how are you choosing a partner?
prioritizing our inner experience in dating & love
Most dating advice focuses on helping you get clear on what you want.
That approach makes sense: if you don’t know what you’re looking for, how are you supposed to find it?
But the end result of that clarity usually ends up being a list of characteristics.
“I want someone I’m attracted to, someone who is ambitious, is emotionally available, has been to therapy, loves animals…”
In turn, a good amount of dating discourse is arguing over which characteristics we should seek.
But what if we could go a step deeper?
getting clear on the internal experience we want
When we say we want to date someone who is ambitious, what do we mean?
Another way to phrase this is: “when my partner has ambition, what does that do for me? What experience does that give me?”
Your answers might be something like:
safety: since they will likely continue to strive in their career, I know our financial future is secure
attraction: I find ambition sexy, and having a career they’re passionate about is a turn-on
confidence: if they can stick to an ambitious goal for years, then I know they’re capable of committing to me
relaxation: when I know my partner is intrinsically motivated to improve their situation, I don’t have to worry so much
Maybe it’s all of the above, or maybe it’s something else entirely. The idea here is that when we say “I want my partner to be ambitious” we’re actually saying something like “I want to feel relaxed around my partner” or “I want to feel safe around my partner”.
Their ambition is just a way of accessing that internal experience.
prioritizing the internal
Let’s use another example. Let’s say you want someone who is really emotionally vulnerable, someone who can and will communicate what they’re feeling. That, in turn, makes you feel relaxed, because you don’t have to guess if they’re mad or upset.
The internal experience we’re seeking, what we actually want, is relaxation. Emotional honesty is one way to access that relaxation.
But when we’re dating, it can be really hard to figure out if someone is emotionally honest. People can give mixed signals, or be vulnerable in some areas but not others.
Validating whether the external characteristics you’re seeking exist in another person to the extent that you desire can be confusing.
Much less confusing is this question: “do I feel relaxed around this person?”
Or: “Is this person helping me access more relaxation in my life?”
Instead of playing detective with another person’s personality, we now get to turn our attention inwards, towards how we’re feeling. In return, we get a much clearer answer.
But we can make it even more clear.
noticing the patterns
While our moment-to-moment experience is an invaluable source of insight, it can change rather quickly.
Sometimes it’s hard to tune into how we’re really feeling, especially when caught up in the nerves & excitement of going on a date.
Fortunately, our emotional experience reveals itself through our patterns of behaviour. We can gather evidence on how we’re feeling through how we’re showing up around that person.
If I’m clear that I want to feel warmth when I’m around my future partner, then I can look at how I acted on a date. Did I show up as the warmest version of myself? Did the other person’s presence make embodying that warmth easier or harder?
The ultimate version of this question is “do I show up as my favourite version of myself around this person?”
This question incorporates everything we’ve been discussing: it centers our attention on our internal experience, using the lens of our patterns of behaviour.
It also avoids us having to do extensive analysis of whether this person is a “match” based on a list of characteristics we think we should be seeking.
Lastly, it leaves room for people to surprise us: someone may have few of your desired characteristics, but something about them makes it really easy for you to be who you truly want to be. Sounds like love to me!
go deeper
We can take one last step, to make this whole process a big loop.
Ask yourself: when are you your favourite version of yourself? Around which people? In what environment?
What is it about those people that brings out that side of you? What qualities do they have that seems to make that version of you come forward?
Now we can arrive back at a list of characteristics we’re seeking, but deeply informed by our own internal experience. And the list isn’t our ultimate source of truth, as we’ll always return to the question of “who am I around this person?”
If you want to explore what this means to you, consider these journal prompts:
When I think of my favourite version of myself, what is that person like? What feelings do they have abundant access to? How do they show up on a date?
When do I have the easiest time being that version of me? Around which people? What qualities do those people have?
What feelings are most important for me to experience with a potential partner? Have I been prioritizing those feelings?
thank you
This is the first edition of my weekly newsletter, and I appreciate you being here so much.
With love,
Scott