I was watching First Dates the other night and what unfolded in front of me was just the most classic, textbook, painfully familiar case of potential dating, I’ve ever seen.
Let me just set the scene for a second.
This guy comes in. He’s all lads lads lads energy. Complete surface level conversation, over the top bravado and an inability for eye contact.
The kind of man who says he wants a low maintenance woman because as we ALL know.. this is code for: I do not have the emotional capacity to date a women with actual needs.
And then there’s this woman. This beautifully, soft woman who I fell completely in love with, in like, five minutes, along with everyone else watching.
I’m sitting here thinking, why the hell have they even matched these people?!
This grey rock of a man with this woman who’s basically a walking sunflower.
It’s basic giver taker dynamics.. even First Dates understands it.
So, within about ten minutes, she’s already decided that he’s not for her. To be honest, I think she knew as soon as he opened his mouth.
But THEN…
he drops this line and it changes everything.
I lost my dad when I was twelve.
And I watched something inside of her change.
Her head tilted, her eyes softened like a Disney Princess and her entire body shifted.
And I can see the cogs turning.
This is why he’s like this.
Here’s what happened in that split second..
Compassion switched on. Empathy mode activated. And all sense left the fucking building.
Because now he had a reason.
And the moment he had a reason.. she had a project.
He’s trying. He’s been hurt. He has trauma.
Now. Nobody has said any of this, especially not him.
She connected the dots entirely by herself.
And I cannot say this loud enough:
it doesn’t fucking matter.
Who someone is matters. Why they are the way they are, does NOT.
And I know that sounds savage but I say that as an empath. As a woman who has seen, up close and personal, what happens when you buy into that dynamic.
When you believe, even unconsciously, that people will change if you give more, care more or love more.
I have given all of me trying to help someone reach the potential I thought they had. Potential they told me they wanted.
Only to have them turn around and by the exact same fucking human, afterwards.
Why do we do it?
And here’s why this happens, because it’s not stupidity, it’s actually wiring.
Psychologists call it ‘emotional chasing’. And the reason, it’s so hard to walk away from, is the exact same reason, slot machines are so addictive.
They don’t always pay out but it’s the fact that, SOMETIMES, they do. It’s the inconsistency or not knowing when.
That’s the addiction.
Add that to a lifetime of being told to be patient, understanding, a good little girl without demands and you have the perfect conditions for staying in something that will never give you what you need.
We’ve all been through things that have hurt us right? Things that ripple through our lives and show up in our behaviours.
And with respect.. that is nobody else’s shit to deal with.
Nobody has to love you because of that. Nobody owes you anything because of it. Nobody is obligated to stay, just because you’ve had pain in your life.
The same applies to that man.
The nuance
Now I have to be fair because there is a version of this story that actually looks completely different.
Imagine he’d turned up and they had an open conversation, like:
I lost my dad when I was twelve, it does affect how I show up with people. I know my patterns and I am working on them. I do try my best to make sure that doesn’t bleed on anyone else.
THAT is different.
Very, fucking different.
Because, that is awareness. That is someone who has looked at their own stuff, named it and brought it to the table in a way that you can work with.
(but please remember in this scenario, it’s a first date and he’s about as emotional attuned, as a spoon)
This man, shared something painful and SHE filled the rest in entirely by herself.
Her brain doing the inner work that he hadn’t.
She constructed the awareness, he didn’t have and handed it to him like a gift, he didn’t even ask for.
And THAT, is what we do constantly.
We do other peoples work, in our own heads and then fall in love with the result.
What the fuck?!
The nuanced nuance
And what if someone shows up WITH that awareness, says all the right things and still isn’t enough?
That’s your answer.
And it’s very fucking valid.
PLEASE READ THAT AGAIN.
We love to overcomplicate things. But ultimately, if who someone is, doesn’t fit with who you are.. they’re not the one.
You are not obligated to have someone in your life if you don’t want to.
It doesn’t matter if you understand them or their pain. You can respect them, believe they’re doing the work and still decide that where they are right now, is not where you need someone to be.
The empathy trap
Because the thing about our empathy is.. it really is the most beautiful thing in the world.
But, it also allows.
It allows so much of what’s wrong.
In that moment of understanding, what we do is replace what that person actually is with who we think they could be. We stop seeing the person in front of us and start seeing the imagined, healed version that we’ve literally made up.
A version we’ve literally NEVER met and probably never will.
Imagine you go into a shop asking for an orange and they give you an apple. And instead of going excuse me, I wanted an orange.. you go, ah you know what, maybe one day, under the right conditions, this could very well produce me some OJ.
No. It’s a fucking apple hun.
I’m going to roll the dice here and say that, not once, in the history of emotionally unavailable men.. have we ever loved one into becoming who we wanted him to be.
And still, we think we’ll be the one.
I felt sad for him.
But, I felt sadder for her.
Because she KNEW.
And then one sentence rewrote the entire thing.
And that’s how it always happens. In the split second, your empathy outweighs your instincts.
The most empowering thing you can do, when you’re met with those moments.. the most self respecting, spine straightening thing is:
I appreciate you. But you are not for me.
That’s it. That’s the whole fucking sentence.
To honour yourself like that. To trust what is for you and stand strong in that.. THAT is how you build self respect.
That is how you stop ending up with the same dynamic with a different face.
Your empathy is beautiful.
But your self sacrifice, is NOT.