Dating fatigue is real. Given the option, I think most people would choose to press a magical button that would sidestep the headaches of dating and drop them directly into a meaningful relationship.
In today’s video, I share 5 tips that will help you find an energy-replenishing relationship rather than an energy-depleting one.
I’d love it if you left a comment letting me know which of the 5 tips resonates with you most.
Protect Your Energy and Build a Real Relationship.
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Look, truth is, most people who watch this channel want a relationship. Relationships, yes. Dating, I don’t want that. That’s most people’s approach to this, is please, anything but dating. I want a relationship, though. So how do you manage your energy so that the dating process, the part that you need to do to get to a relationship, doesn’t burn you out before you ever get one?
Here are five ways to manage your energy in the process. Number one. Be wary of projecting your hopes and dreams onto the person you’re on a date with. So many people start dating somebody. They get overexcited about that person. They get excited about the projection of them, not the real them. How could they? They barely know this person. And all of a sudden, the stakes become very high, because it becomes very important that this goes well. Because after all, this is the right person. You’re projecting your hopes, your dreams, onto the person in front of you. They are a blank canvas on which to put everything you’ve always wanted in your love life. When the stakes go up like that, so does your adrenaline. Your energy starts to spike as you give more and more to this person, even if you don’t show it to this person. Just the anxiety that comes with having made them so important burns energy.
Remember this. Getting to know someone, knowing if they’re truly right for you, is a slow process. It happens through the accretion of moments and experiences with this person that tell you bit by bit they’re someone you could actually construct a relationship with. It’s not something that happens overnight. So relax if you’re early in the process right now. There’s not really anything for you to lose.
Number two. The second way to manage your energy is to not give all of yourself immediately. We do this in one of two ways. We either give someone the absolute best of us, or we give someone the worst of us. Both are too much energy for where we’re at in the process in early dating. Now, giving someone the worst of us would mean showing them all of our insecurities, talking about our angry feelings towards our ex about our last breakup, talking about the intimacy issues we have from something that’s happened to us in our life.
Essentially, taking all of the difficult things in our life, or all of the struggles we’re currently having, and placing them in front of the other person at an inappropriate stage.
Now, giving the best of us is doing things for this person right now, showing parts of us, giving an amount of energy that is unearned. It could be clearing our schedule for someone who has really not earned it at this stage. It could be going out of our way to give them the greatest date ever when really we should just be in a stage of getting to know them a little better. It could be that they told us of a certain baked good that they really like, and you show up with a box of them on the next date.
Someone said to me once, “Matthew, just because you can cook a five-star, gourmet meal, it doesn’t mean you should do it for every person who knocks on the door of your house.” Someone shouldn’t get the best or the worst of you immediately. They should get the appropriate amount for the stage you’re in. Do this and you’ll have more energy to give to the right person in the right situation when it shows itself to be that.
Number three. Don’t give more than they are. Mirror the amount of investment you are getting from this person. Now, that doesn’t mean that every once in a while, you can’t step out of the dynamic that you’ve created with this person to lead for a moment, to show a little bit more energy or investment, to see how they respond to that. That’s okay. If no one ever did that, things would never move forward. So at some point, somebody’s got to bravely step out of the current dynamic. However, when you do that, you have to actually watch to see if that is mirrored back at you.
For example, if you texted someone in the morning saying, “Good morning, how are you?” and that’s not something either of you are accustomed to doing for each other, wait and see how this person responds. The next day, don’t send the same message because otherwise, you’re now in a dynamic of doing that every day. You’re continuing to invest every day without seeing if they’re willing to do the same, if they ever take the lead. Let them come to you in equal amounts.
Number four. Don’t make them a priority before they’ve done the same for you. You have to start prioritizing each other equally. If someone doesn’t talk to you for a couple of weeks and then out of nowhere wants to see you in three hours, “Hey, what are you doing this evening? Do you want to come and do this?” That’s something you should be inherently suspicious of. There’s nothing wrong, by the way, with accepting a spontaneous date, nothing wrong at all, from someone who has a history and a record of trying with you, from someone who’s been investing. Then it just becomes something fun and romantic and spontaneous. But when someone who hasn’t been trying all of a sudden texts us and wants us to make them a priority out of nowhere, this calls for something very different. It doesn’t mean completely ignoring, because ignoring someone doesn’t communicate our standards. What it means is responding with something that elegantly communicates that this isn’t enough for you.
Number five. Do not reach out any time you’re craving attention. We have to make a clear distinction anytime we’re reaching out to someone. Am I reaching out right now in a way that’s organic because I really have something to say or share, some value to add to this person’s day? Or am I reaching out simply because my ego, my insecurity, is craving attention? If the answer is the latter, that’s a moment to stop and divert your energy to something more productive in your day, something that’s actually going to move forward with that energy. Because this relationship will not move forward with that energy. And we have to understand, and this is just understanding the ego, understanding our own self-esteem, that is a bottomless well. That need for attention will never be satiated. So even if you do get a response from that person right now in this moment, three hours from now, you’ll be feeling the same thing again, because reassurance doesn’t last.
What we need to do in that moment is take that energy and pour it into something that’s actually going to make our lives richer, that’s going to make us stronger, and that’s going to create a more confident us to bring back to the person that we want to attract. Don’t give energy because you’re craving attention. Give energy for real connection.
Now, if you want to know how to give energy in a way that creates real connection, adds value, continues to build what you have with someone in a way that leads to a relationship, I talk about all of that in my program, How to Talk to Men. You don’t even need to buy that program today because I’m going to give you a free chapter just so you can try it out. You can go and download that chapter for free at GetTheFreeChapter.com.
I hope you enjoyed this video. I felt like this is really important. So much of our energy is wasted in dating. And we don’t have unlimited energy. When we burn it on the wrong people, it can leave us utterly depleted. When people tell me, “I need to take a break,” or when people tell me, “I’m just exhausted,” that’s real. That’s real. We can get utterly burned out. When you’ve just been dating someone for months or years, giving them your best energy and they’ve just become a vacuum for the best parts of you, and they’ve not been replenishing the well for you, you can come out of that feeling completely taxed and exasperated and burned out in a way that makes you not want to go anywhere near the dating process for a while. We have to protect ourselves from ever getting to that place. And that’s the point of this video.
Manage your energy because you don’t have unlimited energy. And when you meet the right person, or the person who has the potential to be the right person in the right relationship, we want to have our best energy to give at that point. Thank you so much for watching. Go get that free chapter at GetTheFreeChapter.com. And I’ll see you next week.
A guy came into my life last year who was a complete waste of my time. He was in a relationship and hiding it, from me. So his behaviour was mixed messagey, he blew hot and cold, he played games, he emotionally cheated on his partner to solicit information from me, when he was with someone else – and I bet he thinks he did nothing wrong. Anyway, I am hoping to avoid this situation again, in the future – but how do you communicate to someone that their behaviour is just not good enough, earlier on? Do you just not engage with it? I just feel that this situation was so beneath me. He behaved like a selfish child, instead of a man.
Great advice Matthew! This makes sense! I admit that I often search for attention and understand now that I have to be more carefull when I’m in that mood.
I don’t even call it ‘dating’. I say to my friends I’m ‘kissing frogs’. That way I keep my head straight that, until proven otherwise, this person is a frog not a prince. I’m out there hoping for a prince to show himself, and putting some effort in, but this is not serious, it’s a laugh and it’s only one of the things I’m doing with my free time.
Happy Frog-Kissing to you ladies out there!
Hi Matthew, I stopped making people more important than they are in my life, I don’t put others on a pedastal anymore, cos of your teachings, I know that is a good approach, as I don’t expect another to be everything for me, that like you say it puts too much pressure on the person, I started to have different people for different things. Kind of like creating my success team for my dream life. I am still learning to not give too much away from myself to others, whatever mood I am in, not always easy, I don’t think I am bipolar. I am also a gemini, gemini’s get easily misunderstood, cos so much that I want to share, my mom says that I sometimes overshare, its not my intention, its more of, something needs to be off my chest. I used to give more than I receive from people, I learned to do that less throught the years, in my marriage i was the provider, as a woman I didn’t mind working and providing for him and me, more came from my side in other matters too than from him, than it becomses a problem, where u have to have those uncomfortable conversations, then, other things come to surface, u have no idea of, it only results in fights! Thats why I stopped giving more to others than I receive back. I would do 1% effort if I was seriously dating someone, I been now divorced 13 years.
I put myself and my needs first before anyone elses, i also do this in my finances, also because I used to do what I previous said here. At some moment u decide, I don’t want to be like that anymore, now its me first, my needs, thats what leaded me to my level up journey, how Anna Bey my mentor for a level up journey came into my life. I plan to make a dating planner in the future, to track how my connections evolve with people, although you could also call it a networking planner lol I am not an attention seeker in social life, I never talk to people just to get attention, even if i share a lot online, I don’t do it to get attention, although I been blamed of that a few times, those people don’t know me, I do think more and more about my social media strategy, cos my life path is evolving into getting in contact with more affluent and very rich people, like I became officially a founding member of Ken Honda’s new commmunity site, that will be officially launched in August this year. It was a job offer I got from Ken Honda himself, not sure if I will be payed for this, I got the position, even if I won’t be the only founding member, he has amazing ideas, projects I be able to work with them, he will one day invite us to Japan, I hope to have a partner by then, cos I don’t see myself travelling alone to Japan. I think these things manifest in my life, cos I am on the right path, I am doing the things I should to better the quality of my life, who knows whats more to come, I am doing well.