Surprise! It May Not Even Matter Whether He Likes You

It’s pathetic how easily I can find my self acting like I did in high school. These days it doesn’t come up too much, but it seems to happen most when I meet a fabulous woman and I think she doesn’t like me. I can get myself feeling so bad and so hurt that I can hardly stand it. I’ve tried desperately to erase this kind of behavior from my life. I know it’s usually all in my head and that it comes from my insecurity. (Like everything else, it’s probably my mother’s fault.)

Sometimes it’s hard to ignore these feelings, real or not, whether you’re 18 or over 40. I am who I am. I hate rejection. Over the years it’s caused me real pain. But there’s a difference between when it happened in high school and when it happens now. Now I’ve learned some life skills that help me through it. I have a conscious conversation with myself that goes something like this:

Stop! You’re acting like a high school girl. That woman has shown no clear signs that she doesn’t like you. It’s all in your head. You’re being insecure. Just be yourself, because you’re terrific and there’s no reason she wouldn’t like you.

I try to drop myself back in reality and be kind to myself. It almost always works.

This was definitely a pattern for me as I started dating and looking for love. When I’d meet an available man, it took me only about five minutes to start trying to figure out if he liked me. Until I had that answer, I was stuck in my head. The chatter was often overwhelming and going on not just during the date; it lasted well after it was over. Looking back, I’m sure it affected how I acted when I met men, and it probably cost me some good dating action.

Once I learned the “be real and be nice to yourself” self-talk tool, it helped me a lot when I was dating. It would lower the voice of that chatter. But it wasn’t until I got the following nugget from my highly skilled therapist that my dating and love life really changed:

First, decide whether you like him.

Think about that. Do you like him? Is this a man you feel good being with? Does he have the qualities you need in order to have a strong and long-lasting relationship?

Hmm. So often I never even got to that question because I was so wrapped up in whether he liked me. Do I like him? Once I learned to ask this first, it turned out I didn’t even need to have that whole other conversation with myself. Because if the answer was “no,” the rest didn’t matter.

It took me a lot of time and money to learn this. It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? It honestly changed the way I looked at men and, surprisingly, it changed the way I thought about myself. Asking and answering this first kept me from wasting time and energy wondering if I was liked by someone I didn’t even like. But more importantly, it forced me to think of myself first. What do I want?Does this man seem worthy of me? These were questions I hadn’t been asking myself.

Try it. Next time you meet a new, available man, ask yourself this: Do I like him?

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