Today I’m going to talk to you about the big difference between meeting online or through a matchmaker, and meeting in the wild. I call it reverse engineering. Full disclosure, I am not an engineer. Not in the academic sense, though I do engineer relationships. But let’s get back to the reversal bit. Every day, out in the wild, co-workers are developing attractions to one another. Romance is igniting between colleagues and yoga students and crushes are developing at the gym, in spite of the sweat, the lack of makeup and ambiance. Sparks are flying at the water cooler, at least on those hybrid, in-office days. And if we took a poll of crushes and crushees, of romances borne of simply being stuck in close proximity with a member of the gender you are attracted to, there probably wouldn’t be a whole lot of rhyme or reason to it. I think we’ve all developed crushes that make us cringe, just a little. Sometimes we really fall for a crush. I remember one client I interviewed trying to explain her deep smit over a slightly dumpy older, you guessed it, engineer she worked with. She had no logic to share. Because it just wasn’t logical. I mean that romance did not work out for her. I’m not here to say that it’s a better way. I will say that it’s harder to come by today. Yes, with the hybrid work schedules, and the increase in completely remote work, and with the emotional reluctance borne of the pandemic years. With the increasing reliance on non-organic meets many of us don’t engage at bars, or meet-ups, or dinner parties. We aren’t exuding receptivity or interest. We aren’t looking, scanning, flirting, or sending out radar. And because we aren’t, we don’t register when it is being sent our way.
But even more detrimental to organic romance, is the availability of shopping. Now I’m not even talking about shopping addiction, or chronic dissatisfaction, or the fantasizing of perfection, or compensation for insecurity, or toxic avoidance or all of those pathological reasons folks keep swiping until the swipe loses all meaning. I’m just talking about the sheer opportunity to reverse engineer our dating choices. Instead of being struck, at the bar, or the store, or the office or the club with cupid’s arrow of chemistry or connection, and THEN flirting, talking, calling, dating, to put the chemistry to test, to discover whether there is compatibility in terms of lifestyle, goals, interests, values, whether the insides live up to the outsides, or whether there is any kind of alignment beyond how attractive they look on casual Friday when you’ve been staring at spreadsheets for fifty hours that week, you’re doing the research first, and then trying to solve for chemistry and connection.
There are arguments that this is the better way. There are arguments that it is not. But what both sides can agree on, is that it is a different way, and therefore requires some different consideration, if you want it to work for you. If you don’t actually prefer to spend your Friday nights and Sunday mornings alone with your imaginary dream date, phone clutched in your hand flashing an image of Sandy R. who likes walks on the beach and philanthropy, you’re going to have to buy something from the store.
What I see much too often are romantic potentials that are never realized because we get lost in the search. It feels giddy, dreamy, and practical and smart to choose a potential match who offers bigger, better things than your exes in Texas. To steer toward the stable when you’ve been robbed of stability. To choose the adventurous when you have felt stifled. To course correct! That’s not a bad sentiment or motivation. It’s not wrong. But once we have our ideal mate mapped out in a profile, or staked out in a swipe, how do we get from there to the rest?
Chemistry needs certain elements. For, like, the reaction, you know? You can’t take two pieces of paper, or two screen shots, sit them across the table from one another and hope to feel the burning desire you felt for your last crush. All of the mental preparing and imagining that goes with the shopping and choosing process can actually be counter productive to creating chemistry. So here are my steps for successful reverse engineering your love life.
- Understand that you are in fact reverse engineering. Don’t hold your match or date to the standard you would someone you already developed an organic interest in. You haven’t had the time, circumstance or serendipity for that. Give it time, effort. Understand that it can be jarring to meet this very well aligned person, in person, only to realize they don’t come with a built in mutual crush.
- Fake it until you make it. Look, let me be real with you. You had all of the time in the world to develop that crush on them who shall not be named, and how did that work out for you? The one you didn’t want your friends to know about. The one that you didn’t want yourself to know about. So the least you can do is throw some fertilizer, dirt, seeds and a little eye of newt into the mixer before you give up on this on paper wonder because they didn’t stir your loins in the bright lights of Starbucks at 3pm on a Tuesday.
- Create a romantic environment! If you are going to get off the screen and into a real life with a match you need to bring the romance. You aren’t stuck in an elevator, or a regular environment, so when you do meet, lend your meeting a hand. Choose an environment in which you feel most playful, engaging, flirtatious, in other words in which you can show up as your romantic self. For me, that’s a low lit restaurant or lounge with ambiance and nice red wine. For you that may be a walk in nature or an escape room; whatever brings out your curious, playful side, OR whatever makes you feel most confident, sexy, receptive.
- Avoid being dismissive or testing. Don’t go into a date wearing fear goggles. I’m just going to spell it out right now. No one on this date has the power to force you to marry them and live forever after in misery. You are not going to die, assuming you are taking basic safety precautions. My point being, other than obviously taking care of yourself, it can’t hurt you to relax and give something to this dating experience, rather than to panic reject the person you are sitting across from.
- Leave your date better than you found them. You know a perfect way to create the relationship you dream of? It’s to invest in the person you are matched with. Here is the thing; when you are in those organic settings, there is properly ZERO pressure to like someone, to be liked. You aren’t looking at your worth through the lens of how they line up to their profile pics. And that makes it easy to lean in. So try getting the garbage of those fearful thoughts about this person sitting across the table out of your head. And a great way to do this is to consider “how can I make them feel seen, heard, and walk away tonight closer to their relationship dreams?” Because guaranteed, when you offer this you not only increase the likelihood of seeing their true potential, but you also elevate the dating game. And you build the muscle that you will need for your special someone, if this date isn’t them.
- Trust the process. I know. This can sound like a ridiculous ask. But hear me out. If you can trust, heed, risk on the basis of unchartered chemistry alone, you can give an equal investment to the ones that made enough sense intellectually, or on screen, or to your matchmaker to allow for that chemistry to build. Again, there is no law that says a few dates means you have to marry them. But letting it breathe for a minute is a lot less crazy than explaining to your friends how you joined that biker gang for love. No judgment here, we all love a good Harley Quinn romance.
- Give grace. It’s super important to remember that you’re not in this to meet a professional dater. Polish, charisma, charm, may make for a great date but not the ideal partnership. It may make better sense to treat your date like that awkward co-worker you can’t get enough of. Assume that their best qualities, those 5 star, compelling and endearing attributes, those super sexy loveable quirks, aren’t coming out on day one, under the stark lighting of Starbucks, okay enough slagging the coffee shop. But seriously, give them a chance and don’t judge the coffee by the lighting. At the end of the day, or date, you are looking for your perfect person. And that is all.
- And last but not least, remember that not everything is captured in a profile, even the amazing ones we craft for you at Dateable. When you listen to couples’ sharing about the moment they knew they wanted to marry their paramour, it’s seldom an item on the shopping list.
Much love,
Erin