Where and how to get started when you're about to submerge yourself in the depths of the dating world.
What are you looking for in a partner? This rhetorical question has rang in the ears of almost every individual outside of those with an asexual temperate towards others. For virtually everyone else, people of a particular sex present opportunities, hazards, or competition. The game of dating is dictated by hierarchies of value that can be accessed by the visual, temperamental, and value-based elements of life; and the complex web of a myriad of individuals with varying qualities intimidates many, but the desire for partnership- so integral to the human experience that marriage is considered a chief aim of one’s purpose by most traditional institutions- necessitates risk.
So how do you access the value of potential partners, and where do you start; and of further concern, is your desire and subsequent pursuit of relationships misguided? The dating world appears as a lake of massive proportions, dwarfing you in its enormity, and fully capable of consuming you. Yet one can’t deny the urge to plunge into it, bearing the risk of harm for the hope of benefit unattainable on land. To many, the concept of a partnership with an individual based on trust and vulnerability is a joke. To the cynical, the pursuit of such is merely a facade for the innate, sexual desire to reproduce, to start a family, and to foster the next generation.
Complexity of the dating system aside, it may distress one to consider the possibility that the pursuit of relationships is a futile and pointless effort. If dating is motivated purely by sex, then what purpose could be found in intentionally incurring the risk of being harmed irreparably by the flaws of a human being? After all, can you trust someone else more than your self? You. You and all your shortcomings; all your foulness and vulnerability heaped upon the world. How can one possibly expect to reap a positive benefit from making oneself so naked in front of another person; you might as well tip your toes into the gaping mouth of the lake, providing your nakedness to others in transaction; in the act of sex, but never unveiling the nakedness of being, your true self.
What may come to the chagrin of the nihilistic, is that relationships vary just as much as the individuals that partake in them. It might be convenient to describe all relationships as guided by the same sexual motives, cultural norms, and institutional ordinances; and while there may be a degree of homogeneity inherent in all relationships to the extent to which they are defined, there is much variable beyond the superficial.
People seek relationships for many different reasons, but a few would include pleasure, fulfilment, connection, security, authenticity, and self-actualization. When people share certain values, a relationship between the two shares a common vision. For example, if two partners desire sex and nothing else, commitment won’t extend beyond a one-night stand. However, if both partners share the values of a desire to improve upon themselves, to have a mirror upon which to perceive their actions, to be known and to be accepted regardless, and to commit to something- or rather someone- they consider bigger than themselves, than such a relationship will be fostered between them.
This is why relationships seem so complex, and why dating is so scary. You have an agenda, one that may not even be entirely understood by you, and almost everyone else shares in that self-interested, confused state. The more values imposed, the more selfless one must be in order to apply those values, and this makes it difficult to seek and discover someone of similar value; because the more you ask for, the more difficult it will be to find and maintain.
You can’t expect others to share your values, and there’s no guarantee that the attractive man or woman who has inflamed your passions will share your interests and goals. But there is one component of the dating equation that one can will to be fixed: to remove the possibility of variability through determination and right reason, and that is you.
The answer to all of these questions is multivariate, normative, and quite nuanced; but the underlying principle to dating is the improvement of you. You. That flawed, damaged, foolish individual with all your impurities and failures scarred into memory; you, the person who is loved in spite of those things and has infinite potential, and undeniable worth exclusive of all moral and material failings.
To start your adventure into dating life, don’t ask who to look for in a partner. Instead, ask why a potential partner should be looking at you. What are you in your current station in life, what do you lack, what can you achieve, and how can you reflect your self-imposed value structure? Ask yourself what you want from a potential partner, not in terms of appearance or class, but in common values and shared goals. Then ask yourself, how do I measure up to those values, how do I reflect the achievement- or progress towards- said goals, and who can I be to that reliable element in someone else’s life. You are the consistent factor, and while others in the dating world can fail you, you can never fail yourself unless you allow it. Start with yourself, and then we’ll discuss how to engage with others. You can’t change the depth of the lake, its temperature, or the monsters that may be lurking there, but you can dictate how fast you swim, and how long you swim in it.
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