“How Do I Stop Dating Monsters And Mice And Start Dating Men?”

Top photo via Eric Ward / Unsplash

---

Carol’s Dating Problem

Carol is a made-up person with a situation shared by many real people:

• A few years out of a young-and-bad marriage
• Mother of two kids
• Mid-30’s, healthy, pretty, gets a lot of male attention without trying very hard
• Trusts her judgment with her kids (they’re doing great)
• Trusts her judgment with her business (loves her work, her clients love her, the bills are paid)
• Doesn’t trust her judgment with men (at all)
• Doesn’t think she’s normal (she’s completely normal)

Carol wants safe, fulfilling, intimate loving but doesn’t know how to get it.

She’s had a lot of Man Contact in the past but has never been in a safe, satisfying, intimate relationship.

She has a lot of Man Contact now, but it’s the “wrong” sort:

• The Bad Boys are exciting. Then, whoops! Just a little bit too exciting - “Oh God, what have I got myself into, again?”

• She’s surrounded by Nice Guys and not attracted to any of them at all.

• She has a Really Good Friend with Really Good Benefits that she’s Really Conflicted about.

---

“Am I An Idiot For Hanging On To Love?”

Some people don’t care, at all, about getting life “right” or “wrong”.

Newsflash: Carol is not one of those people:

• “What am I doing wrong?” (Nothing)
• “Should I just give up?” (No)
• “Are my standards too high?” (No)
• “Are my standards too low?” (No)
• “Am I being unrealistic?” (No)
• “Should I just settle?” (No)
• “Is there something fundamentally wrong with me?” (No)
• “Is it obvious?” (No)
• “I want a safe, satisfying intimate relationship but maybe I’m not ready.” (OK)
• “How will I know I’m ready?” (You’ll never know)
• “I don’t deserve this.” (OK)
• “Do I deserve this?” (No)
• “If I can’t trust my own judgment in men, how am I ever going to get in a good relationship?” (Read this page and get to work)
• “Is it best for my kids if I do life single until they’re adults?” (No)
• “Should I stop dating?” (No)
• “I should stop dating.” (No)

Carol: When it comes to men, I mistrust my own judgment, so I think for now I will just not date. Until I become bulletproof.

Owen Parachute: That’s completely reasonable and understandable.

Carol: I knew it.

Owen Parachute: And completely wrong.

Carol: But I don’t want to get hurt again and I don’t want to just use guys and I don’t want to feel cheap and I don’t want to fail again and I don’t want to feel like an idiot.

Owen Parachute: That’s a very reasonable list of “Things I Don’t Want”. Do you have a list of “Things I Want”? Or even better, a list of “Things I Unreasonably Want?”

Carol: Part of me needs some healing and confidence.

Owen Parachute: What are the other parts going to do while they’re waiting?

---

“Why Is My Man-History So Consistently Fraught?”

Is Carol looking for love in all the wrong places?

No, she’s just doing what she knows, as we all do.

Carol, growing up in her family, through no fault of her own, didn’t have good role models for safe, satisfying intimate relationships.

Carol’s parents muddled through, as we all do, and Carol watched, as we all do (as Carol’s kids are watching her).

Back then, when we were kids or teenagers, even though it wasn’t our job to fix our parents’ relationships, some of us tried anyway, because whatever the circumstances were, we didn’t like how we were being affected.

As adults, when we see “it” again, we unconsciously recognise it because it’s familiar. The familiar is always safer than the unfamiliar, no matter how bad the familiar is, so we’re motivated to get closer to it, in an approach-avoidance loop - get closer, run away, get closer, run away, get closer, run away.

The surprising way attraction works is that we’re motivated to re-create what we know, to seek out our monsters.

So what happens is that we find ourselves attracted to folks who we unconsciously believe will give us an opportunity to “make it safe this time” because we couldn’t make it safe back then.

We naturally keep re-creating, in part, what we DON’T want because we’re always trying to “make it safe this time”.

That’s why “it” seems to just keep happening.

It doesn’t matter, much, who the other person is!

Newsflash: THIS IS GOING ON FOR THE MEN, TOO! So if you get picked, a man is trying to make something safe this time with you.

Examples of some common dynamics:

• If your Dad cheated on your Mom and abandoned her, you may be attracted to men who, in part, appear ambivalent about wanting to be with you.

• If your parents’ relationship was a big disaster and you had to be the responsible one to keep everything together, you may be attracted to men who, in part, boss you around and don’t let you be responsible for anything.

• If you felt hurt by the actions of your Dad, you may be attracted to men who, in part, cause you to feel hurt by their actions.

• If you learned you didn’t have much control over the boundaries of your body, you may be attracted to men who, in part, take what they want, when they want, how they want.

All this is explained very well:

• in the book Getting The Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, especially Chapter 5 (The Power Struggle), and

• on Al’s website:

---

We are not afraid of predators, we’re transfixed by them, prone to weave stories and fables and chatter endlessly about them, because fascination creates preparedness, and preparedness, survival. In a deeply tribal way, we love our monsters…

E. O. Wilson

---

“Why Do I Keep Picking Men Who Hurt Me?”

Carol: I’ve been through some bad stuff, but this most recent guy, God. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. He was all sorts of wrong and bad news. Yet he was so right. I thought it could work. I thought it was worth exploring. He didn’t let me string him along. Maybe that’s why he was different and I’m drawn to that.

Owen Parachute: You should write romance books. That’s an evergreen theme.

Carol: Hey, I was a victim of a cold, calculated abuser.

Owen Parachute: “Over a couple of years, I willingly kept in touch with him because I was just trying to make it safe this time.”

Carol: I simply regret I fell into the trap.

Owen Parachute: “I simply regret that, at the time, I had no other safer reference for being attracted to someone.”

Carol: I was vulnerable and naive and he was a sociopathic narcissist.

Owen Parachute: Apparently, a sociopathic narcissist picked you to make something safe for him this time. Funny, huh?

Carol: Oh, hilarious. I made poor choices and devalued myself.

Owen Parachute: Right now, you’re hurting yourself, all by yourself, in the comfort and privacy and safety of your own home, with no monsters around, by thinking about your past choices and replaying them and labelling them with such language. All of that is natural. None of it is helpful.

Carol: Whatever. Is it Bad Boys all the way down?

Owen Parachute: The English word “monster” comes from the Latin monere, which means to warn. A monster is a message, a piece of advice sent with the intention of protection.

---

Nice Guys Don’t Have The Right Things Wrong With Them

The problem with Nice Guys is there’s nothing wrong with them.

A Nice Guy is lots of safety and no danger.

He might even be a This-Guy-Is-Really-Together-And-Is-Also-A-Very-Nice-Guy-And-Maybe-I-Could-Learn-To-Love-Him-So-Why-Shouldnt-I-Settle-For-Him Guy.

But “no danger” means you don’t believe he can help you make it safe this time and you won’t be attracted to him no matter how long you give it.

Carol has many Nice Guys showing great interest in her.

They treat her very nicely, they do errands for her, they look really good on paper.

But they’re boring and she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do, so she keeps them hovering at arms length until they get really insistent, then she turns them away.

Carol: Hey, I’ve got a brilliant idea! Can I somehow turn one of these Nice Guys into a Bad Boy?

Owen Parachute: Nope.

Carol: Bummer.

---

Really Good Friend, Really Good Benefits, Really No Future

Good news: She can’t fail with him because there’s no future with him.

Bad news: There’s no future with him.

Good news: It’s comfortable and supportive and intimate and safe.

Bad news: There’s no future with him.

Good news: There’s no pressure from “What’s next?”.

Bad news: There’s no “next” with him.

Good news: She can quit at any time.

Bad news: What if she doesn’t find anyone else?

---

How Carol Should Think About Dating Differently

Two questions for Carol to ask herself that I think are very important:

• “What do I want?” (even if, especially if, it’s pie-in-the-sky)

• “What do I have to do differently to bring myself into contact with the sort of men I’ve never been in contact with before?”

Carol can easily come to rationally understand what’s happened and why, but that often doesn’t help with doing different things in the future.

Carol: I know the patterns, I know what to look out for, how can I not only recognize them but be confident that I have actually changed them?

Owen Parachute: When you get more satisfying dating and relationship results.

Carol: Is there a point when you feel like just a complete badass and confident and unstoppable or, will you always have to have a high level of awareness to not fall back into old patterns?

Owen Parachute: There are many people in this world who never feel unstoppable and who have far more satisfying dating experiences and relationships than you.

Carol: Whatever. Anyway, can old patterns be completely erased or will they always still linger?

Owen Parachute: You are very skilled at keeping yourself stuck by creating these false dilemmas.

Carol: What?

Owen Parachute: You are keeping yourself stuck by asking false binary questions which preclude other alternatives. These questions have the form: “Is ‘A’ true or is ‘B’ true?”. This assumes that only A or B can be true, and C and D and all the other letters of the alphabet not only cannot be true but don’t exist. This is very limiting on your thinking, and thus behaviour.

Carol: Well then, I just need steps for change within myself.

Owen Parachute: No, you need steps on the outside, in the world. You can’t change this on the inside alone.

Carol: Why?

Owen Parachute: Because when other people are involved, the important stuff happens on the outside, in the world. You need to risk new behaviour on the outside, even though you think you may have done this already. You’ve done enough on the inside. The reason you want to keep doing more on the inside is because you’re more comfortable there. We can sit by ourselves in a room and convince ourselves that anything is true.

Carol: But don’t I need more self-confidence or self-worth?

Owen Parachute: No.

Carol: But the record keeps playing. How do I change the narrative?

Owen Parachute: By risking a different one. By continuing to date, differently.

---

You should not have any special fondness for a particular weapon, or anything else, for that matter. Too much is the same as not enough. Without imitating anyone else, you should have as much weaponry as suits you.

Miyamoto Musashi (The Book of Five Rings)

---

How Carol Should Date Differently (With A Sword, A Lamp And A Friend)

Carol needs a few new weapons and a different vision and a trusted advisor to help her get back in the fray and stay there so she’s not lost in space, doing this in a vacuum.

For a few months, with her trusted advisor, Carol should:

• Vet each “Man Message” before she sends it. This means before she sends any txt, email, facebook message or other social media message, before she reacts to anything on social media and before she sends any card or letter.

• Debrief each “Man Message” after she’s received it, whether it was expected or unexpected.

• Vet each “Man Contact” before she does it. This means before she makes any phone call or video chat, and before she goes on any date or other in-person meeting or encounter.

• Debrief each “Man Contact” after it’s happened, whether it was planned or unplanned (eg. after bumping into guys at school, work, during errands, group functions, social events).

• Vet each “Online Dating Message” before she sends it. This means before she sends any message on any online dating website, before she reacts to anything on any online dating website and before she updates any online dating profile.

• Debrief each “Online Dating Message” after she’s received it, whether it was expected or unexpected.

Carol: That all sounds like a lot of hassle.

Owen Parachute: It is. How does it compare to the hassle of only dating Bad Boys and Nice Mice?

Carol: Whatever. It all sounds expensive.

Owen Parachute: It is. People underestimate what it takes to change childhood programming to get relationship “success”. How expensive is being lonely?

What will happen:

• She’ll cut the monsters off way earlier (“SO MANY RED FLAGS! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING, GIRLFRIEND?”)

• She’ll cut the mice off way earlier (“Booooooring. Not gonna happen.”)

• She’ll learn to risk acting more vulnerably. Online dating differently is one way to do this - infinite control, infinite selectivity, and infinite opportunity for being vulnerable:

---

For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.

Ursula K. Le Guin (The Dispossessed)

---

Be Careful What You Wish For Because You Might Get It

You have to want something big enough to pull you through.

You have to want something big enough to make it worth it to risk damage on the way.

You have to make it OK to take damage, if not willingly, then at least, while you remind yourself that “It’ll be worth it if I get it”.

“If”.

Not “when”.

No guarantees.

Bad news: There’s also no guarantee that if you DO get it, it’ll be worth it. The decisions we make now are the best decisions for now. We cannot guarantee that the decisions we make now are the best decisions for the future.

Good news: In the future, you can always make new different decisions at that time. You’ll have new information and experience to base them on.

Protips about wanting:

• Be unreasonable. “What do I pie-in-the-sky want?”

• Want witnessable behaviour in other people. Don’t want feelings. Think about specific behaviour you have to witness (or experience) to make the feelings you want inside. If the behaviour was being filmed, what’s on the film?

Bad news: Being vulnerable is the ONLY WAY to intimacy and it is NEVER SAFE to be vulnerable!

Good news: When vulnerability (risking damage) is followed by safety, intimacy increases. When vulnerability is followed by threat or danger or hurt or damage, intimacy decreases (and you swear off men again).

Standard Warning: It’s impossible for Carol to conceive that she is going to be terrified-like-never-before of a situation where someone she’s really attracted to is very nice to her. She has no reference for that. Believe it or not, that’s going to be “worse” than all the Bad Boys and Nice Guys so far - in the sense of “Holy Cow, this is huge, I have no idea what to do and I do not want to make any mistakes”.

It’s enough to make your heart race. In a good way.

---

The reminder, for me, contained in this temple visit, is that there are ways to live with the complex choices and inherent contradictions thrown up every day, with both curiosity and ease. The insight that we contain multitudes is as clear as the day for me on this visit.

Terri-ann White (Calcutta)

---

“If You Want To Go Fast, Go Alone. If You Want To Go Far, Go Together.”

Good news: If you’re not satisfied with your intimate relationship(s), they are the MOST REWARDING thing you can work on.

Bad news: Intimate relationships are the MOST DIFFICULT thing you can work on.

Good news: It’s worth intentionally working on, because our social relationships are more important to our health and happiness than anything else.

Bad news: In relationships, skill changes SLOWLY. (When you don’t need anyone else’s involvement to change something, you can change a personal reaction (something that you keep doing that you want to stop, or something you want to do that you can’t) in a few hours or days because those things involve only you.)

Good news: Going slow means you don’t have to rush!

Bad news: There’s a limit to what you can do by yourself.

Good news: When you hit that limit, hit me up.

---

P.S. To browse related pages:

---

P.S. To get emailed about new pages:

---

P.S. To enquire about anything on this page: