A client came into session today looking mildly dejected. He wanted me to know it was nothing he couldn't handle. But something was bothering him, and he didn’t entirely approve of his own discomfort. He explained that his wife’s birthday was a few days ago, and they had experienced another go-round in a pattern they’ve played-out before on anniversaries, Valentine’s day, and Christmas. He puts in plenty of effort, but she’s usually disappointed in the results, and he blames himself. 

Why does he blame himself? Because she tells him what she wants as her gift, but again and again, he misses the mark anyway. Then he feels angry with himself for sabotaging the whole process. She feels let down; he feels judged (as incompetent, or withholding). So he tries to make it right, by fetching and handing over whatever it was she asked for in the first place. Then things settle down, and all is more or less well—until next time.

Whenever you’re puzzled about why you’ve done what you’ve done, there is internal conflict going on. Otherwise the confusion about your own choices wouldn’t be there. Part of him wanted to please his wife, in the only way that seemed likely to work (just take her instructions and carry them out). But part of him protested at that, with a quietly passionate conviction that something valuable would be lost by doing so. He did not seem clear about what that thing might be, yet he wasn’t willing to let go of it. If he told her what it was, he might have to give it up. So, to prevent that, he kept it hidden—even from himself. 

I suggested that maybe what he wanted was an opportunity to give expressively: to select something for her himself, something that would show not only his care and affection, but his knowledge of her, her interests and tastes. Compared to that, her version of gift-giving seemed less expressive, even impersonal. And since the culture frames gift-giving as a point of emotional contact—it’s one of the famous “five love languages”—it can feel lonely to exchange gifts without the closeness we associate with presents. Loneliness did seem to be part of the mix of feelings he had around this subject. That’s not a verdict about their marriage; far from it. They’re doing quite well, in general. But this issue has been a sore spot for a while.

I asked about the holidays and birthdays of his childhood. Sure enough, his parents rarely gave him anything that he wanted; when they did, it was something he had specified in advance. And they almost never managed to present him with an item that showed their affectionate understanding of just what kind of kid he was. They did their bit, and though some areas of their parenting were actually quite terrible, their gift-giving was merely underwhelming, mechanical, and a bit cold. So he knew his way around gift-related disappointment, and wanted me to realize he was well able to deal with it. 

Nevertheless, he seemed deflated and frustrated—sad, without being willing to be sad, and just slightly angry, with a strong disapproval of his own anger. He said his feelings didn’t fit the situation. I asked if the mismatch was one of quality, or just quantity. Because to me, his feelings made plenty of sense, and if they felt stronger than they “should,” maybe that was due to the resemblance between the current situation and some childhood birthday experiences that hurt more.

Part of what made it a bit daunting to realize all this was the dread of telling his wife about it and being misunderstood. What if she heard it as nothing but criticism, or a reluctance to spend money on her? She hadn’t come from poverty, but the home she grew up in didn’t always have financial security, either. When she went to high school, she felt undervalued by peers who wore designer clothes and waved their BMW keys around, long before she got the hand-me-down Plymouth station wagon. For her, the purpose of receiving gifts was to soothe-away this dreadful sense of being less-than, or undeserving, or unsuccessful. Instagram made that more intense, with its constant glittering displays of what we all supposedly want. 

Telling her husband what to buy was a way of ensuring a good outcome, by preventing the repetition of those old moments of adolescent misery. She didn’t really want jewelry for its own sake, didn’t know much about it, and rarely wore what she kept in her armoire. The meaning was the important thing, and the meaning was: I matter, I have value, I merit whatever it is that other people have already pronounced beautiful. She, too, wanted him to have room to choose what her present would be. But since another miss would be painful, she compromised by giving him a short list of possibilities from which to pick something. The trouble was, she wanted him to read her mind and realize that only the bracelet would hit the spot. The list of alternatives (she hoped) would not only create the illusion of initiative that he needed, it would sweeten the experience of his understanding her, and getting it right, and correctly selecting the bracelet instead of those alternatives. 

Instead he gave her the most expensive item on the list: a top-of-the line electronic tablet, roughly the same price. She was crestfallen. Unlike the bracelet, this was something he, too, might wind up using from time to time, and though this had never occurred to him, it made sense when she pointed it out. It embarrassed her to cry about it, because she didn’t want to seem ungrateful. But she didn’t feel grateful; she felt unheard. He took her to dinner and a movie, but she couldn’t manage not to mope. Her disappointment disappointed him.

In our session, he kept mentioning that this certainly wasn’t a crisis, and of course that’s true. But crises are not the only kind of problem that befalls a couple, and a minor bit of turbulence can be important if it’s part of larger pattern with an underlying issue. 

Sometimes in couple’s therapy, it becomes clear that the needful thing is for one of the two people to do a serious course of individual therapy. Conversely, sometimes in individual therapy the main theme turns out to be the client’s marriage, and the treatment resources might be better invested in couple’s therapy. This wasn’t that, since the client and I were also doing good work in other areas; parenting, career, time-of-life, and some broad existential issues. But because it’s an individual case, without his wife present, there was no opportunity to help them both directly. It would’ve been a discussion about their different understandings of what gift-giving is, and what it is for, and about how they can collaborate to adjust to each other’s needs.

Instead, he and I had to speculate about how he might try to discuss it with her. He wondered if she’d be able to meet him in the middle: she could ask him explicitly for something that would be sure to gratify her, something she already knew would be satisfying. And he could ask her to understand an additional gift as a personal communication of his feelings. As for gifts moving in the other direction, he seemed genuinely at a loss as to what he might want, apart from the online wishlist that has to do with his work as a musician. The whole subject of getting presents made him uncomfortable, and I understood why.

Without having met her, or seen the two of them together, it did seem to me worth his while to give it a shot. Part of the job would be to prevent her from jumping to the conclusion that he was just scolding, complaining, criticizing, or laying groundwork to deprive her of anything. It would help to spell out his understanding of her needs, and his desire to meet them. Having done so, he could try to explain to her what interpersonal customs he wishes they could have between them when it’s time to give a gift. A both/and, not an either/or.

Whatever the results, the main thing is to exit the pattern. Ideally, an open-hearted and insightful conversation dissolves it. But if that doesn’t work, or the support for an attempt just isn’t there, then the remaining alternative is to face that fact squarely, accept that it probably won’t change, and consciously resolve to make a unilateral change. In this case, that change would be to just get the specified shiny object that symbolizes value and security, and content himself with the quiet satisfaction of a job well done—a humbling, modest, nontrivial success in the role of husband to that particular spouse. 

If you can discern what it is that you can reasonably hope for, you can exercise your courage to suit the situation. There might be some sorrow in that accommodation, but it would not be the fussy self-sabotage of unintended repetition. Remember the “Serenity Prayer”? It applies to marriage ever so well: give me the courage to negotiate the things that are negotiable; the patience to accept the things that negotiation can’t fix; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Achieving that wisdom generally requires a few attempts at negotiation—compassionate, dignified negotiation. If those work, it’s a beautiful thing: shared growth, that brings the couple closer. If your efforts at negotiation don’t work, the beauty is more subtle, and harder to appreciate: your personal growth, that keeps the couple moving forward in parallel, instead of diverging in resentful conflict. 

See what you can do; do what you can.

A couple asked me about body-image issues today. They had already communicated with each other about their preferences—which is not always a great idea. She now knows he (thinks that he) prefers a certain waist-to-hip ratio, and he knows she (thinks that she) likes it better when he’s got a bit more muscle than he seems to have these days. Saying that stuff costs more than it’s worth. Why not just assume your partner shares the same general taste as the rest of the culture around you, and live your life? If and when you’re ready to attempt the kinds of changes that suit you, give it a shot. If you have some success, and your main squeeze actually notices it, that’s great. You want to be changing for you, not for them, anyway. 

Fussing about how you think you prefer your partner’s body to look, is a fool’s errand. You can advocate for an increase in your shared activity level; get some bicycles; get a dog to have to take constant walks with, etc. There’s plenty of stuff you can do that may help get you both into shape. But there’s usually no good reason to say you’re disappointed with the other person’s body—unless things are really out of control, and the physical issues are egregious enough to be part of a larger problem. Which is pretty rare.

Most of the time, our bodies remain more or less the same, and most of us exercise just enough to keep them roughly the way they are, staving off deterioration. Sometimes an exercise program will get sustained, and somebody will win-through to eventually obvious good results. But most of us aren’t chasing that anyway—just exercising to stay healthy. Life is for living, and as a professor of mine once said, “It’s not a damn beauty contest.”

Often patients report feeling icky about the naked body they see in the mirror. That hurts, and there are many good books (not all of them addressed to women, though most are) about how to cope with those painful feelings and neutralize them. I want to offer an analogy that the people I saw this morning found very helpful.

It goes like this: 

When we talk about monetary wealth, it seems obvious that the more dollars you have, the less poor you are. What seems to count is simply the number of dollars in the bank. But that’s only part of the truth; it’s just an approximation. The real measure of financial freedom is purchasing power. One dollar in the year 1900 paid for the same goods you can only buy today for $38. So the single bill in that era was worth more than a twenty is worth now. Because of inflation, the absolute number of dollars is relevant but misleading; their actual value is the meaningful thing. 

In a similar way, the numerical data you associate with your appearance—your weight, measurements, various muscle sizes, BMI, the dimensions of gendered body parts, all that quantitative stuff—is relevant but misleading. The actual value lies in the quality of your experience as an embodied human being. It’s your body image, not your actual body, that determines whether you’re at home in your own skin or miserable about not looking like someone else, whether that’s a past self or a rival or a movie star. 

If you don’t like your belly, or your arms, or whatever, there are two main issues: the physical facts, and your difficult feelings about them. Both can change. But you can start with the feelings. Easing up on the scornful judgments will make you more free, not less free, to govern your own policies about your physical life. Hating the flesh that keeps you alive is not much of a real contributor to your motivated self care (i.e., getting-in plenty of regular physical activity, or refraining from impulsively eating your feelings). People work out or stay active because it makes them feel good, not because they’re at war with themselves. Letting go of the anxious high standards, letting go of the contempt, letting go of the relentless measuring and comparing—it won’t prevent you at all from going on to do the kind of incremental improvement that feels good and gradually makes a sustained positive difference. If loving your body still feels unfeasible just now, start off by being polite to it, and build from there.

If you’re married, or in a committed relationship, the way your partner responds to your physicality is probably part of how you feel about what you see in the mirror. Give each other the working materials to easily generate an erotic home-base that feels hot and sexy sometimes, warm and friendly most of the time, and coldly evaluative never.

Judgements and measurements are for competition, and home is not a place to compete. Make it easy to feel good naked there. Make it easy to delight in your gift of aliveness, as you both already are, right now. And if it feels important, you can also make it easy to reach for small wise lifestyle changes in the name of longevity and embodiment, not shame or guilt. Help each other to move away from the darkness of measurement and evaluation, toward the light of acceptance and exploration. You might as well.

There are so many different kinds of people in the world that it’s almost impossible to generalize about men and women without being misunderstood. But patterns do emerge—and as a therapist, the more people you see, the more you find them cropping up here and there over the long term. None of these is universal, and even the examples that fit a given pattern will have novel elements. But describing patterns can be helpful, and much is lost when we give up on that effort out of zeal for political purity or fear of being misconstrued.

What I’m saying in this post does not apply to every couple. It might not even apply to every couple I have in mind as I write it. It certainly doesn’t apply to couples in which one person is narcissistically entitled and doesn’t give a hoot about the other person’s feelings; those need a very different kind of help. But I’m pretty convinced that the particular dynamic I’ve been seeing lately is common enough that a blogpost on it could be helpful, so here goes. It takes up some of the themes in my 11/27/2023 post about Couple's Therapy: Why Fights Escalate & How To Stop Them.

Meryl Streep recently said a poignant thing onstage at an event held by the Washington Post. It made a big impact, in that many women and some men have reposted it with passion. The gist was, “Women speak the language of men, but men don’t speak the language of women.” It reminded me of Deborah Tannen’s 1990 book, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, which remains justly popular.

There’s a vast scholarly literature on gender differences in social space, discourse, and conflict. The differences in how we tend to communicate are consistent enough that it makes sense to call them two different languages—provided we bear in mind that this is a metaphor, an overstatement that helps an important point get articulated. If men and women really spoke two different languages, most of us would be completely unintelligible to each other, just as 80% of Americans are monolingual. 

When couples argue, and the couple is half female and half male, it often happens that they talk past each other because they have different understandings of the point of the conversation. As is often observed, most men tend to be more information-oriented and solution-focused, while most women tend to be more expressive of their experience and focused on making themselves understood. Neither person is necessarily competent at those tasks, or at selecting somebody who is, or at finding ways to encompass all four of the values which those tasks represent (accuracy, pragmatism, authenticity, and acknowledgement). Often those values don’t even fit together so well anyway. So the pitfalls become pretty evident after you’ve seen a few hundred or a few thousand of these arguments unfold, in a large number of different couples with varying levels of rhetorical skill, self-awareness, psychological mindedness, and depth of commitment. 

An interesting thing keeps happening. Guys who have been socialized to care about women’s experience tend to be quite preoccupied with their own goodness or badness. If you’re a man who has robustly feminist sisters; if you have a mother who was either crushed by an oppressive male, or resolutely empowered (or both, where a gendered trauma drove an eventual political awakening); if you have women in your life whose grievances ever alarmed you about your own role in something called “patriarchy,” you are likely to be vigilant about what women think of you. You might really hate being seen as a bad human being until proven otherwise. And if this has been a big issue in your environment, you might even be hyper-vigilant about it, always churning out new evidence that you’re a decent man—fully a man and fully decent, thank you very much. 

That can be exhausting, and even after you get over it and decide to let your ordinary humane demeanor speak for itself, that old urgent need to defend your own goodness rises to the fore whenever a woman confronts you with anything that feels like grievance—regardless of the facts. Uh-oh, one says to oneself, it’s time to prove once again that I am not whatever monster this person may have in mind. And then it’s off to the races… 

That frame of mind gets in the way when you’re trying to connect to somebody who’s annoyed or even furious with you. It locks you in to defending yourself, usually by disputing whatever details of her presentation strike you as inaccurate embellishments that weaken your case and strengthen hers (a zero-sum game). So you seize upon those details, trying to play defense and score points at the same time. But even if you’re entirely correct about such details (e.g., exactly when some event took place, or how many times you took out the trash, or whether one thing happened before or after something else, etc.), and even if they actually matter to the issue at hand—often they don’t—you are still getting nowhere. Being right matters far less than it seems like it should.

That is because (for the moment) the woman you’re talking to may not be so interested in the individual facts, or not in the same ones you’re disputing. Her main interest may be in what she sees as the general arc of what took place, and how it is making her feel. Until you fit that piece into place, by understanding her position and showing you understand it, nothing you say will matter much—especially not an apology. Notice: showing you understand is the main thing. It’s even more important than actually agreeing with what you’ve understood. Why? Because the biggest relational threat to anybody is the prospect that their personal experience just does not matter. That’s why you’re so invested in defending yourself, and why she’s so invested in establishing her perspective.

Do not apologize—at least not at the beginning. Listen, empathize, and evoke her suggestions about what would restore the connection between the two of you. Do all the good stuff that an apology is supposed to accomplish, but without saying the words “I’m sorry” or “I apologize”—unless two things are the case: (1) you really do regret whatever words or actions you’re apologizing for, and (2) she asks for an apology. If she doesn’t, the only reason to give one is if your feelings of regret are still there after you’ve done the other things apologies are supposed to do, such as: take some appropriate degree of responsibility, reach for reconnection, and offer a suitable policy improvement or some sort of balancing gesture (and then, of course, check in and see if those moves helped).

Otherwise, saying “I’m sorry” can cost more than it’s worth, because it makes you feel defeated in a power struggle, and the fight is lost by everyone so long as it remains a power struggle, no matter which of you “wins.” If only one of you “wins,” you both lose.

Another problem with the words “I’m sorry” is that they can take the place of whatever reparation, or new pact, or emotional work, is really needed. Get that done instead, and the explicit apology might be quite unnecessary. That’s what “sorry doesn’t pay my bills” means, in a less obnoxious form. 

You will both be better served by focusing on improvements to the reality between you, than by placing blame and eating blame. Blame is about resentment (and resentment is, by the way, the biggest impediment to a good sex life for a couple). You resent me for something, so you blame me; I eat the blame, and now I resent you in turn. Blame is responsibility plus resentment, and nobody needs resentment in their diet. Why would I “eat the blame”? Well, to restore peace. But also to show I’m good, since a bad man would not accept any responsibility. If a good man does refuse to take responsibility, it’s because the accusation is either false, or partly true but so awful in his own eyes that accepting it would make him, well, bad. In other words, taking responsibility and refusing to do so can both be ways of broadcasting my terribly urgent claim that I-am-good-not-bad.

Here are two generalizations about conflict in couples:

When a man relentlessly defends himself in an argument with a woman, he is usually doing it to protect the goodness of his character: I am a good person! Can’t you see that?

When a woman exerts indignation in a relationship with a man, she is usually asserting her rights, her boundaries, her prerogatives: I matter! Can’t you see that?

Until the man stops trying to prove to her, and to himself, that he is GOOD and NOT BAD, he cannot go about the urgent business of showing the woman that she—her needs, her dignity, her work, her feelings—really does matter to him.

So the fight continues. Neither person can afford to let up (that’s their mistaken belief) because that would risk validating the other’s right to take them for granted as a doormat. The tragedy is this: even though neither of them has any real interest in subjugating the other (except in really awful relationships, which are not what I’m discussing right now), they have to keep fighting as if that threat were real. Each is reacting to private personal fears of being crushed, by a person who has no actual interest in crushing them.

What they do need are well-placed adjustments to the agreements they make, the ways they habitually do things, the rules of the little relational micro-culture that defines that particular relationship. Clarifying those is the upside of the conflicts—but they’re only worth enduring if the downside is smaller than the upside, the benefit greater than the cost. Learn to “fight” without hurting each other, and you’re pretty much golden.

When I see this pattern, one of the major moves I try to make is to get the man to see this. Let go of the effort to prove that you’re good. Accept that you are good. Accept that others can make you question the quality of your choices, words, and deeds, but don’t accept any assertions that you’re morally inferior to someone else; it’s a non-starter. If they’re merely implying that you might be no good, well, remember that they might not really be trying to imply any such thing—just reporting their personal distress about something you said or did.

After all, whatever you’re worried about is what you’re likely to project, hearing others as if they are saying the very thing you fear. Maybe they are; maybe not. Either way, trust that you are good. Relax. Then you can think clearly enough to help this other person you care about, who is feeling hurt and angry. Once her anger is over, then you can afford to revisit the question of your role in what transpired. 

The angrier someone is, the less they care about what your intentions were when they first got angry. Focusing on the merits of your intentions is worse than useless if you do it too early. Nobody can make much use of such information until they are thinking with their prefrontal cerebral cortex instead of their amygdala, the fight/flight/freeze module that can hardly think at all. Two simultaneously enraged people are in a tricky situation, because between them and the exit doors, there is a thick fog of adrenaline and cortisol. One of the doors is an exit from the fight, while another is an exit from the whole relationship. The fog makes it hard to know which is which.

If a guy has a vise-like grip on the effort to defend his character, and it’s driving the two of them bananas, I need to help him let go of it. That works better if I can offer him something else to hold onto instead—which is also true of encouraging somebody to quit an addiction, like alcohol or gambling: you can’t just take something away, you have to replace it.

The necessary, new, better thing is often hidden behind the more familiar thing he thinks he needs to keep on using despite poor results. As an analogy, consider the recreational abuse of “whippets,” those little metal canisters of compressed nitrous oxide gas. It can indeed be poisonous (especially over time), but the main way nitrous oxide hurts and even kills people is by displacing the oxygen we need to survive. Defending yourself instead of reaching out to your upset lady is a naively misguided tactic that blocks the interpersonal docking-site where you would otherwise connect. It also blocks the space in you where a new interpersonal repertoire could otherwise take root.

What’s the better thing that should replace it? A stance of really believing in your own goodness, followed by the unfolding lived experience of soberly managing your partner’s distress in ways that afford dignity to you both. Without requiring either of you to lose face, you try to marshal all your available warmth, patience, and agility for somebody who deserves that kind of effort. Of course, this is harder to do if you don’t really feel she does deserve it. And if that’s what your gut and/or your mind tells you, well, that’s a whole other blog post. Those aren’t the relationships I’m thinking of right now. 

This post is for people in resilient, deep romantic relationships that are still troubled by frequent conflicts that don’t make enough sense, don’t end soon enough, and don’t feel resolved. Replace bids for power and control with bids for connection. Replace verbal self-defense with curiosity about the cause and nature of the trouble, attunement to the other person’s feelings, and an eventual convergence where the problem can be seen as the natural result of a misunderstanding between two good people. 

Most of the time, the root of a couple’s conflict is not anyone’s bad intentions or perverse character traits. Maybe somebody dropped the ball, and the other one didn’t; maybe somebody really wronged the other in a strongly asymmetric, lamentable way. Those happen. But the majority of “fights” are about big broad themes, conveniently jammed into currently local situations that are in themselves quite trivial. If a couple says, “We fight about stupid sh*t all the time,” the underlying themes are probably Am I good, or bad? and Am I somebody, or nothing?

Ideally, you could each spontaneously blurt out at the very same instant, “You’re virtuous!” and “You’re important!” and the whole tangled ball of bickering darkness would vanish in the sunshine of your mutual loving care. Since that’s pretty unlikely, somebody has to start the process on his own initiative, and draw the other into collaboration on a positive feedback loop that brings you both out of the mud and up into peace and fun and togetherness. 

Which of you two should take up that leadership task, this time? Whoever is up for it? Whoever is less upset? Whoever is currently blocking it by prioritizing moralistic self-defense instead? My answer here is a partial one, but it does fit in: Sir, there is a gratifying experience of masculine, mature, competent role-appropriate behavior waiting for you right under your nose.

Snap out of the trance you’re in (the one about proving you’re a good person), and you’ll see it right there for the taking. If you can escape your own worry about being insulted, you may be able to guide your partner out of the miserable state of anger and protest that you both want to quench. And if you know what not to put up with, and how to make those boundaries clear without being scary or overwhelmed, you can calmly assess the quality of what she does with your contribution. Is the peacemaking effort reciprocated? Is the reparative kindness mutual? Does everyone present—all two of you—seem to prefer peace as soon as it’s genuinely available, or is somebody prolonging the conflict for bad or murky reasons?

This approach is not always a good fit for every relationship, nor does it work miracles. But if the couple has the right stuff without the right repertoire, this approach can get them on track toward learning how to use what they’ve got. Sometimes that starts with a man giving up an illusory project of vindicating his character, and replacing it with a real project of connecting with the person he cares about. You don’t need to prove you’re a good man by arguing that you are, if you can do it with loving behavior instead.

Of course, that requires a partner who won’t squander the opportunity you’re offering, or take opportunistic advantage of it by repeatedly asking too much of you in exchange for peace, or persistently gaslighting you with blame you don’t deserve. You’ll have to watch for that; if it’s there, you must notice it and take steps, but if it’s not, you’d better stop worrying about it.

Easily said, I know; harder to do. But very, very possible. 

This post is addressed to people who (a) currently live in the world of sex-positive dating, which often includes kink and polyamory, and who (b) have begun to feel that all this sex and sociality is fun, but that Romantic Love is missing, and its absence matters more and more. Hence the title: “Moving from Sex-Positive Dating to Seeking a Relationship.” 

Yes of course, those two things can be the same. It is indeed possible to keep on “playing in the scene” and eventually manage to meet somebody within it who also wants to find an enduring, central love. Sex-positive social politics: check. 

Having said that, let’s notice the equally obvious truth that living a lifestyle of erotic adventurism and searching for a Primary Partner can be two very different things. And if you think you might want to attempt a permanent monogamous commitment with somebody awesome who feels uniquely suited to your nature, then they’re very different things.

Let’s draw on Greek mythology for a moment, to explain this in a more vivid way. What you’ve been doing is sampling the erotic individuality of a large number of people, and in pagan terms (which will likely suit you better than the relatively sex-negative monotheist worldview), that’s like living in a valley presided over by Aphrodite, the Goddess of sexuality and thrilling infatuation (also known, in the poly world, as NRE, “new relationship energy”). Since you’re also prioritizing consent, Aphrodite shares the place with Artemis, protector of women and girls. Wonderful.  

But where is Hera? She’s the Goddess of marriage, of long-term reliable continuity, of compatibility and all the wisdom we only really learn by voyaging deep into that other region that includes commitment, time, aging, and death. It’s where you get to really know someone else, and be really known. So it is also the place where someone’s feelings about you mean the most, because they’re based on the fullest knowledge of what and who you actually are: they really know you, and instead of running away, or friend-zoning, or attacking… they bring you acceptance, loyalty, and desire. And they let you know them just as deeply, and if it goes well enough, the whole thing becomes gloriously mutual. Well, that’s where Hera presides; that’s her realm, located somewhere over there, beyond Field and The League and Fetlife, beyond all those apps and “play parties.”  

There are two different metaphorical voyages involved: the second voyage is the LTR (Long Term Relationship) itself. But to reach its starting point, you must make the voyage that comes first, out and away from what you’re now doing and being (the nasty term for it, if you’re a man, is “fuckboy”—but such slut-shaming is quite unnecessary, especially if your Ethical Non-Monogamy has indeed been ethical, not deceptive), and into Hera’s country, where meeting Ms-or-Mr Right becomes much more likely, for inner and outer reasons.  

This first voyage is what I’m talking about, and what makes it difficult are the uncertainty and the rejections. You don’t know how long it will take, or exactly how best to go about each particular piece of it. And each encounter has four basic possibilities: you like them and they don’t like you, which is rejection, your least favorite. Or they like you and you don’t like them, which is disappointment; better than rejection, but awkward and boring. Or neither of you is interested, which is usually a bit better still, since nobody is hurt. Or the jackpot is hit, the gimmel on the dreidl: you like each other. 

Now I’m going to say something you already know. Why? Because the point is not to convey information, but to calm the anxious part of you that dreads rejection and uncertainty. Your head might find the repetition tiresome, but your heart needs it because that’s how emotional reassurance works. Here it is: the person you’re trying to get a date with is living their own life, populated by thousands of factors and people and exes and ailments and plans that you know nothing about. They might not reject you at all, but if they do, these unknowns would probably amount to a robust explanation for why you got turned down, one that has nothing to do with your value, your game, your charisma, or your prospects for finding love and happiness. As I once said to a lonely gentleman who’d just been turned down by a lady he liked: She’s on Planet Her. 

But what if the rejection actually is about you? Well, if it’s got any hostility in it, and you didn’t do much to warrant that, then it ain’t really about you. People’s hostility discredits itself. If they’re the sort of person who would say something hurtful or aggressive just because there were no fireworks between you two, then that’s obviously somebody you don’t want to be around anyway. You “dodged a bullet.”

Between that kind of egregious static, and a better result, there is only a thin band of genuinely relevant personal criticism that is not untrue and not unkind—and therefore worth taking seriously, and difficult to hear. But that’s also the stuff you can actually learn from. For example, people need to feel heard, and listened to—especially women, whose conversational style and expectations make many of them quite sensitive to being interrupted by a man, or spoken to at length without enough turn-taking. When a man is given constructive criticism about this issue it can be quite unpleasant for him, but if he can incorporate the advice into his manner, a great deal is to be gained. “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off…”

In relationship-oriented dating, an interaction that turns out to be a rejection is a bit like a pretty tree that turns out to be one of those stinky gingkos: it’s appealing from a distance, and then, up close, you realize what it is. But remember: they are part of the native foliage of the very terrain you are trying to cross. Be glad those experiences are there, because they tell you you’re in the right region, headed in the right direction. “Where grows the danger,” wrote the poet Hölderlin, “there also grows the power of salvation.”