erik. Heck, when it came time for me to ask questions, one of mine was “Kirk or Picard?” If you guys are going to claim to be nerds, be prepared to defend it.
I wanted them to prove themselves to me, more than I wanted to impress them. I wanted to show my personality off accurately.
It worked. I signed the contract today giving me a 25% raise in pay. The only downside is I now have a thirty minute commute to St. Albert, instead of the ten minute commute I have now.
Now I just need to transfer this same attitude when I try talking to women. Unfortunately, while this lesson is fresh in my mind now, I will forget it by the time I next talk to a single woman.