Dating, Business and Saying “Yes!” to Life

Been a while since I’ve posted here.  Let me give the quick rundown.

Whether it’s relationships, business (which IS about relationships), or anything else, you have to tell Life you are ready and willing to say, “Yes!”

Case in point.  I have an online dating profile on OKCupid.

Mostly, I use the profile for personal growth.  There’s something about attempting describe myself authentically knowing women will be reading it and judging me by what I wrote.  I both dig deeper to convey who I am and develop a deeper awareness of how I am.  How I describe myself can convey not only facts about me but also for example things like whether or not I am still hurting from prior relationships.  And I can see this come across in other people’s profiles, too.

The other reason I have the profile is to watch my reactions to reading profiles.  Yes, I really do read the profiles.  Usually, before I look at the pictures.  Am I feeling lonely?  Or needy?  I like to observe myself and get a feel for what is drawing me to the web site.  Why am I reading these bios?

I didn’t really have a good reason.   I’m feeling solid with who I am.  Comfortable being alone, too.  So I thought, maybe, it would be a good time to back off the online thing for a while?

Back to saying, “Yes!”

On the business side of my life, I had begun to start to say yes when opportunities presented themselves.  The effect has been kind of shocking to tell the truth.   How much have I been saying, “No!” to Life when it delivered what I had been asking for?

I’m thinking quite a bit.  No wonder I’ve felt so stuck.  I’ve been forcing myself to slog through mud!

I finally was able to put things together.  While I have been learning and growing while reading and writing profiles, I was only rarely writing to women.  Why?  It wasn’t because of  fear of rejection, at least directly.  Tango has helped my confidence tremendously around women.  I was holding back because of where I am in life.

Slowly growing a computer consulting company from nothing doesn’t leave a lot of money for dating.  Or for a nicer apartment.  Or dinners.  Or trips.  Etc.  The outer stuff.  Not that it’s not important.  We use money to survive in our culture.  I get it.

Did I really need to be saying no?  I’ve been avoiding even the possibility of a relationship.  In reality, all I can do is be happy with who I am in this moment and say yes to Life.  Being present and choosing to be happy does not depend on the state of other aspects of my life.  The more I thought about what I had been doing the more I understood I was constricting what was possible in Life.

Finally, putting it all together, one day I realized it was time to start saying, “Yes!” in my personal life.  Two days later, I received an email from a woman on OkCupid.  She saw my profile and reached out first.  After some emails back and forth, we have a date on St. Patrick’s Day.  I’m looking forward to meeting her.  She sounds very cool and is even interested in Argentine Tango.

Where do you restrict yourself by saying no to Life?  I’m very curious!  By sharing our thoughts we provide the possibility of a deep knowing for each other.

My original intention was to write a short post to share links with you about what men and women like.  One thing led to another and what you just read was born.  Here are those links:

For the ladies:

http://jamesmsama.com/2014/03/05/8-things-guys-secretly-love/

For the gentlemen:

http://jamesmsama.com/2014/03/07/8-things-she-secretly-loves/