“He/She isn’t my type.” Most of us have said it, but all of us have heard someone say it. People have preferences in all aspects of life, but one of the biggest mistakes a 20-something-year-old can make is pigeonholing themselves into a single “type” of person when dating. Now, it should be noted that I am using the word dating in the most casual sense. I refer to dating as in going out and having a good time, not dating as in moving in together and getting a dog.
One of the best things to do while you’re young is date someone you swore you’d never date. There is no better time to date this person than in your 20’s. You may close yourself off to only dating your type, but in all reality, your “type” is some weird science Frankenstein creation that doesn’t exist anywhere outside your mind. It’s when we go out looking for our type and fail time after time that we get frustrated and end up rushing into a relationship that is horrible for our long-term success. The relationship ends up affecting not only our love lives, but also careers, social lives, family lives, EVERYTHING.
It’s not until you’ve reached out of your comfort zone that you can really even have a type. Most people will go from failed relationship to failed relationship and blame each fail on the individual it didn’t work out with. What people need to do is date someone who is absolutely the opposite of what they’re looking for.
If you say you’d never date a musician/actor/model/athlete, and you find yourself in a situation where a person of that classification becomes a potential date, go for it. Realistically, it won’t take long before you realize they are bat-sh*t crazy, and you were right anyway, but at least you did it. You will become a better person for going through the experience.
You don’t date people shorter or taller than you are, people with short or long hair, people with tattoos, people who listen to a certain type of music, people who don’t share your religious beliefs, people who aren’t in the same industry/field as you, or someone who f*cks on the first date? The list of reasons why an individual won’t date someone goes on and on. Throw your list of reasons out the window. Don’t be afraid, and most importantly, don’t limit yourself.
Look, I am not saying everyone should just date/sleep with everyone, and we should slowly turn our society into one giant Hedonism resort. The point I am trying to get across is that so many people are miserable because they have some wild expectation that their favorite character from their favorite movie is going to follow them on twitter any day now, which will blossom into the most perfect relationship of all time. So many people are so busy on the quest for exactly what they think they want, they miss out on some of the best opportunities that present themselves on a daily, or nightly basis.
Generation-Y has become such a picky generation. It’s not because we know what’s good for us, but because we can see what is good for everyone else. The age of social media has enhanced three things: people connecting, people complaining and people bragging. People now sit around on social media sites all day, either looking at a friend’s life, a stranger’s life, or the lives of celebrities; then, they develop the feeling that they “want that life.” Before social media, people organically formed opinions and feelings about what they wanted and why they wanted what they wanted. Those opinions came from having an experience, having a moment, or creating a feeling that only real life can create. Now, people make decisions based off of the way a stranger’s photo looks and how many likes it’s gotten.
When you stop looking for the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend as if they were a perfectly arranged Pinterest board, you’ll come across something even better than you imagined. It may or may not come in the form of a relationship. It could be a life lesson, it could be the motivation you need to better yourself, or it could just be a really good f*cking time. Out of those four scenarios, if you are smart, none of them will turn out bad for you.
Scenario one is the fairytale scenario. This has you dating outside your type, finding someone who you’d never see yourself dating, and later realizing this person is exactly what you’ve been missing in all of your previously failed relationships. Scenario two is the lesson-learned scenario. This has you dating outside your type, being cheated on, lied to, treated poorly, and being flat out miserable. To that, all you can do is move on and use what you’ve learned during that sh*tty relationship to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Scenario three is the motivational scenario.
This will usually occur when the person doesn’t date anyone like himself or herself. If you are a miserable, lazy asshole who never compromises, you typically don’t want to date that person. So in this scenario, you do end up dating someone like yourself and realize how big of a piece of sh*t you have become. Then hopefully, once it falls apart, you have some sort of epiphany that the reason you’re so miserable and alone is because you’ve been treating people the way you were treated in the past. Scenario four is the good time scenario. This has you not only ditching your type, but pretty much stepping out of your element altogether.
In this scenario, you end up doing something you never thought you’d do, with the person you never thought you’d do it with and having the time of your life. That could be anything from skydiving, getting a tattoo, travelling somewhere, partying in a way or place you never imagined, or doing things in bed that you swore you’d never try. Any way this scenario plays out, you now have an opinion on relationships the old fashion way - by actually experiencing it, instead of seeing someone else experience it for you.
The way I look at it, if you are actively dating/pursuing a relationship with your “type,” yet, still single, then either the majority of your partners are all bad apples, or you might be the one that needs to be tossed. At the end of the day, if you’re exploring your options, what do you have to lose?
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