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Check out the Tik Tok Sensation: Musical Monday! Improv comics will improvise comedic musical numbers on the fly that are sure to keep you laughing all night long! To hear it from the horse’s mouth: “Their live show is like if a band and a comedian had a baby inside of a comedy theater: half concert, half comedy show, all improvised”

Lounge Thoughts

As we enter Fall, and Summer ends, I’ve been thinking a lot about different approaches to dating. More specifically, I’m thinking about how I can improve my dating experience, ensure better connections, and have more fun! As a result, this week brings the first entry in our series on improving our dating lives and dating with intention! 

Our series starts with an overview of four core values that will level up your dating game and take a bit of the stress out of dating; that is, if you know how to use them. In future editions, we’ll dive into other areas of dating and see how we can optimize for fun and deeper connections. 

The Four Core Values

Grace, Empathy, Confidence, and Vulnerability are four core values that apply to every dating encounter. They determine your success, your missed connections, and your overall experience. Since covering all four in one edition would lead to a novella, we’ll cover Grace today and then continue with empathy, confidence, and vulnerability in the next edition of The Lounge. 

Grace who? Never heard of her.

Grace. We hear the word grace all the time. “Have Grace”.“Give them Grace”. “Give yourself Grace”. “Leave room for Grace”. You hear it in therapy and it conjures up memories or even trauma of religious upbringing. We’re going to throw that all out the window. 

Grace, as we’ll use it here, simply means: When we make a mistake or maybe even our date missteps, we choose to accept the mistake and we choose to allow for redemption. 

Dating is complicated. It involves talking with strangers and tons of nerves. Different personalities are coming together and trying to figure out if they mesh well. Tons of emotion and anxiety are involved, and your dopamine receptors fire on all cylinders. You experience extreme highs and extreme lows. You and your dates are going to get carried away. It’s going to get awkward and mistakes will happen. 

Using Grace means that when these minor mistakes happen or things get awkward we make the conscious choice of acceptance and the belief in ourselves and others to redeem ourselves. One or a few actions do not make a terrible person. 

You double or triple-text because you got excited and they weren’t replying? Don’t beat yourself up about it, and don’t overthink or focus on “I shouldn’t have done that” or “I screwed this all up”. Instead, accept that yes you did that, and simply decide not to do it in the future. Carry your head high and move forward. Give yourself grace! 

What if your date was slow to respond after a great date? Don’t focus on getting ghosted or start overthinking “What did I do wrong? I thought it was a great date!”. That kind of thinking leads to stress and anxiety and causes you to get stuck. Instead, decide to accept it, choose to believe that there’s a good reason why they are being slow, and leave room for them to make it up to you, all while focusing on the next option. Choose Grace for them.

Maybe you had a great date, it was flirtatious, and there was great banter with tons of laughter. But they said one or two off-color things that you didn’t appreciate or they try to push the physical too quickly. Instead of writing them off immediately and moving on to the next option, you can choose to accept their actions. You don’t ignore them, you make note of them, you set boundaries and you explore the connection a little more. Obviously, if their actions start to outweigh the good, you move on. But if not, by giving them the grace to redeem their actions, you may end up with a great connection instead of a potentially missed connection! 

Why should I Owe Them Grace?

At this point, you may be thinking, why should I give these folks grace, when I don’t receive it? Or maybe you think, doesn’t me giving them grace allow them to get away with their bad behavior? Well you see, this is actually where the secret behind why Grace works so well becomes apparent. Grace is not about them. It is about you. 

Let me illustrate using two common scenarios that are a bit sensitive. 

You had a great date, things were lighthearted and fun. You have similar values and get along well. You go home together and have a great time. You go your separate ways and…… you never hear from them again. By all accounts, this is a shitty thing for a person to do. It makes you feel used and like your trust was broken. This happens a few times and it’s easy to start thinking that “All members of my dating pool suck”, “I just can’t trust anyone in my dating pool”, or “All members of my dating pool are bad unless proven otherwise”. Your trust was broken and it has happened more than once, of course, you would see a pattern and think these things! It’s completely natural.

Or maybe you struggle to get dates within your dating pool. You keep getting rejected over and over and can’t seem to make any inroads. You tell yourself that they only want people who are 10/10 and have abs. You start to feel hopeless, get a little depressed, and turn towards thoughts of “All members of my dating pool are superficial and suck”, “If only I was a 10/10”, or “I hate these members”. You may even start to blame the members of your dating pool for why you’re single. 

In both these cases, you end up with a feeling of resentment towards your dating pool, which can be completely natural. Your experiences dictate your expectations. We’re creatures of patterns and habits and we rely heavily on them. So of course, if we notice a recurring pattern, we’re going to convince ourselves that future results will be the same.

Unfortunately, for us, this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. You expect a group to act this way so when you go on dates with someone you subconsciously treat them like they’ve already made the mistakes you expect them to. You may act naturally defensively or be slow to open up. You may even say things that you shouldn’t. You may be on the lookout for any indication of deception or intention. As a result, they will easily live up to your expectations because you’re so focused on looking for the negative signs you miss all the positive things about your date that can redeem them. No person is all good or all bad. We all have feelings others agree with and some they do not. When all you have are the negative signals you were looking for, you, of course, will throw them in the category of “See all of them are the same”. Establishing a connection with your date will be that much more difficult because you missed looking for the positives! 

This is where the secret to Grace comes in. Choosing Grace in these situations means that you decide to believe that not all members of your dating pool are the same. You accept that these bad situations happen and your values are not aligned with those specific individuals. You choose to allow room for future members of your dating pool to prove you wrong. In fact, you expect it from them, and you settle for nothing less. You focus on the positives of future dates, you set boundaries, and you believe that better is out there. 

By using Grace to turn your expectations on its head, you create a new self-fulfilling prophecy. You no longer focus on how much your potential dates suck. How they all act this way or think “They’re the reason I’m still single”. You allow room for redemption and you allow your dates to live up to your positive expectations. 

You see allowing for Grace is not about changing the behavior of others. That’s not our job or our concern. There are always going to be bad actors out there and there’s nothing we can do to change this. Instead, it’s all about freeing yourself. It’s about giving yourself room to enjoy meeting others and having fun with them. It’s about relieving the burden on our shoulders of overthinking, worrying, and judging every date we go on. It’s just plain exhausting thinking all the time about how a whole group of people is bad and having to worry about it before every match, every date, and every text. This burden, causes you to get stuck in a pattern and prevents you from achieving the desired connection you’re after.

Now of course a necessary disclaimer. There will be people out there that suck no matter how you choose to think or act. There will always be dates out there that are dangerous and give off signs that make you uncomfortable. Giving them Grace does not mean, “I will allow them to treat me this way” “I will stick this out even though I’m deeply uncomfortable” or “I will give this guy a chance even though he gives me serial killer vibes”. Set your boundaries, and trust your instincts when they tell you something is wrong. Choosing grace just means that I will not dwell on this experience or let this experience taint my future endeavors.

In the end, Grace is a choice you make. You choose to grant it to yourself and others. It is not expected and no one is entitled to it, but by choosing Grace you become empowered and freer in your dating life. You take away the power of bad dates and experiences to dictate how you choose to date and live your life. You get to choose to free yourself and have fun, enjoyable connections with other fun and kind individuals. It’s a difficult choice we have to make, especially when someone’s been especially cruel to us. But by doing so, we get to take the reigns in our dating life and leave them behind! 

You’ll hear me mention Grace several times in future editions as it often goes hand and hand with other approaches to dating. In the next part of this series, we’ll discuss Empathy and how it can help with overthinking and make dating a little less exhausting.

Until Next Time,

Lucas

Time for fun!

Try out this months double puzzle! Unscramble the words related to Seattle Social Club to discover the hidden phrase!