This post is going to sound arrogant… Oh well…
I’ve reached a level of self love and self confidence that’s off putting for some people.
It’s not an unhealthy self love or self confidence. It’s not foolish overconfidence either. It’s the result of extreme highs and extreme lows. It’s the result of pushing myself into uncomfortable situations, either through sales and marketing jobs, or sacking up and approaching women and exploring different high pressure social situations. It’s the result of random chance things that have happened to me in life. It’s the result of mistakes that I’ve made and risks that I’ve taken. It’s the result of pain and success and everything in between. It’s from walking through fires, sometimes intentionally and sometimes because I had no other choice. My self love and self confidence comes from many different things…
But yeah… Some people are really unnerved by it. When I shake their hand and look them in the eye. When I listen to them talk about something painful and I have a quiet reflective stare on my face. When I open them up and feel their pain. When I observe them and maybe pick up on some subtle hidden unexplored pain. Maybe it’s the result of pain that I’ve suffered that makes me zero in on someone’s pain almost intuitively and automatically. Maybe it’s being a dating coach and having a desire to help others overcome their challenges that makes me want to bring out the best in others and tear down their weaknesses.
Make no mistake, I can be polarizing sometimes, too. I’m never polarizing out of spite, or jealousy, or selfish intentions though.
If I’m ever polarizing, strong willed, sarcastic, and abrasive with someone, it’s typically because I think it’s what the person needs.
Maybe I’m not always on the mark in doing that. I don’t really know why I do it, to be honest. I’m open to anyone’s opinions or feedback on that.
Why do I feel the need to build some people up and knock other people off their pedestals? Who am I to determine that someone is on a pedestal in the first place? I don’t know, but it’s something I do. Sometimes I actually think I make excuses for other people and allow my boundaries to be breached before cutting the other person down to size. Sometimes I actually intentionally draw someone into breaching my personal boundaries. I allow them to play into my head games, and then I chop them down to size.
A great example of this is in the past when I’ve dealt with a shady person at work. Sometimes I could just intuitively tell when someone was playing office politics and when someone felt threatened by me. I’d maybe say or do something that baited the person into trying to make me look bad. When they did… When they walked into my trap… I then revealed the truth of what happened and then they looked bad for trying to make me look bad. I made this all look innocent and inadvertent, too!
I seem to inevitably attract people that want to compete with me in different situations.
I counter this in so many ways. Mainly, I just focus on competing with myself and doing my own thing and allow them to imagine we’re in some sort of epic battle with one another. Really it’s just shadows in their own mind and puffs of smoke they’re grasping at.
Sometimes I fight fire with fire, though.
Where was I? How did I get sucked down this other thread? Oh yes… Self love and self confidence.
Again, this is going to sound arrogant, but I don’t think most people my age have the level of self love and self confidence that I do. I typically see this level of self assurance in old people, though there are some young people and middle aged people that have it, too. It’s remarkable though how many middle aged people don’t seem to have it.
Does my radical self love and destruction of ego trigger a competitive hard wired switch in peoples’ minds? Does it make people want to engage me in confrontation? Is it basically the equivalent of a monkey that’s decided he’s going to climb to the top of the tree and eat all of the best fruit and make no apologies for it? Am I essentially doing that on a psychological and emotional level?
Am I saying, “I am free. I am entitled to this psychological and emotional freedom. Sorry if you don’t like it.”
Are people unnerved by that because they don’t feel that freedom? Have they spent so much time and effort learning to live within the bounds of what’s socially acceptable that when in the presence of someone that’s seemingly operating from another set of rules, they feel threatened by it? Again, just to clarify, I do operate within the quote unquote “unspoken social rules”, but I also break those rules in calculated ways. Sometimes it’s unconscious and accidental, but often times I’m well aware that I’m breaking the rules.
Sometimes when I’m talking to a pretty woman, I’m being rubbed wrong by her personality. She’s basically setting me up to play within her rules and giving me a choice… “Conform to me or you’re going to butt heads with me.” I think needless to say, you know what my typical response is. I usually either allow these friction points to collide and I ride them out, or I walk away. I almost never play into the woman’s frame though.
I don’t twist and contort my soul because she wills it. There’s just some part of my soul that won’t allow me to do that.
I will only calibrate and adjust my “game” to please a woman so far. She needs to meet me halfway or she loses me. Of course in her mind it was my loss!
Life can throw many curve balls our way. Life never ceases to surprise me. Maybe my self love is an illusion. Maybe one day the castle walls will shake and crumble again.
Maybe I’ll be tossed back into the seas of darkness and despair and this inner peace I feel will be torn to shreds.
I experience extreme emotional swings. I go through phases of life where I’m SO SERIOUS and focused and ambitious and STRESSED. Even through those stressed times, I’m still extremely self confident and self loving, though.
Where was I again… Oh, other people being unnerved by my ability to root myself. Another thing about that… It seems to make it difficult for me to connect with a lot of people. I feel alienated because of it, but at the same time, I can’t undo it. I can’t put myself back to sleep. It’s like something has awakened in me and it’s not going away.
How’s that for a contradiction! I’m a dating coach that teaches guys to improve their social lives and love lives and I find it harder and harder to “fit in” as I’m getting older. I actually CHOOSE not to fit in more times than not! Not out of spite, but because I genuinely don’t feel like putting on different faces.
I feel like many people operate from a place of needing or wanting to fit in out of fear. I’ve been there before and I don’t knock them for it. Learning to fit in, play by the rules, and conform doesn’t come easy for some people. For me it does come easy. I know how to fit in, but I just find myself choosing not to, at times.
I can blend in, stand out, or paradoxically blend in and stand out SIMULTANEOUSLY.
One person might look at me and see a totally normal, inside the box, soft spoken, thoughtful person, while simultaneously another person sees me as disruptive, crass, lacking calibration, and always being in their space, be it psychologically or physically.
I am susceptible to life’s ups and downs, just like everyone else. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I could get diagnosed with some terminal illness tomorrow. Life will still inevitably happen. Where was I again?
I don’t give myself credit for this self love. It just is.
Some people are not unnerved by it, by the way. I realize that. Some people appreciate it and don’t feel threatened.
But many do and it can make me lonely. I know what’s appropriate and not appropriate to say. I’m well aware of how I’m being perceived from the outside. When friction points arise, I tend to lean into them, rather than avoiding them. It’s hard to find people that think, act, and live in this headspace, like I do.
It’s like life is constantly giving me two options: Head first through the eye of the storm or the path of least resistance.
It affects my ability to meet women. How’s that for a statement from a dating coach!?
There is an “ideal” personality and persona that I could put on to increase the quantity of women that I attract. It’s different in different cultures, but often times the underlying themes are the same. I’ve been there and done that and I can show you how to do it, also.
I’ve cracked that code, I assure you.
I’m not impressed by my ability to do that, though. There was a time when I was.
“Look at me… I know how to make women want me… Most of them.”
Listen, if you’re a guy that’s REALLY struggling to meet women, you want to learn to crack that code, or at least partially crack it. Once you learn it though…
Once you learn certain foundational principles of attraction and you have a certain level of success, then I strongly recommend focusing less on making EVERY woman want you and more on finding women that are very CONGRUENT with your personality.
I think that’s what really drives me to be this way and I think ultimately you will find this way to be ideal, as well.
I’m searching for friends and lovers that are SUPER CONGRUENT with my personality.
I believe that living a life of RADICAL AUTHENTICITY will attract the right people into my life.
Being incredibly self assured and confident as a result of things that life has thrown my way is just a part of who I am that I can’t shake. It’s something I can’t shake for now anyway… Who knows what the future holds!?
I need to just accept this about myself. If it’s off putting to other people, then so be it.
Maybe someday they’ll see things my way. I’ll be waiting for them with open arms when they make their way through the darkness. Maybe I’m the fool. Maybe they’re waiting for me to see things their way. We’ll see!
Ok… Enough of this!