Equilibrium, Truthfulness, Fears, Blind Spots

Those are 4 key issues brought up by Rabbi Netanel Frankenthal in this fascinating and very useful video on dating.

Are you in equilibrium? Have you, within the past 2 years, been making dramatic changes in your life? Have you done making changes? How sure are you?

If you’re now thinking you’d like to study an hour a day and gradually work your way up to studying half a day and working half a day, perhaps you should hold your horses. In 3-6 months you may want to study all day. Or work all day.

Assuming you have the time and can afford to be patient… be patient.

Here are some questions on being stable in your personality and identity.

Truthfulness… Who are you really?

What matters to you? Not just in theory, but what practically matters and to what extent?

Be honest how much looks are important to you.

Think about what may be of secondary importance to you. Rabbi Frankenthal gives some interesting examples in the video of things that matter less.

He also shares valuable questions to ask yourself to know yourself better.

And others to understand what aspects of life to value and pay attention to. Also, how can you find out certain things, like her behaviour around kids? That’s in the video too…

Fears colour how we understand what others are saying.

I can share a tragicomic story about that from my own personal experience. I’m not very comfortable on the phone, so I tend to minimize how much I phone girls I’m dating, and procrastinate when I can’t eliminate a call’s necessity entirely.

This one time, a girl had shown she was interested at a party we were both at. I followed up for the following weekend, but she had plans.

The next Saturday night, I called, and the procrastination meant she already had plans. To go to ‘opera’ with friends.

I felt pretty insulted. As a guy, one of your natural inhibitions is the fear of rejection/embarassment.

When she told me she was going to ‘opera’ I took it like a slap in the face. Not only was she turning me down, but on top of it she had the nerve to give me some blatantly false excuse that I’d immediately know was false. What 19/20 year old goes to the opera on a Saturday night?? Ouch!

My reaction was pretty childish – I insulted her, thinking I was just returning the favour.

You can imagine my real embarassment when she responded, ‘opera – the [night]club’. Not opera in the sense of fancy Italian singing. Not Pavarotti. Opera – the place where people go dancing. D’oh!

Rabbi Frankenthal explains more on the topic, as well as the notion of blind spots in dating. Check it out!