Everyone hits a point where things aren’t going well, and your best efforts haven’t been good enough. This can happen in any area of life, but it’s especially personal in romance. If you’re involved, maybe things aren’t going well. If you’re single, maybe you haven’t had a date or sex or a good conversation with someone in a while, and everything you’ve tried has turned to ash.
The temptation is to pout about it to yourself and the people close to you, and expect the whole world to devote its energies to rectifying the situation.
That usually doesn’t help.
It’s important to keep yourself positive when things aren’t going well. This doesn’t mean ignoring the bad things, but rather keeping them in context. Let’s look at an example.
Let’s imagine that a guy named Ray gets dumped. He spends some time brooding about it, but after a while he decides that he should go out and meet some women, and maybe find someone he likes spending time with. After six months, though, he’s had no success. He hasn’t gotten so much as a phone number.
He spends his time whining to his friends about how the women in this city are stuck up, or how he has no luck, or how it’s all just a stupid game. How do his friends react?
Most of them probably get less interested the more they hear. Maybe they try to help Ray out, though, and introduce him to some interesting women. What kind of impression is Ray going to give? Even if he puts on a smile and tries, if he’s got lingering resentment or despair, he’s not going to give off good vibes when he’s meeting someone new.
Here are three useful things that everyone can do to help improve their outlook and, in doing so, have a better time meeting new people:
1. When you catch yourself complaining about something, stop immediately and try to think of something, anything, that’s positive about the situation. If you’ve told a joke to a pretty woman and the joke fell flat, and now she’s talking to someone else, figure out how you could improve the delivery of the joke and get ready to try again.
2. Force a smile. As long as you can keep a smile on your face that looks at least slightly natural, it will have beneficial effects on your mood. Other people will see you smiling and will smile at you, which will reinforce the good feelings. And perhaps simply because our biology associates smiling with happiness, the simple act of turning up the corners of your mouth will encourage your mind to stay positive.
3. Set smart goals when you go out. Don’t think “I want to go home with a hottie,” think “I want to meet interesting people.” And then follow through: be willing to talk to people you might not normally, including girls or guys you know you wouldn’t want to romance. The good vibes you’ll start to build up enhance your confidence and help make you a more interesting and attractive person.
The higher you keep your attitude, the better the returns. Everyone wants to spend time with people who make them feel good about themselves and their lives. Work to become that person and it’ll come back to you.
