Master Feminine Overthink and be a Dating Boss
It takes emotional courage to ride the ups and down of dating, especially when you’re ready for something more meaningful. They say it’s supposed to be fun but it doesn’t feel that way when we like someone and we’re not too sure if the feeling is fully reciprocated. Sometimes the real problem is that we allow Feminine Overthink to steal our joy and dip us into a state of dating insecurity.
The problem: Feminine Overthink
Women know all about Feminine Overthink. We are natural born detectives and journalists, always looking for the story behind the story.
Whenever someone “spills the tea” to us, we drink it down then and then study the tea leaves. What can I say- we’re just more evolved that way. Always on the lookout for the subtext. We gather friends to translate and parse info guys give us...the sparse text, the suspect statement, the ambiguous emojis.
Examples where Feminine Overthink serves us well:
Interacting with those we don’t trust.
Refereeing arguing kids.
Dealing with other women (because we all know there’s what a woman says, then there’s what she means).
So it’s actually a very useful skill to have. All I’m saying is you need to manage it so it doesn’t manage you.
How Feminine Overthink causes Insecurity
Here’s a typical Mars-Venus conversation:
HER: “Hey, are we still on for the gallery opening tonight? It starts at 7.”
HIM: “Mmm, if you don’t mind, I really think I just wanna stay here and watch the game.”
SHE THINKS: Why didn’t he just say that when I first asked him? What’s going on? Why doesn’t he want to come? Should I blow off the gallery and watch the game with him? Wait…does he like basketball more than me?
(Her mood is shot and she’s a ball of insecurity.)
What is going on?
This guy is trying to bail on an artsy outing. Since she doesn’t really seem to know if he’d even enjoy this, let’s assume they haven’t been dating all that long. If there’s been a pattern of him cancelling dates, I’d say yeah, this is a Red Flag. If that’s not his usual m.o., I feel she ought to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Then she starts second guessing herself and getting inside her head. She even wonders if she should cancel her plans and stay in with him. She’s totally confused, her night is a wash!
Here are 3 things to try to combat dating insecurity and maintain your inner peace:
1. Direct Communication can give Overthink less to Chew on.
She needs to get out of her head and try some straight talk. If it’s important he come with her, she should just tell him so, and then they can figure it out. Maybe they’ll decide he needs to consult the game schedule before he says yes next time. Maybe she’ll find out he hates art and just said yes to please her. It’s not always the worst case scenario you fear and it’s not always about you!
Why did he take 2 hours to text me back? What is he doing in Vegas with his boys? Refuse to be eaten alive by suspicions. This will work your nerves, leave you moody and unable to enjoy your life. If you’re troubled by something he actually did-then bring it up in conversation and talk about it.
In other situations, when a guy’s words don’t match up with his actions repeatedly, you’ll be frustrated because your relationship won’t have any traction. While it’s true that life gets in the way of the best laid plans sometimes, we need to step back and think: Do things add up here? Does his story really make sense? Are you being so compassionate, so understanding, so in love with the potential of your relationship that you’re making it easy for him to sell you on a dream in your head? Sometimes you just have to calmly lay down the law and call people on their bull$&!^ “When you don’t do what you say you will, it breaks the trust I have in you. I need to be able to trust the person I’m with”. If he turns it on you and blames you for over-reacting, you’ll be disappointed, but at least you now know not to waste anymore time with him. You’ve been set free.
2. Gate your Brain and your Guard your Zen
Look at your brain as a river of thoughts. A rushing, churning river ready to dart down any new channels it comes across. So you ‘re talking to this promising new guy and doing what everyone does: poring over his social media pages, parsing his texts for deeper meaning and talking about him all day. Now your thoughts have more channels to flow through that lead to him or around him.
It’s harmless, right? Umm, well, here’s the thing. Bombarding your head with too much trivia about a man, especially one you’re still sizing up (and vice versa) can artificially inflate his importance and relevance in your life. The internet leaves “cookies” in your brain, not just your hard drive. I call it Inappropriate Brain Preoccupation (IBP), and at its most extreme, you’d call it obsession.
It can cause beginnings that don’t pan out into anything substantial to become more traumatic than they ought to be. And that’s a problem because most beginnings don’t end up becoming anything more.
In fact, sometimes when we’re being perfectly honest about it, we’re more stressed about the lost dream, the potential floating through our heads, more than the actual relationship that was-or wasn’t.
3. Don’t Try to Get to the Bottom of Everything Men Do.
It’s like in the movies where the spy is suddenly yanked off the case by his boss (under pressure from higher powers in the government), citing some flimsy reason.
Really? Give it up just like that? Never get to the bottom of it?
Yes.
I know this sounds scary because usually when a woman doesn’t care, it’s a bad sign. She’s switched off! We just need to try and date in the space between switching off and being able to live without having all the answers.
As much as men love portraying us as incomprehensible creatures, their behavior can be pretty baffling too. Take ghosting, for example. You think you’e made a connection with someone but then you never hear from him again. Here are a few actual reasons cited by men:
- He didn’t feel a connection
- He felt a connection but doesn’t want what you want relationship-wise
- There’s someone else he’s dating he meshes with better
- He’s not looking for the committed relationship you want
- He saw your $5000 designer bag and felt you’d be too high maintenance
But he probably doesn’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you any of this, so he ghosts. Besides, they think, being honest wouldn’t change anything.
Try and remember-it’s not always about you.
Life is complicated and sometimes when these things happen they are not always a reaction to you or anything about you. Sometimes it’s about his baggage and hang ups, but he’s not easily going to admit that to you. He may not even have the self awareness to understand it himself. Now, if you’re supposed to be in an exclusive relationship and he drops out of sight for a while then tries to carry on like nothing happened, either you’re the woman on the side or he’s the secret agent. You’ve got valid reason to wonder. But worrying about the what-ifs and motivations behind his every move will drive you nuts. You can’t control anyone’s actions and if you can’t trust him you really shouldn’t be with him. This realization is liberating!
You can’t control anyone’s actions and if you can’t trust him you really shouldn’t be with him.
Relationship nerd that I am, I find that dating strategy often brings up parallels in my mind with war strategy. As the famous Chinese military general Sun Tzu once said: “Know yourself and you will win all battles.”
Our Feminine Overthink is a part of us. We just need to make sure we’re standing on her shoulders- and not the other way round!
