A date with me...

I believe that life is a continuous battle with oneself... If you are not able to find something in life, is not because is not out there, but because you are too blind, too narcissistic, too uptight, too... YOURSELF to find it...

I believe that we are the only one who is stopping us from finding what we want and therefore, a self-check might be needed if you are not obtaining the desired results... so here I go...

I feel that I am over-judging all my dates from a self-centred, narcissistic point of view... So, I would like to try to imagine how would it be to go on a date with me from their point of view..... Maybe they are not the frogs.... but I am... I wish I could collect first-hand feedback from them.... but I guess that even if I could, people are too polite anyway to say what they think...

I will try my best to find all my flaws... and maybe after this exercise, I will be more empathetic with my dates' experience and I would be able to understand them a bit better... Is it me the problem and reason that I am still single....?

The ME Story...

I guess that the first physical characteristic that you might notice is my height... or lack of it... I am 5'3 (160cm) and I never considered myself a small person until recently I one of my dates pointed it out ... (thanks for undermining my self-confidence there... I wonder why we didn't work out... but that's another story that I will write soon...)... I have also been told on several occasions that I have big eyes...

I always love this comment because big doesn't mean pretty... but yeah, I have big dark eyes.... and I have also been told that they have the power to penetrate into someone's soul... just like a superhero (obviously the person that made this comment had me in high regard...)... but sometimes I do feel that it is true as if I have ever felt a connection with someone it was always by looking deep into their eyes and feeling a bit of a tingling in my heart....  but I guess that this is universal for everyone that has ever find him/herself into someone's eyes...

Apart from my eyes, people also tend to complement my hair, it used to be light brown with a hint of reddish under the sun, but these days are looking darker and duller (I guess that I haven't found the right combination of hair products for this humid and cloudy weather yet...)...

I think that they made these comments about my big (not pretty) eyes and hair in the same way that people talk about the weather, as a distraction mechanism to ignore the elephant in the room.... in this case, my Jewish-like nose...

Someone told my dad that originally my family name came from Israel and I think that my nose proves this theory... some people do have a thing for this type of nose... a guy once was fascinated by my nose and asked me if he could bite it (I love to chat up lines of straight drunk guys on clubs....) also, several Chinese friends told me that in Asia people go through plastic surgery to get this type of nasal bridge... On the contrary, here in Europe, we go through surgery to get rid of it... I guess that beauty norms change among different cultures... (Should I move to China...?)

By the way, I guess that at this point of the blog, you have also realised that I tend to 'exaggerate' a bit my comments... I don't call it exaggerating, but just having a very fictional-oriented way to describe events.

I tend to caricature reality in an attempt to make it more interesting and happy, so whenever I say that someone was freakingly tall, like the Polish-looking accountant in my story, I mean that they were very tall.... I've also been told by a reader that knows me in real life that my nose doesn't strike as much as I say.... but I like to create a parallel universe in my mind a bit like Tim Burton's universe in Big Fish...


In terms of personality... well, I think that I change among situations and company, so if I am very nervous because I like my date I probably will talk more than I should and will interrupt the conversation more than I should...., something that according to the infinite number of self-improvement books that I have read, is the worst thing that you can do...

I guess that unconsciously I want to give a good impression by commenting on things, making jokes, etc. but it ends up having the opposite effect... So, here we have one problem I need to keep working on Shutting myself up and practising active listening...

I also tend to pre-judge people but hate when people do that to me... so these days I'm also working on that... every one of us has so many layers and complex personalities so, forming an image about someone's personality from one small piece of information is not a good practice...

How many times have I been surprised by people that I thought fell into a category but suddenly discovered a whole new side of them...? and how many times I have received a comment from a date about me (such as... you are this way or you have this kind of personality....) and I thought that the person has very narrowed minded as they judged me without knowing me...?

I guess its just human behaviour, we like to classify people in our minds, to create shortcuts to understand the world around us when actually people are dynamic and have a lot of different layers and sides that we miss to perceive because we are too busy imposing our own simplified version of reality into their personality...

Another thing that my dates probably have noticed is that I don't know how to put a poker face, I am quite the opposite, you might be able to read my thoughts through the combination of my muscle movements from my face, just like Paul Ekman does in its book Unmasking the Face...  and sometimes my expressions and my real feelings get mixed up giving the wrong message (for example, my face maybe saying 'no' when my mind still processing the situation but still haven't decided on the answer).


I do smile a lot, and that is always good... people have told me before, that I give a good vibe because I smile a lot.... even during spin classes... (is it weird that I smile during exercise...?)

I also like to compliment people from the bottom of my heart, so I tend to make complements about whatever I think is nice... but I don't know how to react when they make a compliment about me... and I probably put my "confusion face".... or I say something completely unrelated or change the subject, for example, if I receive a compliment about my clothes:

       - Nice shirt...
 I will always tend to answer with the price I paid for the item (Why do I do that...?), so my answer will be something like:

       - Thanks, I bought it at half price in that shop on the corner of.... and when I saw it I thought to myself.... but then.....

Too long... I should have just smiled and said thanks..., but I don't know how to take a compliment.... especially if it comes from a pretty girl...

Furthermore, even if I am super good at reading situations and external behaviour when it comes to signs of someone liking me or not... I am a mess...

I overthink people's signs to the point that they lose their meaning and I get very confused... so if you ever go on a date with me and like me... you need to be explicit and say: I LIKE YOU because I become socially retarded whenever I am around someone I find attractive...

I guess I might not be the best date that someone can ever have... I never buy flowers or chocolates as I always overthink how the other person might react... and possibly I overthink too many situations to the point that I lose a lot of opportunities.....

Also, despite the fact that I seem to be very confident in my everyday life, I am super shy when it comes to externalising my feelings, and I know that if you don't put yourself out there, you won't ever find if the other person feels the same way... but I either not say anything or if I do... I do it in a very awkward and retarded way...

I guess that when it comes to love and feelings I am a complete idiot....

Self-portrait taken in Brussels (January 2012)

So... I guess that after all, a good part of my spinsterhood is due to me... and not to the amazing and beautiful women that I have met online... "It's not you... it is me...." (....if I got a penny every time I heard this.... or I have said it....).... but this time it might actually be true...