L. The Very Basic Relationship Skills
If you do not know the following basic relationship skills, you are not going to excel in relationships. Not even mediocre ones, if excelling in mediocrity would be possible. Without these skills, you are bound to simply make yours or other’s life a living hell and go from one failed relationship to the other.
On this list, there are some tips for people who are generally great in relationships, and STILL, this is basic shit.
True Love vs Fake Love
You know a true, authentic love by the fact you can talk freely, speak your mind around the people who love you. You feel free to express yourself, your thoughts, feelings, and sorrows, and however the people around you respond, it feels good somehow; it may be painful at times, but it feels like you are growing as a result, rather than being cut down and minimized.
The more you need to keep your feelings and opinions to yourself in a relationship, the less authentic this relationship is. If every honest opinion or feeling you express result in an argument, especially if you didn’t even TRY to pick a fight, you know this relationship is not on healthy ground.
You also don’t feel like you have to constantly steer the other person into a new direction. Their natural flow goes where you want to go, and you seem in harmony and sync. The more they put up a fight, the less likely it is that the love is mutual, like true love must be. (True love MUST BE mutual.)
True love happens between people who are free to express who they are and love each other because they know each other very well. Inauthentic cheap “love” relies on people shutting up, keeping their feelings and opinions to themselves, and altering their authentic being just to keep the peace.
Now, how to find true love? (Because that IS what everyone should be looking for.)
1. Learn to be alone (Patience!)
Without knowing how to be single, you cannot wait for your true love to come around and you’ll latch onto whoever is available to you. True love takes patience… sometimes.
Learn to pass off friendships that are not true friendships, too. You’ll be judged by the company you keep, therefore, don’t keep unflattering company. I am not telling you to HATE people, I’m telling you to keep a healthy distance from people who do not reflect your true life values. Do this FOR THEM, too. They don’t need you to taint their energy field any more than you need them to taint yours.
Keep your distance from people who you do not authentically admire, and learn patience.
Having said that, sometimes true love finds you when you’re 3 years old.
2. Take other’s feelings into account
When you are in a relationship, ANY relationship, living as neighbors and interacting online with people you’ve never met and will never meet included, remind yourself (if you tend to forget) that others have feelings, too. They have their insecurities, just like you, they get offended and hurt, like you, and no matter who they are, no matter how good looking, smart, famous, rich, successful they may be, they are STILL human. Do not treat others carelessly, simply because you may feel inferior to them. Do not take your own insecurities out on other people.
Be kind. Consider the effect your words and actions have on other people. Consider whether you are taking people’s patience and understanding of you for granted.
3. Do not define a person before you’ve spoken to them
A very unlikeable person is known for this very trait: They decide what role you’re playing in life and going to be playing in their life before they’ve even spoken to that person. They see a waitress as simply a waitress (a robot), they see a teacher as a one-dimensional teacher character, and so on. They forget people have lives, feelings, and personalities outside their work uniform or duties.
Likeable people are people who recognize others as complete human beings at first sight. They approach others with the respect another person requires. They may not be overly friendly to anyone, but they won’t minimize another person to fit their own needs, schedule, and calendar, like they were a programmable robot that they can lash at when the robot doesn’t do as programmed.
4. Talk about your feelings, and allow/force people to see your personality
While SOMETIMES it may be fun and flirty to make people guess what you feel, when the air is THICK with emotion and heavy with expectations it is not a good time to hide feelings. It is especially not a good time to DENY or FAKE other types of feelings.
Taking into account that when people are truly in love, they DO tend to react unpredictably and start mincing their words and playing their feelings down waiting for the other to take the lead, playing hard to get and jealousy games work ONLY on narcissists and egotists. They NEVER work on your true lover, even if they are both narcissistic and an egotist. (And they too, have their authentic loves.) If you get a partner by these tactics, you can anticipate trouble in the future.
Making people guess how you truly feel is not “being enigmatic” or “being interesting”. As a strategy, these tacts only ever work on people who don’t truly love you. Pretending will also trap you to bonds with people who don’t truly love you, as they get to build you a fake personality and you’ll have to forever keep your mouth shut about your true feelings if you take this course in a relationship.
5. Be boldly who you are, but don’t DECLARE a right to be who you are
Be boldly who you are, even when you’re ruffling every feather you come across. Be who you are as early on as you start figuring out who that is. Do not fall for these claims: “That is childish.” “Act your age.” “You look stupid.” “Nobody does that.” “Good men/women don’t do that.” Fuck em. If they don’t like you the way you are, they can damned well find new friends, right?
However, do not declare that you have the right to be what you are, because people who never questioned it can look up and go: “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t you have the right to be who you are? What are you hiding? How are you going to walk all over us if we respect ‘your rights’?” There are people who don’t see “rights” as “rights”, but “privileges” and “entitlements”. Therefore, if you declare “you have a right” they hear “you have a special privilege” that they must reassess for its validity.
And yes, I’m more guilty of this than most people. One lives and learns.
Just be. Ignore people who try to question something you’re certain about. Only respond to INTERESTING queries and questions. If someone asks a stupid question (and you know there are some) ignore it. Stupid questions are more than likely simple attention-seeking. Respond if you want to give that person your time and attention. (Address attention and pity seeking questions in public as a general response if you consider yourself an educator, NEVER PERSONALLY if you don’t intend to make this person your personal friend.)
6. Like wants like
Whatever anyone is demonstrating, is their idea of the ideal. This is a GREAT thing to know. Whether it is “humble”, “unassuming”, “bold”, or “interesting”, there’s always a positive word to attach to anyone. And if someone is A, they value A. The only exception is when someone is making themselves look very UNIDEAL so that someone would TEACH THEM how to be the right way. Even then, they may feel that being unideal is ideal because it shows humility and willingness to learn and evolve. (You can’t escape this, so just be ideal.)
Always consider what is the underlying personal ideal that makes a person express themselves in a certain way. You may not always like them the way they are, and that’s the very point of finding true love. To love someone for who they are, you have to dislike and disapprove about 7 billion people for who they are, too… And the same is true for all people.
(Bonus: if you want to change someone; point out and praise how they “are” X, which stands for whatever quality you want them to change into, and watch them try and become more that if they care for your opinion. “Oh, you are so self-reliant. I do admire that about you.” They’ll go out of their way to hide the fact they are needy and scared alone.)
7. You don’t have to like nor love everybody (or anyone, really)
That said… Snowflake, my dear sweet Snowflake… Your love and approval doesn’t mean shit to most people. You can rest easy knowing that nobody’s world will come off its axis if they find out you don’t love them. If it does, they have to deal with it, not you.
HOWEVER, that is not to say that you should be insensitive about your feelings, just that you do not need to go out of your way to show love toward people you don’t authentically love.
8. Learn to not be thrown out of balance every time someone doesn’t like you or something about you
7 billion people in this world. Approximately 7 billion of them won’t love you. Deal. (Johnny Depp has 6 million followers on Instagram. Approximately 7 billion people in this world still don’t give two shits about what he has to say. There are people on YouTube who have 11 million followers and you’ve never heard of them. Whatever some bozo thinks of you or what you think of them is so profoundly irrelevant that it’s not even funny.)
You will also be well to know, that the closer to the generic ideal you are as a person (physically attractive people in particular), the MORE people want to put their finishing touches on you to make you the image of their ideal partner, friend, or a child. Physically attractive people are often seen like a pretty shell that simply waits for someone to fill it with the perfect person. THIS obviously isn’t going to fly if you want to find true love. Know that you have the right to be unlikeable to approximately 7 billion people… Even when you want to be the person who is adored by 50 million… or just one.
9. Some people get more tail than you… For a reason.
Accept the fact that some people are more popular than you, but STILL about 7 billion people will never meet them, let alone get to decide whether they like them or not. These people do something right. You can either accept the fact that getting laid is not as important to you as it is for them (otherwise you’d be better at it), and continue living the way you do, or you can start improving YOURSELF (not others) to get more popular.
People who want to be loved by a lot of people put a lot of effort into being lovable. THEIR choice. Don’t be jealous, it’s not easy.
10. If you’re suffering in relationships, you’re the problem
EVEN WHEN IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT it’s STILL YOUR FAULT. If you are the kind of person who is dragged into relationships with narcissists, it’s YOUR PROBLEM to fix, not the narcissists’. It is the SLOWEST PROCESS IN THE WORLD trying to fix others in order to get the life you want because they won’t collaborate. THEIR mind isn’t continually on how well YOU are doing. It is not THEIR RESPONSIBILITY to make you happy. YOU are in charge of your happiness, your success in the dating world and other relationships, YOU are the person who is going to make a change for yourself, not others.
Now, name the things you want to achieve. Why you want to achieve them. For instance, if you insist you shouldn’t have to lose weight in order to be loved, WHY do you feel that way? Is it fair? Is it true? Do you TRUST that someone will love you even if you’re morbidly obese? What will happen if that happens? (Remember, approximately 7 billion people won’t like you anyway whatever you do. Are you a monogamist? You only need one. A polygamist? You only need 2 to qualify. Stop mass-marketing your love, slut, unless you are and want to be a slut.)
Become AWESOME at drilling down to your own obstinance and learn to be more flexible for yourself. Base your beliefs in actual reality and honesty, not ego-driven bullcrap.
11. Understanding yourself depends on understanding others
You can never truly understand yourself without understanding others, too. What makes one person different to your person is the key to knowing who you are in relation to other people. The more you understand others, the more you understand yourself and what makes you different from everyone else.
Still, fully understanding others is not easy. Understanding SOME people may be relatively simple, but if you try to understand people in general, you’ll struggle. Still, being a person helps when you try to understand another person.
12. Nobody is great in the wrong relationship
YOU HAVE TO find the right relationship to be good at it. Men are not “bad at relationships”, even though women often like to put the blame on men when relationships don’t work. It is not a true statement. If a woman has to blame a man for not being good in that relationship, he shouldn’t be in that relationship.
13. We all tend to suck at getting into the right relationship
Not everybody is great at even the right relationship, but it is absolutely true that NOBODY is great in the wrong relationship. And more than often, we all STINK LIKE MONKEYS BALLS at GETTING INTO THE RIGHT relationship. This is because we are USED TO being in wrong relationships, editing our true self, trying to be nice to the wrong people, trying to fit in with people who dislike who you are… It’s DIFFICULT AS HELL to suddenly drop the act in front of the SCARIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD: the one you love more than anyone else you’ve ever met, and who you can only feebly wish feels the same for you. “Just act natural, right?”
This is good to know because YOU NEED TO give the other(s) a break, too. They may be super popular. You may think they know they can snap their fingers and have you. Nah. No. Uh no. Everyone is full of fear when it comes to true love, fear of messing up, fear of making a fool out of oneself, fear of getting hurt… And to somebody, you’re the one who makes them freak out at the sight of you, and you don’t understand why because they, themselves, is perfect.
Truth is your greatest ally in the right relationships. Speaking your mind, your truth, your feelings. Make people angry if you must, but better yet, turn them off. Anger is engaging and can become a problem, but turning people off is better. They’ll just feel disappointed and leave you alone.
I may be an expert in relationships in general, but when it comes to a man I love… He’s a specific, right? A specific I don’t necessarily know inside out yet or ever. Insecurities strike because if it matters how he’ll respond, it doesn’t help much that I feel I know everything about relationships in general.
14. There is no such thing as “men and women”
MIND YOU THIS!!!!!!
“Men and women” is not a thing. There is no way to “attract men”, or “attract women”. There are ways to attract certain kinds of men and certain kinds of women, but even if you were really good at playing one type, that doesn’t mean you’re ever going to find the right woman or the right man if you keep using the wrong strategy for the type you’re after.
This is also to say, that if you are starting to feel desperate about finding the love you want because “men are like this” and “women are like that”, you’re talking yourself out of the obvious: not all men are alike, nor are all women alike. Not all women speak for all women. #MeToo doesn’t speak for all women, no matter how much they’d like that to be true. (I know a ton of women who spit venom every time they see the hashtag, I’m one of them, a long time before the Amber Heard fiasco.)
Even FEMINISTS don’t agree on what women want and what should be the definition of a good feminist. We’re not all a united front, not men nor women. Therefore, stop trying to understand men or understand women, that is a fool’s errand. Understand different kinds of people.
15. Learn to know when you are projecting and when you’re being intuitive
People who project always feel that others are feeling the same as they are. They feel that people’s basic values are about the same as those of their own. They trust that everyone around them is feeling the same feelings, experiencing the same experiences, wanting the same things. We think others are about as intelligent as we ourselves are, or that “stupid” means thriving for something you, yourself don’t want. That is projecting. Most of us do it to an extent.
If you have no idea how or why others would think differently to you, you will have trouble after trouble in all of your relationships. The reaction of this is often anger directed at you for reasons you think you know better than them. You know you are more than likely a chronic projector if everything others say seem to be bullshitting and you know better what they actually mean. You’ve never met a person who’d be open about their feelings because the only feelings you recognize are those of your own, and thus, you think nobody speaks about their feelings truthfully when what they say tend not to match your feelings.
An intuitive knows there are PLENTY of different ways to feel, think, and rationalize things. People have different perspectives, approaches, and ideas. Please note this, even as a mostly intuitive person: If you are honest, you tend to project honesty on other people. If you’re trustworthy, you tend to project trustworthiness on other people. If you’re straight, you tend to only see straight people around you. If you’re secretly gay, you think everyone is secretly gay.
This is something you can teach yourself, start learning about different perspectives, and that’s MAINLY what my website is all about… To LEARN not to project.
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*) Term changed after this post was originally written. Fractions of old terms may exist elsewhere in the post. Read about term updates.
**) Narcissists are Young Souls left alone to survive and they're doing their best. Their emotional age ranges from 3 to 17 -year old. The younger, the more severe the narcissism.
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