I think that dating multiple women for me is better than dating one woman at a time. This might apply to other guys, too, but I’m going to just speak for myself and what I’ve been re-discovering lately.
One of the problems I had in approaching and dating women I was very attracted to was the nervousness I would feel when interacting with them – the fear that I would somehow screw things up, by what I said or did. That, inevitably, made me more uptight and nervous and I would often not even bother approaching these women at all.
What I’m finding now, is that if I have the mindset that I can go out and easily meet more women at any time, then being rejected by any one woman becomes no big deal. I find I’m taking more chances now – joking more, staying relaxed, not trying to win her approval and even experimenting with saying things that put me in the “bad” category of her values. For example, I was talking to this girl I’m going out with this week (a blind date) and she asked me what zodiac sign I am. After I told her she expressed concern that that sign can have a very selfish streak in them. So what did I do? I agreed with her by saying, yeah, I can be pretty selfish. Now, I wasn’t doing that because I really believe I’m very selfish. I think we’re all selfish to one extent or another. The reason I said that was to show that I didn’t care if she approved of me and I didn’t want to play her game of having to justify myself. Ironically, she continued to express interest in us going out and we’re supposed to get together later tonight. In previous times I might have made a sarcastic joke about me being selfish so she would feel that I’m not selfish. But instead, I just agreed with her and said, yeah, I’m selfish.
Aside: This is a setup through friends of friends. It’s a half blind date (she saw my pictures and I have no idea what she looks like) so wish me luck.
I’m still learning this concept of not caring so much about the outcome and her approval. It’s ironic in how it works – the less you care in whether she approves of you, the more relaxed you become, the more free you feel to express yourself and take chances in what you do and say, the more attractive you become in her eyes, the more she gets interested in you. The great thing is that I feel I can do this very easily with women I’m not or somewhat attracted to. The next main challenge is to adopt this attitude with women I am very attracted to. And if I know I can meet more attractive women very easily, that takes the pressure off of having to make it work with any one attractive woman.
10 comments
Comments feed for this article
April 17, 2007 at 4:47 am
Louisa
While you’re shopping it’s okay I guess – lets hope that if you ever run into “the one” she’s not put off by the amount of other girls that you date?
April 17, 2007 at 6:50 am
datingguy
The women I’m dating now don’t know the number of other women I’m dating/pursuing – I don’t publicize that to them so they might just know that I’m “dating” but not the specifics. So in the beginning, when I do find her, I think it’ll be perfectly normal to be dating other women. If I truly feel she could be the one, then I’ll stop seeing and approaching other women soon after we meet.
April 17, 2007 at 8:21 am
monquito
RE your comment datingguy, I thought that’s how it was supposed to work. I never understood all this, “I watched a movie on your couch and now we’re exclusive” nonsense. Sure you feel more secure for half a second until you realize you rushed into things and hate each other. My current relationship is the only one I’ve ever been in where rushing was worth it, but at least we acknowledged to each other we were skipping the dating phase instead of just expecting each other to be monks.
April 17, 2007 at 4:05 pm
BC
I’ve always found it difficult to date two women at once. The main problems seems to be that I tend to get confused about what I told each of them (and I don’t like repeating myself). So, I might either repeat myself (oh, I told you this story already?), or might avoid saying something for fear of repeating myself and then remember later that I had told the *other* girl that story. The other problem is that it’s hard for me to divide my attention between two girls. If I like both equally, I end up feeling only 50% attracted to each girl, and I don’t like that, either.
My own problem with beautiful women is that they seem to be very willing to disappear. Sometimes it seems like you cough too loud and she’s already running to the door. It’s kind of nerve raking to feel like I girl has her foot out the door all the time, but my dating history with beautiful women is a lot like that. They’ve always found nit-picking reasons to break things off, or they met some other guy and decided she likes him better or whatever. Beautiful women, it seems, know that some other guy is always happy to bend-over backwards to please her, and if you aren’t doing that, it’s goodbye. For that reason, I find it hard to let myself be emotionally connected to a beautiful woman — but then who wouldn’t be when you feel like she’s always one or two steps away from walking out on the relationship?
I think part of the problem is that beautiful women have a messed up idea of what a relationship is. They have a parade of men who go out of their way to please them and distorts their idea about relationships. They think male-female relationships are supposed to be characterized by men going out of their way to please them, and that romantic movies are supposed to be a measuring stick against her own relationships. But, with so many men being fake to please them, I’m not surprised their very ideas about male-female relationships is messed-up.
April 18, 2007 at 12:06 am
Bub
There is a pretty simple approach for men in dating multiple women. I think women have his approach and use it as well:
1. Date as many as you want.
2. Tell them not too much, just listen to see what they say.
3. If there’s chemistry, go for it, you’ll see how they react – BUT DON’T HAVE SEX WITH THEM. Yes this is hard, but it is honest and exciting.
4. Keep emotion out of it until…
5. You select one to keep it more serious and…
6. Tell the other(s) that they are wonderful, it was great, but you have been seeing another woman and you think you want to make it more serious with her.
This is the noble, manly and honest thing to do. And most women appreciate this. I think people make mistakes with telling the wrong story to the wrong woman when they have had sex with each of them an the woman has you telling your “stories”. This is the woman’s way of connecting emotionally. Don’t have sex and you won’t need to repeat yourself. All will be a game until that time, and you would be surprised what you’d have to say to get her in the sack once you’ve selected the one.
Oh and if you think women don’t know you are dating other women, you must be kidding yourself. They read minds, don’t you know?
A Man
April 18, 2007 at 7:16 am
datingguy
Thanks, Bub. Yeah, I have noticed that women are very good mind readers, too. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to be celibate while dating multiple women. I understand your point, but I also feel sex is a wonderful thing that connects people and it also tells you how sexually compatible you’ll be.
April 18, 2007 at 7:21 am
datingguy
BC – thanks for your very thoughtful comment. I’m an optimist and I think there are plenty of very attractive women that don’t have a skewed outlook on relationships and aren’t looking for any excuse to leave the guy. I’ve experienced this myself, where I was very attracted to my girlfriend and she was level-headed, mature, kind, intellectual and very sexy. So I think there are more women out there like that.
April 18, 2007 at 7:27 am
datingguy
monguito – looks like me and you are in agreement in how it’s supposed to work. I totally agree that we shouldn’t be expected to be monks while looking for the right person. It puts too much pressure on the situation.
April 21, 2007 at 1:25 pm
mygalfriday78
I think the main reason some of my guy friends think that I think too much like a guy is because I have the same approach as you — I DO think it’s better to date more than one person at once because, as long as you’re not in a relationship, then it’s okay. After all…the whole purpose of dating is to find someone you DO want to be in a relationship with…and if you limit yourself to just dating one person, then it’s like you’re investing too much hope in that one person, when it might not even work out. If you date more than one person, at least you can get a better sense of what you’re looking for and wasting less time.
April 21, 2007 at 3:45 pm
datingguy
mygalfriday78 – I’m happy to see that women see the benefits of this, as well. After all, it’s only fair that women get to do this, too, and it looks like your reasons are similar to mine.