Your Mom Was Right When She Told You To Be Yourself

There’s an enormity of people out there who are alone. They are the ones who have either never experienced love or who have lost it and can’t seem to find their footing again. Truth be told, many of them have a personal blockage to experiencing it through their inability to love themselves. But many others live with an outside set of circumstances that they can’t control that has contributed to their inability to connect with another person. Disability or handicap in function, looks, or personal stability can and do all play a role in this loneliness. It may just be self-imposed out of fear or there may be some physical reason they can’t seem to find love, but that reason is there and you can be damn sure it eats at whoever’s going through it.

Ironically, the ones who deserve love the most seem to be the ones who have the hardest time finding it.

Dating products and dating services are a multi-billion dollar industry that caters to everyone from Christians to shy people, from 50 plus singles to lonely farmers and from sugar daddies to millionaire couples. The industry is only getting bigger with the greater societal acceptance of turning to the internet to find that special person.

More people are turning to dating coaches, to self-help books, and to the horribly manipulative world of pick-up artistry then ever before in an effort to improve their “game” and to learn the tricks of manipulating someone into sleeping with them and eventually having a relationship. It all seems so deceptive for some reason. Sure it helps some people, but the truth of the matter, and it’s a very simple truth at that, is that you can’t make someone fall in love with you if they don’t want to.

There are no tricks you can play on someone to lower their self esteem and trick them into trying to seek acceptance from you. There are no magic pick-up lines that can instantly attract a partner and there are no games you can play with people’s emotions that will cause them to like you more.

I’d be lying if I said attraction didn’t matter because it does, but manipulating someone into seeking your acceptance isn’t attraction. It’s just manipulation, plain and simple.

I’m coming to realize this more and more myself as I get older. I’ve played games with people because, honestly, who hasn’t? I’ve been caught up in the pick-up artist way of thinking and I’ve even displayed some borderline stalker behavior because loneliness has been a huge part of my life that I’ve tried to fill. It’s all manipulation though.

Attraction on the other hand, comes naturally. Getting someone to like you only comes when you like yourself to begin with. Attraction is a natural draw. It happens when a person decides to put their best self out into the world. Your best self is confident, secure, comfortable in their own skin, funny and relaxed. These attributes only come to someone when they’ve accepted themselves for who they truly are. When they stop trying to hide a part of themselves that makes them uncomfortable, and when they are open and free to be the exact person they are, warts and all.

The only trick someone needs to use when they want to attract a partner is to be themselves in the truest sense of the word. Intertwined with this notion is the ability to be vulnerable, to be open and comfortable with the insecurity that scares you the most.

If someone doesn’t like you for who you are truly and completely there’s really no reason to waste your time with that person. Being rejected is an exercise in learning how to move on, to improve if you need to and to eventually show your true self to the one who will matter.

Showing who you are though, is, like anything else, a process. Investing time in building a relationship is part and parcel of the process. If you put the time in and really get to know someone, instead of trying to seduce them on that first night in the bar, they’ll likely reciprocate.

Looks and physical attractiveness shouldn’t matter if you’re wholly comfortable with yourself and if you’re willing to get to know someone.
Sometimes they do matter though. We can’t possibly meet everyone’s preferences and if your looks are a deal-breaker for one person, they will be what another person finds cute.

That one who finds these things cute will pick up the pieces you’ve scattered, they will see you as incredible, and they will accept you, your flaws and everything in between because, although no one really knows what love is, they will feel it for you and you will know. They’ll see the way you grimace when you’re forced to make a decision about where you want to eat lunch, they’ll see your eyes widen when you pick up that book you’ve been wanting to read, and they’ll notice the freckles on the bridge of your nose that wrinkle up when you smile. They will notice these things and they’ll be totally completely utterly enamored with them.

Essentially what I’m trying to say with all of this is that your mom’s advice on relationships was right. Just be yourself. Sometimes, though we have blockages that prevent us from being our whole and true selves.

Try working on those before you spend $3000 going to Las Vegas for a weekend pick-up seminar with Mystery.