Personal Empowerment, Developing human potential, Fostering interpersonal relationships

Personal Empowerment

Developing human potential and fostering interpersonal relationships

How To Connect Without Being Vulnerable

Marriage is an awesome undertaking as it will dictate with whom you will live with for rest of your life. Dating is designed to take the risk out of marrying the wrong person by allowing you to size up your potential spouse before committing yourself. However, the dating process itself is risk prone because you have to make yourself vulnerable to a potential stranger. But without vulnerability you will not be able to connect with the person. So how can you be vulnerable without incurring significant risk?

To answer this we must understand what is meant by vulnerability. Simply put it means that you put yourself in the position of being hurt. It is this fear of incurring pain that prevents people from properly dating and in some cases not dating at all. In short vulnerability means two things: fear and pain. So how do you address these:

Deal with fear: Fear is borne out of the unknown. In other words, the more you know then the less you fear. On this basis it is vital to make enquiries about your date. In some cases this is comparatively easy as your potential date may already be in your circle of friends or part of your local community. However, in other situations you may be introduced to blind date or someone from a dating site. How to make enquiries is discussed in our video, Dating:Making Enquiries. However, here are four general rules:

know what to ask
know whom to ask
know how to ask
know how to interpret the results

Now let’s look at another example. Samantha is not interested in Jerry. However, she rejects him in a very aggressive way which causes unnecessary pain to Jerry. Samantha has maintained her boundaries but has achieved this using standards that betray a sense of insecurity and even arrogance. The correct response would have been, "Thank you for asking. You have a lot to offer but I’m into something else". Such an approach not only avoids hurt but helps endears Samantha to others because of her diplomacy.

Deal with pain:As noted fear is borne of out of the unknown. However, ironically fear also comes from what you already know if that has caused you pain. It is the ability to deal with pain that is vital for the dating process. In other words you cannot change the past but you can deal with your interpretation of it. On this basis pain is a relative concept. It is a vital catalyst for change provided that change leads to improvement. On the other hand pain become self defeating if it de-motivates you from dating or encourages repetitions of destructive behaviour that will sabotage a date. The ability to deal with pain very much depends on the rewards which awaits you if achieve your goals. So consider the following check list of pros and cons.

you are afraid to marry because it can lead to divorce, abuse, having your children taking away from you and so forth. But consider this: Such setbacks may have happened to someone else but this does not predicate that it will happen to you.
but what if these setups have happened to you? Remember, the past does not dictate the future unless you want it to happen. Why let your life slip away? Is it worth errecting your own prison and living your life alone. Remember the older you become the harder it can get.

Making yourself vulnerable in dating is unavoidable. But that is not an excuse to take steps to reduce the risks. It is the question of striking the right emotional balance to accept pain and fear as opportunities for growth rather than limiting factors and depriving yourself of your true life partner.

So for more examples on this and other dating tips please subscribe to our YouTube channel.