Change Your Outlook,
Change Your Luck
I recently spoke to a 30-something woman who told me she'd been to a single's event.
"It was awful!" she moaned. "A bunch of losers." A quick scope of the scenery informed her almost immediately that there was no one in the room worth talking to, but having paid $30 to get into the event, she was loathe to walk right out. So, she stayed. She talked to some women. Got hit on by a few "losers," had a couple of drinks, and went home feeling depressed. To her, the night was a total loss - a waste of time and money.
It's no wonder the night was a bomb, with an attitude like hers. Did she expect walk in and be immediately be swept away by Prince Charming? Is the sole purpose of her social life to meet her future husband? Are men who don't fulfill her checklist of standards not worth talking to? Is any social activity which does not lead to a potential engagement, a total failure? By setting up such impossible standards for this kind of evening (or a party, or blind date, or any social event) you set yourself up for failure. Constant failure leads to depression, self-pity and lonely nights at home with sad movies and junk food. This, in turn, becomes the root of bitterness, desperation, hostility, loss of hope and worse, loss of joy of life. Such an emotional state can wreak havoc on your love life, and lead to further rejection, disappointment, etc.
Next time you go out, change the goal of your evening. Instead of "meeting your one and only" try one or more of these as your aspirations:
- Learn three interesting facts or bits of information from others
- Make someone laugh
- Learn and/or tell a new joke
- Give honest compliments to five strangers
- With eye contact only, see if you can get someone to cross the room to talk with you
- Introduce someone who's alone to someone you've already met
- Think of a handful of interesting questions to ask others, ask them, then really listen to the answers, asking leading questions to keep the other person talking
- Do something you ordinarily wouldn't do. For example, if you're shy, walk up to at least one stranger and start a conversation. Or talk to people in whom you might not be socially interested. (It's just conversation. You don't have to ever see them again.)
- Make it a point to read the newspaper that day and be willing and able to speak intelligently about current events.
- Be cordial and friendly and nonjudgmental with everyone you meet, especially those who approach you, whom you might ordinarily reject or ignore
By shifting your ambitions to those which will virtually guarantee success; by changing your goal to "interact in a positive way with others," you will be continually rewarded by your victories. As a bonus, you may also find that those whom you would ordinarily have deemed "uninteresting" or "unworthy of your time" can, in fact, can make your evening quite rewarding. And you will quickly find that everyone finds you a more interesting person.
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