I’ve been reading through some of my older posts and I’ve noticed something similar with all of them. They all seem to deal with the woes of dating and never the good things about it. So, I planned to type up a post today that talked specifically about the good things related to dating. I got about 3 sentences in and quit. I just couldn’t do it without sounding insincere. Besides, isn’t there an old saying that goes something like: “Write about what you know.”? And I’ve had way more experience with the bad side of dating, so that’s what I write about. I’m not trying to say that there aren’t good things about dating, because there are. I just can’t think of any that are post worthy.
This brings an interesting thought to my mind. Why are there so many more bad things about dating than there are good things? Is it because we only seem to notice the bad things and ignore the good? I think it might have to do with us as a society and our liking of bad news. Which is why when you turn on the evening news, there’s mostly stories of murder, sexual deviance and natural disasters. Then, to cap all of that off, they will do one story about something cute or funny or happy that has happened. I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the line people stopped focusing on good things.
But, you’d think with something as fun as dating, people would try to remember the good times they’ve had. But such doesn’t seem to be the case. Instead of reminiscing about that date we went on that was so wonderful and where everything worked out perfectly, we’ll instead think back to that time we took a girl out and everything went wrong and the girl asked to be taken home early. Why do we do it? Do we, deep down, enjoy being miserable? And this doesn’t just apply to dating; it applies to breaking up as well. Think about it, when a girl (or guy) breaks up with you, how often do you think back and say: “Wow, we really had some good times together”? You don’t, do you? Instead you’ll try to remember all the fights you got in with that person, or all the things about them that you didn’t like. With break ups there’s a reason we do this. It’s so we can protect our hearts from hurt. If we spent our time thinking of the good times we had with our ex, we’d just miss them more and we’d become more and more morose. But, even when we’ve only been on one date with a person, we’ll tell stories about the awkward or strange moments to people instead of how, when the two of you finally locked eyes, you really felt something for them. That story will go untold, whereas the story about how you kept giving her flat tires or stepping on her toes will be told and retold numerous times.
So, why do we do it? Are we all truly masochists? That might be it, but I think there might be a more pleasant explanation for it. When we experience an “awkward” moment on a date, it’s usually a result of one of the two people acting like themselves. Think about it. How many dates have you been on where you truly acted like yourself? It’s probably not that many. When we’re on a date with someone, we put on a different persona so that we’re more pleasing to the other person. Awkward moments usually happen when that different persona slips and our “normal” self comes out. And the reason we remember those awkward moments? My guess would be that it’s because of how the other person reacts to “yourself”. If they react in a good way, we’ll remember it because we like the fact that they are okay with how you normally are. If they react in a bad way, we’ll remember it for the opposite reason.
As usual, this is just my speculation on the subject. I’d love to hear what my faithful readers have to say. Leave a comment and let me hear your thoughts.
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