Advice

You’ve probably heard the old sayings before: "When it rains, it pours!" “As soon as I wasn’t looking for anyone, I found someone!” Or maybe the evil twin of that statement: “People only ever seem interested when I’m already in a relationship!” When you think about it, it’s pretty much the same thing; hopefully you’re not looking for someone new whilst in a relationship, anyway. Well, while it’s not the fates conspiring against you, it might not be entirely coincidence, either.

What happens when you’re in a relationship, or when you’ve decided you don’t need one? You become less self-conscious, because you’re not worried about who’s watching. You act more natural, because you’re not trying to impress anyone. People are more likely to see you for who you really are. And since you’re not stressed out or nervous about landing a date, you probably seem happier, calmer, more confident. It’s not that being in a relationship makes you happier; it’s just that you’re not under the added stress of feeling like you have to find someone.

At any rate, this upbeat, calmer, more confident you is probably you at your most appealing. So the surge in interest right when you’ve stopped looking might be less due to “terrible timing” than you initially think.

“Well, that’s all very well and good,” you might be saying, “but how am I supposed to apply that to now? I still definitely want to find someone. Am I supposed to pretend I’m not looking but be looking anyway? I’m not that great of an actor!”

Nope, the last thing you need is another layer of artifice. You don’t need to replicate the cause - being off the market for whatever reason - to replicate the symptoms, like increased confidence; you just need to find another way to bring it out of yourself. Consider: if people are more likely to be drawn to you when you’re just being yourself, not trying to impress, why not just be yourself from the very beginning? Yes, it can be difficult, particularly if you’re interacting with someone to whom you’re attracted. But perhaps having an internal whisper that reminds you “You don’t have to be someone else to be attractive - it’s when you’re most yourself that you are most attractive” might be just the thing to keep the awkward acting at bay.

So as you write your first-contact emails and go on dates, remember: you want to make a good first impression, but you’re looking to show off the best sides of yourself, not someone else. Finding someone with whom you’re compatible means that they’ll like you best when you’re comfortable and just being yourself - so why act like something you’re not and muddy the waters?

Let’s imagine that you lived in a small village. The place to see and be seen is the town square. One day, someone catches your eye. Sadly, it doesn’t work out - that person is already interested in someone else. Undaunted, you try again. The next person is cold and clearly not interested. The third person is interested, but ultimately the relationship fizzles after three months. Disgusted, you declare, “I’m never going to date someone I meet in the town square ever again!”

Wait, what? The town square is the primary place to find people. You can’t very well go around knocking door-to-door, can you? Sure, you might run into someone at the fruit stand, or at the town well, but when people are there they tend to be focused on their errand, not on looking for a new love. Plus, there’s a village tradition that states that when someone single is in the town square, they wear a flower on their wrist. There’s no such code anywhere else in the village, so you might be wasting your time on someone who’s not just interested in someone else, they’re flat-out taken.

One might say, “Hey, the town square is not the problem. Everyone single shows up there; your job is to separate the good eggs from the bad. And clearly you’re doing something right, because you did enter a relationship; it didn’t work out in the end, but many relationships don’t, whether it’s a few months or a few decades. What makes the town square particularly culpable?”

The answer, of course, is that it’s not the fault of the town square, or even the environment the town square promotes. Neither is it usually the fault of an online dating site when someone enters a dry spell, or their relationship ultimately doesn’t pan out; however, it’s not unusual to hear someone declaring, “I’m never going to try online dating again!”

Now, sure, there are ways to can tailor your experience to your specific needs. Maybe the site you’re looking at isn’t really aimed at your interests or demographic, and a niche site would be a better fit. Maybe there simply aren’t a lot of people in your area who use the site, so it would be better to try somewhere else or broaden your search radius. And sometimes, whether you’re going to a site or a bar or the town square, you just hit a dry spell for no reason other than sheer bad luck.

But next time you’re ready to shoot the messenger, ask yourself: are you drawn to people who are inherently incompatible with you? Are you pursuing a relationship you’re not actually interested in, just because you want to end your dry spell? Are you choosing to see the glass as half empty, even though you’ve had quite a bit of interest, simply because you haven’t yet found a ‘happily ever after’?

You may just find that a little self-examination, while perhaps more difficult, will have far better results than a simple change in venue.

It can be tempting to panic when you look at statistics. “Oh, your parents divorced when you were young? Hmm,” your brain might say, clucking in dismay. “That lowers your chances of a successful relationship considerably. How have things been going for you so far? Not so great, hmm?”

It’s easy let that self-doubt creep in, but do your best to resist! After all, every relationship ends at some point, until you’re in one for the rest of your life. Chances are, most people around you are not currently at that point yet, so don’t think you’re particularly worse off than anyone else. When you’re not currently in a relationship, it can be easy to see the glass as half empty - so think about the sort of attitudes you value in others, and do your best to emulate them when you’re feeling shaky.

As for statistics: why might children of divorced parents have a difficult time with successful relationships? Because for many, the parents are the primary and first relationship they watch and emulate. First and primary, maybe - but not the only relationship you’ve ever seen, by far. By the time you reach adulthood, you’ve seen family members and friends in various relationships. You’ve watched the loving neighbors who have been married fifty years. You’ve seen your cousin’s relationship fall apart, to the surprise of no one. Maybe you haven’t been in a successful romantic relationship, but you’ve had the same best friend for twenty years.

By now, you know what a good relationship looks like, and what a bad one does too. You know what you want for yourself; trust yourself in that. Maybe you don’t know all the answers, but neither does anyone else - we’re all just looking for happiness, with a vague idea of what it looks like from the outside. And remember: all relationships are comprised of two unique people; there’s only so much you can learn from any other couple, no matter how great and wise they are.

At some point, you have to discard the how-to manual and sail into the relationship waters with only yourself and your partner at the helm. Some might have to leave their manual behind a little earlier than others; some had only a thin pamphlet, while others had a multi-chapter novel. Still, there’s no guarantee of success or failure. With regular maintenance, respect, and affection, your chance of successfully navigating the waters of love are just as good as anyone’s.

When it comes to finding someone with whom you’ll hit it off, the best and most obvious place to start is common interests. However, that doesn’t mean you both have to like knitting or badminton, or have careers in the same field. Sometimes you have to look a little deeper for that common link.

You never know in what direction that common thread will be, so when you start your custom searches, think in broad terms. Maybe you don’t want to date a colleague, but perhaps, if you’re a chemist, someone who’s generally in the science world might be a good place to start. Or maybe it’s just that they like to do their own “science experiments” with baking. Having professional interests that are complementary (or even one partner in a professional capacity, and one with a hobby) can take a conversation in unexpected places - and then perhaps you’ll find even more in common.

However, you don’t have to bring work home if you don’t want to. If you work in a very specific field, or you’re not actually interested in thinking about it in your off time, the sections about favorite books, TV shows and movies might be a good place to start. Sure, some might find it frivolous, but these sections can be quite telling. You can get a sense of their sense of humor, their intellectual tastes, and simply who they “are” in their off time. Don’t get hung up on small points; whether they liked or have seen your very favorite movie might be less important than the fact that they’ve even heard of it, or that you seem to laugh at the same things.

Sometimes the similarities aren’t immediately apparent at the first glance of a profile, but the real compatibility clues lie in the way you approach life. It’s all well to have someone who knows the all the characters on your favorite TV show, but sometimes less fun factors, like what you want out of life and how you handle adversity, are the ones that make or break a relationship. Compatibility at this level can be harder to spot, so it’s going to require more careful reading than a quick scan. If you come across a profile with an attractive person that just gives you a good, comfortable vibe without anything you can put your finger on, send that first-contact email! What have you got to lose by stepping outside your box?

Obviously, most people try to search for someone with a common interest; however, they might not realize all the various ways in which you can have something in common. Don’t stress if you don’t have a laundry list of similarities; if you’re inherently compatible, whatever you know about one another will become a mere jumping-off point for the conversation. At the same time, try to broaden your search, and look for unconventional ways in which you might share something to talk about - you might be delighted with what you find!

When I was a kid, struggling with my math homework, my dad used to tell me arithmetic is his favorite subject because there is always a right answer. It's simple: memorize a formula, plug in the numbers, get the solution. There is no guesswork like there is with an essay on the meaning behind an Austen novel or a Shakespearian sonnet.

I used to think relationships were like those sonnets (after all, isn't that why there are so many sonnets written about them?), but it turns out my dad may have been onto something with relationships, too. Once I'd gotten a few breakups under my belt, I realized that - believe it or not - there's a formula for breakup success.

Rule #1: It's always a bad time to break up, so just do it. I've heard a lot of excuses for delaying a breakup, from "It's the holidays" to "But they have an exam coming up, and I don't want to distract them from studying!" Sure, those excuses sound considerate on the surface, but delaying a breakup that you know is inevitable is never the considerate thing to do. In the long run, putting it off only makes the breakup harder and the fallout worse.

Rule #2: Proceed at the pace of the person with the shortest legs. What does that mean? It means that if the person you just dumped doesn't want to talk to you, respect their need for space. Don't try to force contact when they need time alone to heal. And if you're the one who needs the time alone, don't feel obligated to stay in contact with your ex if you don't feel ready for it. Friendship can happen in time, if that's what you both want, but there's no need to rush it.

Rule #3: Restraint is a virtue. Dumpers: there's no need to go into hurtful detail about why you ended the relationship. Some things are better left unsaid. Dumpees: there's no need to ask things you may not want to hear the answers to. Some things are better left unknown.

Rule #4: You are now the most important person in your life - treat yourself that way. So your relationship is over. That sucks. But it also has a good side: you now have a chance to give #1 some much-needed TLC. It's easy to neglect your needs when you're in a relationship, but tending to the needs of someone else shouldn't mean forgetting to tend to your own. Look at the end of a relationship as a liberating time, when you have the opportunity to do what you want and a new love is waiting on the horizon.

Will the formula make your breakups easy? No, nothing can do that, but it will definitely you're your breakups better.

Human beings aren’t machines, but there are certainly times when we behave like them (or maybe what we consider the most machine-like behavior is actually mimicking us). Consider factory default settings. Your computer or television or coffee maker spends a considerable amount of time being programmed to do precisely what it needs to in this custom situation; then, a power outage sets it back to its default settings, and all that knowledge is lost.

We sometimes do much the same thing when we re-enter the dating world after having been absent for some time. Fashions have changed, I know much more than I used to, but if I had to identify the sort of person who catches my eye today, he probably wouldn’t look terribly different from the sort who might have done so when I was fifteen, or maybe even twelve. Now, much more information is considered before I’d consider talking to the guy, much less starting a relationship - I have learned some lessons over the years that have stuck - but that first roving glance is pretty much my factory defaults.

The trick is to recognize which parts of your defaults are ingrained and harmless, and which are bad habits that need to be rewritten every time. For example, you might be attracted to a particular physical type - slim or muscular, dark or blonde. It would be pointless to try to fight something like that, because after all, there’s no harm in it. If, however, you’re attracted to those who have a trace of arrogance or cruelty in their expression? Bad news.

If you find yourself regressing to default factory settings after a breakup, don’t panic! You’re simply going back into your search mode, as it were, and recalibrating. Next, make sure you input additional information to aid your search, such as the lessons you’ve learned from past relationships. Even more importantly, consider what you’ve learned about yourself since you were twelve (or since you entered your last relationship). Your wants, your needs, might well have changed since those defaults were first set.

Temporarily going back to factory defaults is not a problem; the problem comes if you leave yourself that way, and willfully ignore all the lessons you’ve learned since. Because all that knowledge, that “programming,” is not really lost; it’s just shuffled to the back. Truly, maybe there’s something to be said for a little default view; maybe we occasionally need a little of the hope, romance and idealism of our twelve-year-old selves. Since we are actually not machines, we can embrace or disregard whatever information we want. Just try to find the balance of information that works for you as you look for someone who makes your circuits sizzle.