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…RIGHT NOW!
In the Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis describes the present as the point of time in our experience which most resembles eternity. It is the only time where choices can be made that can result in happiness, or unhappiness later.
About a week ago, I met up with a girl I had briefly went out with a year ago. We got to talking about dating and related issues and I was open and honest with her. I described how I should have “handled” some of her behavior in the past. She had a problem with cancelling at the last minute, and back then I put up with it, even when it was clear that it was done for reasons that basically stated that I wasn’t a priority. As we spent the evening together, she got flirty, touched my hip, etc., things she didn’t do while we were dating. In short I acted like a man, and by the end of our time she wanted to get back together.
I told her no. Nice enough girl, but not for me.
The point being, she reacted to the way I was acting RIGHT THEN. How I acted in the past was not nearly as real to her as the way I was acting right then.
If you screw up, the tendency is to either retreat or overcompensate, as a way of distancing yourself from a mistake. None of that really works, it can usually be sensed for what it is. We all know how desperate “try hard” behavior is kind of repulsive. The guy who tries too hard to be funny, or puts on macho airs, is a figure of fun.
If attracting women can be narrowed down to one quality it is “manliness”, the quality of being a man. If you do so something “unmanly”, like act insecure, for example, the only cure is to start acting manly right now. Not to overcompensate, clearly the action of an unmanly guy trying to bolster himself in the eyes of others, or show cowardice, perhaps the deadliest failing regarding “manliness”, but to act manly.
Acting manly puts more money in the account that you just drew from by screwing up. As a result your mistakes will more than likely be forgiven and blown past like they didn’t happen. One of the greatest lessons I learned is that people are really forgiving if you bring extra value into their life. On the darkside, this is why sometimes even really great girls will stick with guys are contemptible, but manly, just because the attraction is “too strong”.
You can’t go back in time, and you can’t act in the future. No doubt rectifying past mistakes and planning for the future are good things to do, but everything important definitionally happens in the present. Focus your efforts there and making yourself secure, your confidence and personal power will grow,
It doesn’t happen any other way,
Michael D.
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