Dating – Part 3 - Orbiting, Holding Space & Hardballing

March 1, 2022 Michael Dubin

Photo 133755553 / Dating © Vadimgozhda | Dreamstime.com

Did you know that Axios is reporting that dating has now been simplified to the level that a well-known, fast-causal burger chain has partnered with a well-known food delivery company to launch a temporary dating site on which to pair prospective lovers who share an affinity for the chain’s version of a buffalo chicken sandwich? “Yes, I met your mother over our shared love of fried and brown chicken breasts covered in a house-made buffalo sauce that features a tangy flavor with a lot of sweetness balanced by a hint of spice. It’s not as spicy as it can be, but the lack of heat allows you to focus on the layers of flavors, from pungent garlic to smokey paprika and a noticeably sharp tangy finish.” Oy vey. If that is the basis of a sustainable, long-term, committed relationship that has some depth – that true love can be found in the mutual exploration of layers of flavor - I’ll dance naked in Macy’s window. Dating is not about gimmicks. It is about authenticity, about which I’ve recorded a podcast and published a blog post.

So far, in this series, we’ve talked about ghosting and mosting, submarines and zombies. If one were to inventory those terms, you’d think that dating was connected to the supernatural with a slight military influence thrown in. So now, on to space terms -orbiting and holding space – with a side of effective message transmission from your space capsule. How did dating become this complicated?

Orbiting. The person that ghosts you then continues to follow you on social media and may interact with you by liking or retweeting your tweets or liking your Instagram photos or whatever. The thinking is that this is a new behavior that only started because of social media. No. It just made it easier. Depending on what they knew about you when you dated, even without social media you could have been orbited in a sense. They could know mutual friends or someone in your family and have kept close tabs on you that way. Or you somehow kept running in to them at your favorite movie theater or restaurant or store or wherever. Social media just makes keeping tabs on somebody much easier. It takes a lot less leg work.

Why would someone do this? As we’ve talked about, people have all kinds of issues when it comes to relationships. Love, intimacy, caring, vulnerability, communication, etc., are all very scary things. One of the big reasons they are unnerving is that it involves emotions – feeling them, dealing with them, knowing what to do with them. I am currently involved in an ongoing online discussion with a few folks on Twitter who preach and swear by the gospel of avoiding feelings at all costs. The best self-care you can give yourself, they say, is to stay with logic and reason through thick and thin. I can see professional relationships being based mostly on logic and reason. But how does one navigate marriage and/or parenthood, or friendship or familial connections solely from a basis of the rational when relationships of all kinds are messy and complicated? You can’t love or be loved without venturing into the waters of emotion.

We all want to be cared for. We all want and need some kind of human connection in our lives. But how well prepared are we for the “big” relationships? Lots of people aren’t emotionally prepared to know how to deal with the emotions that relationships bring up. There are no “How To” manuals. No two relationships are alike. And we can and hopefully do learn a great deal about ourselves in the process. It is a lot to take on even when you are prepared to try to navigate those waters. But suppose someone is not able to maneuver through those depths even though they really liked you and don’t want to lose contact completely. Then orbiting, though creepy, makes more sense.

The point here is that when someone demonstrates that they don’t have the capacity, for whatever reason, to go further and they don’t even have the ability to have an honest conversation about that fact, then bless them and let them go, unless they are posing a threat to you. Either engage or ignore their presence in your social media feed. Call them out if you want to. If they pose a threat, then take whatever steps you need to keep them at a distance and keep yourself safe.

Holding Space. Holding space is a term that initially came out of talk therapy. The therapist provides a safe space in which the client can be open and honest and not feel judged. And that is important. Thing is that your therapist’s office is not the only place you should be open and honest. That space, ideally, is established and held by both parties to a relationship. However, it often is up to one of the couple to provide and hold that safe space while their partner acclimates and learns to function within it.

My question is why would you have to announce to someone that you are holding space for them? Regardless of whether the activity is fun and light, or a deep conversation, or anything in between, are you not usually present with the people you are with? We all want to be seen and heard and the experience I will have, if you have been present with me, is that I will feel seen and heard, without feeling any judgment coming toward me. Now, if we are having a serious conversation, then I need to up my game a little bit and be even more focused, actively listening but also paying attention to body language, facial expressions, etc. I don’t need to offer solution or try to fix anything. But you still need to be seen and heard and met where you are and accepted and not judged.

If you are not in the space to be present with someone, then OK. Be honest about that and see if their pressing need can wait a bit or, if it is acutely important, give yourself a minute or two to get ready to be in a more present headspace. Being present is important.

“Hardballing”. The truth is that we teach others how we want to be treated. If I do not inform you about what is and is not OK in your treatment of me, then I am relying on your own sense and practice of common decency; of being respectful; and of being present. Or I am either expecting how I want you treat me to come to you in some sort of an epiphany or psychic insight, or I am willing to put up with anything you dish out. And, as we have been discussing, putting up with anything is not OK and certainly is not healthy or productive. Thus, I need to be clear withing myself and then clear with you about what I want from you and from the potential relationship we are embarking on.

Am I looking for something short-term, medium-term, or a long-term committed relationship? Do I even want a committed relationship or NSA? Do I expect or want the relationship to go somewhere in real time, in real life, or are we just pen pals online, texting, messaging, dragging out the conversation that really goes nowhere but feeds my need for attention without us ever having to actually meet? I am told that dragging out online conversations that go nowhere is called breadcrumbing. So now we are introducing baking terms into our collection of dating terms drawn from the supernatural, from space travel and from the military. But I digress.

What do I want? And does what I want mesh with what you want, at least at this point in time? Now, as we get to know one another, all that may change, certainly so. But supposedly what hardballing is about is that we are trying to make sure there are no surprises, no bs, no games, and everything is above board and transparent, another currently popular word. The potential trap here is, as we talked about in “Ya Gotta Get a Gimmick,” what I call the Pre-husband Interview - the checklist we run somebody through before we even go on a date. In trying to cover all the bases up front and making sure there are no surprises, not only will you possibly avoid the unpleasant surprises, but you will also never get the really delightful and welcomed surprises either.

By all means, set your boundaries by be clear on an on-going basis about what those boundaries are – what is and is not OK. As example, for me, sarcasm and constant witticisms wear thin very quickly. I need someone who can hold a conversation that has some depth. Don’t rush into a relationship or, once in, don’t try to rush the progress of the relationship. Let it unfold and enjoy the journey. Good communication is important. Again, is what you are looking for and what they are looking for – FWB, activity buddies, casual dating, or an openness to see where things go – in synch with one another?

Start with simple things. What are your preferred methods of communication? Text? Phone call? Email? Messenger? Video calls? What? Primarily I want to be called. Texts and other forms of written communication can be more easily misconstrued than when I hear your voice. What is the response time you expect? Communicate early on, over time, who you are, what you are looking for, what is not negotiable for you, and what you are hoping to find. But, above all, have fun with the process of discovering the mysteries of another human being.

Next time, we will talk about preparing for the dating journey.

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc

Attention vs Affection

November 18, 2021 Michael Dubin

Photo 96577206 © Erikreis | Dreamstime.com

Attention and affection are both very important needs but they are different. Be clear as to which you are seeking and why.

Attention is a big deal. It is in the giving and receiving of attention that we become equal in one another’s eyes. If I pay attention to you or you to me, that means we have decided that this person is worth the time and effort and acknowledgment that attention provides. Nothing drives people up a wall faster than being ignored. It is certainly one of my pet peeves. There is an eyeglass store in Midtown Atlanta that has been in its location for a number of years now. Every time I have been in that store, none of the sales people have ever bothered to acknowledge my existence. Doesn’t matter how I am dressed, the time of day, nor the placement of the stars in the heavens.

We all want attention. We all seek attention. Why? Because it provides a sort of validation from others that in their eyes, we are worth them paying attention to. And as you have seen, in our current world, it seems like everyone is seeking to stand out and garner, and in many cases monetize the attention, recognition and validation they are getting, mostly via social media. Others use social media to hookup. They want the attention that provides, as long as it is “no strings attached” but the minute emotion, affection enters the picture, they move on despite the fact that what they are most likely seeking on a deeper level, is true affection.

Conversely, others of us, mostly us introverts, do not like attention or being in the spotlight. For many years I actively practiced hiding in plain sight and am still quite adept at being invisible, especially in a crowded room, in contrast to the people who strive to be the center of attention. They feed off the energy that the attention provides them, whereas for me, I find it exhausting after a while. I prefer operating quietly, behind the scenes, and am very effective in that role of making things happen without it having to be all about me. We shun the spotlight but that does not mean we shun accomplishment.

But regardless of whether you are a person who actively seeks attention, or welcomes it in limited quantities on occasion, or you do your best to avoid it, it is always – ALWAYS – useful to look at what you pay attention to in your life. The things you feed your attention to tend to grow and the things/people/places/activities we withhold attention from tend to wither and fall away in our lives. Do you only give attention to getting more and more attention or do you give attention, for example, to things like the important relationships in your life? Hard to do when you are constantly giving your attention to your phone. Just sayin’.

Do you give attention to needs like what makes you feel safe and secure in life – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually? Do you give attention to generating a real sense of self-esteem from within or do you get caught in the insatiable and impossible task of seeking it from others? Do you pay attention to your need to be really creative – rather than just pumping out content to stay relevant on social media? Do you give attention to creating and producing substantive accomplishments or are you relying on whatever captures your attention at the time? Needless to say, attention to self and one’s deeper needs like self-esteem, like being creative and being productive, is not only important but is paramount. Those deeper needs do not go away even when we get the dopamine hit that momentary attention provides.

We all need love and happiness; and passion and compassion; and hope and trust; and the thrill, the eagerness, excitement, the enthusiasm of just being alive. We also want to feel optimistic about our lives and need and want a sense of well-being. Do we pay attention to the primacy of those needs within ourselves and seek to meet them or do we focus our attention solely on the hit of a response to a text message?

The things we pay attention to are often what we manifest in our lives. So it is useful to inventory and review the things we feed with our attention. The things we feed with our attention often become habituated. Do you feed your hope or your cynicism, for example? Do you feed competitiveness, your jealousies, your grudges, your feelings of being unappreciated? Or do you feed joy and love and friendship and fun?

Attention seeking is also a way to try to staunch the pain, frustration and even despair of loneliness. As connected as we all are, there is a lot of loneliness out there in our world and that loneliness will not be assuaged by surface level connection. The worst loneliness is being lonely in a loving relationship or even when surrounded by friends. I have long referred to it as the howl of loneliness wherein the sense of isolation and alienation and even despair can be so overwhelming that there seems no way out. Many of us have all felt, at one time or another in our lives, that unanswered and unanswerable howl.

I have a column planned on the subject of loneliness as it is a big subject, just as is attention. But one of the surest symptoms of loneliness is becoming consumed with being superficially popular. That driving need to be popular, having lots and lots of superficial friends and acquaintances but none of those relationships having any depth or substance. How many people do you know who make no distinction between acquaintances and real friends? Real friends – the people who will drop everything and be there – good times and bad – when you need and/or want them there. Ask Dickens wrote in Nicholas Nickleby, “Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we’d give blood.”

The need for attention and the desire to staunch the howl of loneliness often replaces, for many, the real need of affection. The withdrawal of affection or, even worse, the absence of affection from those we love or care about threatens to leave us lonely and alone. And that loss or absence of affection causes pain, real mental, emotional and spiritual pain. The Dalai Lama said, “We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.”

We all need affection and that need for genuine affection is something worth paying attention to. Our friends at Oxford Languages via Google say that affection is “a gentle feeling of fondness or liking.” If you look at the many definitions of affection available online, fondness is one of the most common words used in relation to describing what affection is. Merriam-Webster.com also defines affection as, “a feeling of liking and caring for someone or something.” We all want to be liked and cared for and have people feel fond of us. Yes, love is also included in affection but it need not be what we feel to feel affectionate toward someone. “Affectionate attachment” is another term found commonly.

There are all kinds of ways to express or give affection. Physically things like cuddling, holding hands, hugging, etc. Words of affirmation; acts of service; receiving gifts; quality time; and physical touch are commonly associated with ways affection is shown or given. These five things are often associated with what has come to be called the languages of love but they are ways of expressing and receiving affection.

It is an important need. Yet do we pay any attention to giving affection to ourselves or is it always better if someone else gives it to us? How do we give ourselves any affirmation about who we are and what we do and accomplish and who we are becoming? What acts of service do we provide for ourselves or do we tend to treat ourselves in a very utilitarian manner? What do we give of ourselves, to ourselves, like our humor, compassion, intellect, patience? Can we spend quality time alone with ourselves or would we rather chew glass than be alone with ourselves? When was the last time you made yourself laugh because you thought of something funny that only you would understand?

Too often in our current world people substitute and settle for attention, any kind of attention, any port in a storm, rather than seek and cultivate real affection from themselves and from others. Attention, as discussed above, is valuable and essential in our lives but it will not replace the genuine need for affection. Affection, like trust, is something that grows and is earned over time. There is no easy or quick fix to meeting that need. So, by all means, grab all the attention you think or feel you need and want but be careful about thinking it will meet the deeper and more important need of genuine affection.