As we bid goodbye to 2015 (and good riddance, too; it was a tumultuous year) and stand at the doorway to 2016, I find myself thinking about what makes good relationships.

Someone recently asked the question, “What is the difference between a person who finds love easily and a person who finds it difficult to make loving connections?”  

This is a question I think I can offer some insight on (at least for people who share most of my privileges), because in my own life I have gone from a person who found love impossible to a person who finds opportunities for love and connection all around me. During that transition, I learned that many of the things I assumed about folks who find love easily—that they’re rich, that they’re handsome, that they’re famous—aren’t true.

Nor, I learned, is finding love a matter of lowering one’s standards. My standards and requirements are stratospheric, some would say nigh-impossible. I am interested only in people who are polyamorous, and who are kinky, and who embrace a style of relationship that respects personal autonomy, and who are rationalists and skeptics, and who have a track record of successful poly relationships, and and and…yet I still find that opportunities for love are abundant. I’ve met people who have standards so low they’ll take anyone with a pulse who will even look at them, yet their desperation drives people away.

I grew up in a tiny farm town (242 people) in Nebraska, and I was so different from all the people around me, I didn’t have any friends at all. My parents moved to Florida my first year of high school, and I entered a school with more than 2,000 students. I had no social skills whatsoever, I was shy, and I didn’t know how to make friends—so I certainly didn’t think I’d find love. That meant I was a late bloomer: I never even kissed a girl ’til I was 19.

Today? Today, even though I have very unusual tastes and requirements, I live in a world where opportunities for love are so abundant I have to say “no” a lot.

I have observed lots of other people who find love easily, and lots of people who don’t. I’ve seen people move from one to the other, and I’ve noticed clear, consistent differences between them. In my observation, the things people who find love easily have that the people who don’t, don’t, include, in no particular order:

Courage. Not heroic courage, but everyday, ordinary courage. It does not take magic skills, special powers, looks, or secret knowledge to become close to people. But it does take courage. You have to be willing to talk to people even if you’re shy, uncomfortable, or scared of rejection. And there is a trick to it. It’s not a trick for eliminating the fear of rejection, though. The people you see walking up to other folks and talking so effortlessly? It’s not effortless. They are just as scared as you are. They don’t have a magic secret to not being scared, they just don’t let being scared stop them. That’s what courage is: Doing the scary thing in spite of your fear.

Worthiness. Whenever someone talks about relationships, inevitably people will talk about how important “confidence” is. Okay, so what is confidence? Stripped to its essential core, it’s the belief that you have value. Really, this is a sense of worthiness. It’s tied to the belief that if someone rejects you, it doesn’t mean you are a pathetic loser nobody who totally sucks and doesn’t deserve to be with anyone; it just means that person has different tastes than you. There’s a trick to worthiness, too. You can’t wait for something to happen to “prove” that you have worth (like “if I just make more money I’ll be confident,” or “if I just lose weight I’ll be confident”). You have to take a leap of faith. You have to start believing you have worth and value right now, even if you don’t see it, and act like it’s there even if you think it’s not.

Kindness. I do not mean “niceness”: the fluffy, vaguely defined trait people think they have if they never express contradicting opinions or always let other people walk on them. I mean kindness: treating others well even if you don’t especially like them or don’t want anything from them. If you’re nice to that hottie you want to date, but not nice to the server at the restaurant, you’re not kind. If you are kind because you expect something from it rather than because it’s the right thing to do, you’re doing kindness all wrong. Kindness comes from genuine understanding of the essential humanity of others. Oh, and one more thing: Kindness begins at home. Kindness means being kind to yourself, too.

Directness. Look around online and you’ll find a gajillion questions like, “She flipped her hair and looked into my eyes; what does it mean?” and, “He chews on his pencil and starts humming the ‘Imperial March’ from Star Wars whenever I pass him; what does it mean?” And when folks aren’t asking questions like that, they’re asking things like, “I love this person madly—I would do anything for them; how can I subtly let them know?” And that misses the whole point of human connection. Be direct. If you want to know if someone fancies you, ask. If you want to know what someone means by something, ask. (Ask that person, not the Internet.) if you like someone, say so. This goes back to point 1: Direct communication takes courage. But you have to do it. Suppose you have a crush, and you’re looking for indirect signs that your interest might be reciprocated. While you’re spending months reading  tea leaves and agonizing over what it all means, the person who’s direct will walk up to your crush and say, “Hey, I like you, want to go out?” And wham, just like that, your opportunity is gone. And then you sit on the sidelines wondering, “How come other people find love easily and I don’t?”

Integrity. This is made up of a lot of things: honesty (saying what you mean, not misleading or manipulating people), trustworthiness (meaning what you say, even if you feel hurt or the other person does something you don’t like), not taking advantage of others (this goes back to kindness), and consistency (other people see that you’re reliable and can be trusted at your word). And it matters. People without integrity can charm and manipulate people, but that’s not the same thing as genuine connection. People who tell little white lies might think they are saving other people’s feelings now, but they do it at the cost of their own integrity (I’ve blogged about this before), and that means other folks trust them less. Are you trying to screw someone over in a leveraged buyout, or are you trying to find love? If it’s the latter, integrity carries you a long way.

Transparency. This means being open with who you are and open about what you want. It relates back to integrity and directness, but it also means not trying to hide things for fear of “scaring off” a potential partner. If someone would be scared off by something about you, that’s a good thing, because it means that person isn’t compatible with you. If you want something but you’re not open about what you want, well, you can’t expect to have it, can you?

Resiliency. You’re going to get hurt. Sure as night follows day, it’s going to happen. At some point your heart will be broken. How you deal with that when it happens…that’s where your true character shows. I once had a lover who told me she will never date anyone who has never had their heart broken. What happens when you’re hurt? Do you lash out? Do you blame others? Do you retreat into a cave and build walls around yourself to “protect” you? These things will only cause you more pain. Or do you accept that pain is a part of life, believe that you can get through it, and come out the other side saying, “Man, that sucked, but hey, look, I survived it! It didn’t kill me! I can be hurt and still know I will be okay, so I don’t have to be afraid of it any more!”?

Respect. I’ve said this countless times before but it bears repeating: Treat people as people. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard folks say things like, “I don’t know how to act around women,” or “I don’t know what men want.” Women are people. Men are people. Non-binary people are people. If you know how to talk to people, you’ve got this covered. Men and women are not different species. Men and women are individuals: If you’re trying to figure out what “men want” or what “women want,” then you’re thinking of people as objects and not as people. Treating people as people, talking to them like they’re people, and understanding that they’re individuals will take you 60% of the way toward finding love in abundance. It’s sad that the bar is set that low, and yet so many folks still can’t seem to manage it, but that’s the world we live in.

Vulnerability. This is going to get all head-bendy, so buckle up, Dorothy, because Kansas is about to go bye-bye. The best way to protect your heart is to be vulnerable easily, trust often, and not build high walls or fortresses around yourself. There’s a thing I’ve seen happen where people say, “I’ve been mistreated, so I am not going to trust easily. I’ve learned my lesson. I will not let people close to me.” And what happens? They get hurt and mistreated again. And again. Why? Because when you build a fortress around your heart and hold everyone at arm’s length, kind, respectful people say, “Oh, you’re not letting people close. Okay. I will respect your boundaries,” and then don’t get close to you. Who does get close? People who don’t respect boundaries. People who bulldoze through your walls. Who is most likely to mistreat you? People who don’t respect boundaries. So what happens? You get mistreated. And you build even bigger walls, until finally you’ve put up so many walls only a full-blown psychopath can get in. What’s the solution? Vulnerability. Invite people in easily, expect kindness, and assume good intent. That doesn’t mean being codependent or having no boundaries, of course. There are evil people in the world, and it’s important to pay attention to others and to learn how to identify the ones who might mistreat you. Have healthy boundaries, absolutely. Don’t allow yourself to be treated badly.. But don’t start out assuming everyone will treat you poorly.

Authenticity. Every piece of dating advice ever written says “be yourself.” It’s like a mantra. You know why? Because it’s important. Be yourself. Be who you are. Don’t think, “Well, girls only like this and such,” or “Guys want blah blah blah,” and then try to conform to that. If it works, you’ve just shot yourself in the foot, because guess what? You’ve just attracted a partner who is looking for something you’re not. Good luck making that relationship work! We live in a world with seven billion people. I don’t care how weird you are, how exotic your fetish is, or how strange your quirks are. There are people out there who share your weirdness, your fetishes, your quirks. You only need to find them. You find them by being openly, unabashedly, proudly who you are, and looking for the folks who connect with your style of being human.

Respect for autonomy. Other people are real. Other people are people, just like you are, and their needs and desires are just as valid as yours. They do not exist for the purpose of giving you what you need. You do not get your needs met or deal with your personal fears or insecurities by controlling other people—indeed, if that’s your go-to way of dealing with fear or discomfort, you are well on the way to becoming abusive, if you aren’t already. It is okay to express your fears. It’s okay to say, “Honey, I get uncomfortable when you have male friends because it makes me worried that you might replace me. Can you talk to me and tell me what you like and value about me so I can work through this insecurity?” It is not okay to say, “Honey, I get uncomfortable when you have male friends, so I don’t want you to talk to other men.” It is really, really, really not okay to say, “Honey, give me your phone so I can check and make sure you’re not talking to other men.” If you’re doing that, that is a warning sign of abuse. Talk to a therapist. Get help.

Abundance thinking. You ever notice how some people think love is easy to find, and some people think love is hard to find? It seems logical that people who think love is easy to find believe that because for them it is easy, and people who think it’s hard to find believe that because for them it is hard. And it’s true that the privileges and the social and sexual capital you have will shape your opportunities for romance. But when it comes to finding partners, how you think does shape the world you live in. When people think, “I can afford to be picky because there are lots of people who value me and lots of opportunity for connection,” more people value them, and they have more opportunities for connection. When people think, “I have to take whatever I can get, because I will never find anyone,” they find it harder to find anyone. Why? Because what you believe influences how you behave. When you have a starvation mindset that says love is hard to find, you act in ways that make you look desperate, a feature that’s attractive only to predators. When you believe that opportunities for love are all around, it’s easier to be confident, it’s easier to be transparent, it’s easier to be open, you are less likely to be desperate, and you’re more likely to be authentic, because you start from the assumption you will find love. See how it all fits together?

Categories: CommunicationEthics

8 Comments

Anke · January 7, 2016 at 1:34 am

Thank you 🙂 this was a really nice read.

I was wondering what had happened with me after reading your fb post. I went from a person who found love easily to someone who does not. Now I can understand why. Thanks!

Alan M · January 7, 2016 at 11:56 am

Wow. Another home run. You’re the David Ortiz of the relationship-geek world.

Janet · January 9, 2016 at 1:00 pm

fantastic article. will be sharing this.. thank you 🙂

Meg · February 8, 2016 at 10:41 pm

I can’t remember how exactly I stumbled upon this blog tonight – one of those crazy fortuitous circumstances of late-night browsing I suppose – but I felt compelled to say thank you for writing this. I’m 23, finally facing graduation at a college full of people who think differently than I do, and it is so, so good to read a like-minded perspective. Many of these ideas floated around in my head as I hiked the Appalachian Trail, but it took me another two years and another failed serious relationship to recognize that they are all perfectly valid ideas. Your articulation of worthiness, vulnerability, and authenticity particularly moved me. Just, wow. Though I work towards consistently providing my own validation, an outsider’s confirmation is always welcome:) Thank you!!

David J. · February 13, 2016 at 3:43 pm

I found this from a TV show, wondering if it was for me… Learned a lot from Franklin and shook-up my mindset of what is possible for me in the future and how I felt deep down. At 59 yrs. young I need a little light to see where I’m going, this was perfect. Learned a lot about myself and how I’ve been closed up for too long. In the back woods of Georgia is no place to live alone. Thanks for the education enhancement ….

    Peachy in Georgia · May 1, 2016 at 8:54 am

    I agree, David, I appreciate the little light to see as well. 🙂 And Georgia is a lovely place to live, especially the back woods, lol, but also agree, not so much fun alone.

jon · January 24, 2017 at 1:25 pm

Just found this blog and post. Headed up there in age and you’re made me realized that my isolation comes from a bit (a lot!) of fear of holding myself as worthy while also vulnerable. But Probably been building up walls. Good thoughts here. Hard to act on but nevertheless, thanks.

elis · February 15, 2017 at 11:59 am

I want to share this with all my friends! (everyone should know this stuff!)… but worried they are going to judge me because it came from a website about polyamory

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