"It's Not You 27 (Wrong) Reasons You're Single" by Sara Eckel
Chapter: You're Too Negative
Concerned about global warming? Apalled by the way money corrupts the democratic process? Notice that the restaurant manager is bullying his staff? If you're on a date, better keep those observations to yourself.
Experts might disagree on how assertive or vulnerable or chatty one should be with the opposite sex, but on the subject of optimism we see near universal consensus: Smile, sweetheart.
And who could argue with that? We all know people who whine endlessly, or whose depression puts them in a state of near paralysis. So obviously certain conversation topics—your meth-addicted father, your knee surgery—usually make lousy getting-to-know-you conversation fodder.
But most of us already have the social grace to not overshare about our tax audits or plantar warts. Unfortunately, the incessant mantra of "be positive" implies that anyone who doesn't like her job or has a complicated relationship with her family—a fairly wide swatch of the population—must paper over these edgy truths with perky platitudes about bosses who are tough but fair.
Even though I've always had what I consider a . . . realistic view of life, I tried to obey the common wisdom and keep it light and upbeat when dating.
Sometimes the tone would stay that way, and we'd have a pleasant enough evening, talking about the work we enjoyed and vacations we were looking forward to. But those dates are mostly forgotten. The really good dates were the ones where we shed the positivity facade fairly quickly. The ones where we talked about divorce and stepfamilies and melting ice caps. The ones where we forgot to censor ourselves, forgot to sell ourselves and just were ourselves—two somewhat lonely human beings trying to figure it all out. (One of the things I liked about Internet dating was that it brings everyone to ground level—when you meet online with a Saturday-at-ten-p.m. time stamp, you can't play the my-life-is-amazing card.)
Obviously, I'm not everyone's dream date. Sure some people would prefer that, when asked about your loathsome job, you take the advice of one pop psychologist: "Well, I don't know if I can say the work is fun, but the people are great!" Some people hate the sound of bad news.
On the other hand, some of us hate the sound of bullshit. Some of us would rather hear, "You know, I've been doing this for fifteen years and I don't like the direction my profession is headed in, and I'm honestly pretty confused about what to do next." Whether a person is a "downer" or refreshingly honest is a matter of taste.
Still, even if the dating gurus go overboard, wouldn't cultivating a positive attitude be a, you know, positive thing to do?
Not necessarily. In The Antidote: Happiness for People who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, journalist Oliver Burkeman explains how trying to suppress negative thoughts can actually make them more prevalent, a phenomena called "ironic process theory."
Most of us have done the thought experiment where you're instructed not to think of pink elephants, and then of course discover that trying to banish anything from your mind makes it more prevalent—trying not to think of pink elephants wildly ratchets up your awareness of pink elephants. This is why instructions to "think positively" don't work. "A person who has resolved to 'think positively' must constantly scan his or her mind for negative thoughts—there's no other way the mind could ever gauge its success at the operation—yet that scanning will draw attention to the presence of negative thoughts," wrote Burkeman.
In one experiment, people who were told not to feel sad about an unfortunate event were more distressed than those who received no instruction. Another study found that anxiety sufferers who listened to relaxation tapes had faster heart rates than those who listened to audiobooks on non-relaxation-related topics. After the death of a loved one, people who suppress their grief take longer to heal than those who allow themselves to feel the pain of their loss. And it turns out, positive affirmations aren't just embarrassing—one study found that people with low self-esteem actually felt worse after reciting the affirmation "I am a lovable person."
"From this perspective, the relentless cheer of positive thinking begins to seem less like an expression of joy and more like a stressful effort to stamp out any trace of negativity. . . . A positive thinker can never relax, lest an awareness of sadness or failure creep in," wrote Burkeman in the New York Times.
The "be positive" advice makes you fear the dark. You've got all the lights turned on, constantly vigilant. Rather than trying to eradicate negativity, Burkeman takes inspiration from the Buddhists: It's a far more effective strategy to clearly see unfortunate circumstances or unpleasant emotions for what they are—part of life, nothing to freak out about. He sums up this philosophy with words from 1960s counterculture philosopher Alan Watts: "When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink. But when you try to sink, you float."
This is the best dating advice I've ever heard. Instead of suppressing whatever cocktail of feelings—anxiety, ambivalence, lust—that's brewing as you walk into that restaurant, why not just note them and barrel on ahead?
Dating is an act of outrageous vulnerability. You're leaving the comfort of your home and your friends to subject yourself to the scrutiny of strangers. You're sliding into that restaurant booth, plopping your laptop and gym bag on the floor, and saying, "Hi, I'm Sara. Let's see if we can start a life together, shall we?"
It doesn't get more optimistic than that.
"Its Not You" on Amazon.com"The Antidote" on Amazon.com
"The Positive Power of Negative Thinking" New York Times
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