I’m resisting the urge just post a one line comment saying #humblebrags by posting the comment anyway and giving some advice :)
Below Joshua mentioned studying PUA and I agree. One method that works for me that I learned from PUA is to try to convince yourself that you don’t care if she breaks up with you. Tell yourself “she’s just a girl” or “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” or whatever motivates you. I also combine this with a “just fuck it” attitude. If I find myself worrying about something like this, I’ll say either in my head or out loud “fuck it. If she doesn’t want to respond I don’t care. I’m going to go play video games/exercise/whatever.” (The “just fuck it” attitude only seems to work specifically with social interactions, in my experience. If I have reservations about other things, typically it’s for a good reason)
Typical mind fallacy applies here—what works for me might not work for you or might have negative side effects, but you don’t really know until you try.
So I think a variant of this approach is useful and a variant of this approach is really harmful. If you say “fuck it, she’s not important,” you’ll be conditioning yourself not to care about her or even actively resent her for “making” you anxious. That way lies a lot of badness.
Nevertheless, I do think it’s handy to come to terms with the idea that if she decides to break up with you, then it’s not the worst thing in the world. It’s an admittedly sucky but manageable state of affairs. You will be a finite amount sadder than you were when you were single! And although you have some influence on her decisions, you have no control over them. So think “I have done everything in my control in this situation. Now I will go play video games/exercise/whatever.” This is a more detailed, more accurate, healthier variant of “fuck it, she’s just a girl.”
Fantastic girls are important! But they’re not your whole life! But they are also not unimportant! There’s a large range in between those two!
I agree with a nitpick: you may condition yourself to not care about her. You may also condition yourself to not care about whether or not she responds even if you do still care about her. More accurately, you’re conditioning yourself to care less about these things, which may or may not result in not caring at all. And to be fair, part of the problem is that you (the hypothetical you) care too much about whether or not she responds/want to break up with you/whatever and maybe you care too much about her specifically.
I basically want to push back on the idea that saying “fuck it, she’s just a girl” is harmful. It might not be, depending. Not that I necessarily think you’re saying that, but it’s easy to see how someone might interpret you that way.
Yeah, I think we’re on the same page. Our general sentiment of “I will remind myself that the situation is not as awful as my anxiety is making me feel” is the same.
I basically want to push back on the idea that saying “fuck it, she’s just a girl” is harmful. It might not be, depending.
Right! Depending on what you mean by that, it might not be harmful at all. But I think there’s value in being really precise and unambiguous about which things to care less about, because otherwise you might accidentally stop caring about some pretty important things, thoughts being cache-able and all.
Yep, that old trade-off. Making it perpetually difficult to make posters. =]
I just worry that you’ll say “fuck it, she’s just a girl!” initially meaning “she’s just one girl and not my whole life” but your brain will randomly decide to cache it verbatim and suddenly, two months later, you’ll find yourself thinking “fuck it, she’s just a girl!” in a different anxiety-inducing situation and interpreting it as “girls don’t matter.” Which is instrumentally bad, morality and things aside.
I agree with certain values of “girls don’t matter” and strongly disagree with others, and the same goes for the various aspects of the PUA movement, which is a huuuge topic and pretty irrelevant to the OP sooo I think this is my cue to tap out.
Woots! That’s good calibration right there! I think you’re going to be fine. =]
Also, I don’t know what types of requests you were talking about, but if they’re about making plans, a nice trick is to sometimes say “Can you please let me know by [day, time]?” That’s not weird or clingy because everyone understands (or at least they should) that people are busy and need to know stuff to plan out their schedules. So you have some control over the time window in which you feel anxious. If she doesn’t respond in that window, then assume no (like the pocket veto!) and do something else!
I’m resisting the urge just post a one line comment saying #humblebrags by posting the comment anyway and giving some advice :)
Below Joshua mentioned studying PUA and I agree. One method that works for me that I learned from PUA is to try to convince yourself that you don’t care if she breaks up with you. Tell yourself “she’s just a girl” or “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” or whatever motivates you. I also combine this with a “just fuck it” attitude. If I find myself worrying about something like this, I’ll say either in my head or out loud “fuck it. If she doesn’t want to respond I don’t care. I’m going to go play video games/exercise/whatever.” (The “just fuck it” attitude only seems to work specifically with social interactions, in my experience. If I have reservations about other things, typically it’s for a good reason)
Typical mind fallacy applies here—what works for me might not work for you or might have negative side effects, but you don’t really know until you try.
So I think a variant of this approach is useful and a variant of this approach is really harmful. If you say “fuck it, she’s not important,” you’ll be conditioning yourself not to care about her or even actively resent her for “making” you anxious. That way lies a lot of badness.
Nevertheless, I do think it’s handy to come to terms with the idea that if she decides to break up with you, then it’s not the worst thing in the world. It’s an admittedly sucky but manageable state of affairs. You will be a finite amount sadder than you were when you were single! And although you have some influence on her decisions, you have no control over them. So think “I have done everything in my control in this situation. Now I will go play video games/exercise/whatever.” This is a more detailed, more accurate, healthier variant of “fuck it, she’s just a girl.”
Fantastic girls are important! But they’re not your whole life! But they are also not unimportant! There’s a large range in between those two!
I agree with a nitpick: you may condition yourself to not care about her. You may also condition yourself to not care about whether or not she responds even if you do still care about her. More accurately, you’re conditioning yourself to care less about these things, which may or may not result in not caring at all. And to be fair, part of the problem is that you (the hypothetical you) care too much about whether or not she responds/want to break up with you/whatever and maybe you care too much about her specifically.
I basically want to push back on the idea that saying “fuck it, she’s just a girl” is harmful. It might not be, depending. Not that I necessarily think you’re saying that, but it’s easy to see how someone might interpret you that way.
Yeah, I think we’re on the same page. Our general sentiment of “I will remind myself that the situation is not as awful as my anxiety is making me feel” is the same.
Right! Depending on what you mean by that, it might not be harmful at all. But I think there’s value in being really precise and unambiguous about which things to care less about, because otherwise you might accidentally stop caring about some pretty important things, thoughts being cache-able and all.
Yeah, there’s a trade-off though. Simple slogans seem to be much more effective, especially slogans with curse words. At least for my brain.
Yep, that old trade-off. Making it perpetually difficult to make posters. =]
I just worry that you’ll say “fuck it, she’s just a girl!” initially meaning “she’s just one girl and not my whole life” but your brain will randomly decide to cache it verbatim and suddenly, two months later, you’ll find yourself thinking “fuck it, she’s just a girl!” in a different anxiety-inducing situation and interpreting it as “girls don’t matter.” Which is instrumentally bad, morality and things aside.
Which is actually a decent theory of (some of) the PUA movement, for certain values of “girls don’t matter.”
I agree with certain values of “girls don’t matter” and strongly disagree with others, and the same goes for the various aspects of the PUA movement, which is a huuuge topic and pretty irrelevant to the OP sooo I think this is my cue to tap out.
Nice talking to you! =]
You as well :)
Weirdly I’ve been noticing myself having some of these “wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world” thoughts spontaneously.
That’s good! Because it wouldn’t be. =]
Uhh. Is the anxiety bad enough that you’re sometimes tempted to dump her first just to not have to deal with it anymore?
Definitely not. Nothing since we started going out has remotely compared to how hard it was to ask her out the first time, anyway.
Woots! That’s good calibration right there! I think you’re going to be fine. =]
Also, I don’t know what types of requests you were talking about, but if they’re about making plans, a nice trick is to sometimes say “Can you please let me know by [day, time]?” That’s not weird or clingy because everyone understands (or at least they should) that people are busy and need to know stuff to plan out their schedules. So you have some control over the time window in which you feel anxious. If she doesn’t respond in that window, then assume no (like the pocket veto!) and do something else!