[00:00:00] Welcome to the Closeness podcast. The following is based on both personal experiences and wisdom, as well as personal experiences that have been contributed to us. Generalizations are sometimes made for the sake of brevity, but are never meant to exclude or offend. Regardless of your gender identity, relationship status preferences, or sexual orientation, it's our sincere hope that you can take away something positive, constructive, and useful from each topic explored. You can support these podcasts by donating to our
[email protected] Closeness now, are you ready to come closer? Let's get started. Today we are discussing a very difficult subject. It's actually one of the more painful subjects on the planet today, and it's something that we often can't do very much about. And that is what to do when someone likes you more than you like them, and what to do when you like someone more than they like you. I've always felt that this is a subject that is particularly cruel when it comes to the human condition. Insofar as we don't get to choose who we like, who we dislike, and we certainly have no control over whether they will like us back, we don't choose who we do this to and who this happens to. I think all of us have been on both sides of this. Let's start by talking about what happens when someone likes you more than you like them, because it's likely that you haven't thought about their feelings and the impact that you have by how you treat them. When that happens, what do you do? Most people shut down, freeze, run away, ignore, call the whole thing off. Say it's too much, too quick, get alarmed, get worried. Feel like you never want to talk to the person again. Do you recognize yourself in any of this? This could be someone that you're exploring something with that's actually going very well. You might be sleeping together, dating, spending time together. But as soon as that person feels more than you feel, what are some words that you might use to describe that? A red flag? Dangerous. Call them clingy or nEedy. A low class way of wording. It is calling someone a staged five or level ten clinger. Oh my God, they said I love you so fast. So what wells up in us is this feeling of our own fear and a need to hit the eject button. Have you ever thought about what happens when you are in their shoes and you like someone more than they like you? Even if this person is a perfect stranger, a waitress or a waiter, someone who you know at work or someone who runs in your community that you've got a crush on. If that person doesn't know you exist and your heart's set on them, your heart is full of emotion. You feel so much appreciation for this person, you put them on a pedestal. You see them as love and light. You see them as the greatest thing ever. You want to have them in your life. You might find yourself in a position where you actually sacrifice a lot for them. You make yourself more available, wait around for them, do extra things to help them or listen to their problems and their story. What happens when you're that person? When you're on the receiving end of being shut down, turned down, rejected, maybe even being verbally abused? Maybe they start acting weird or distant or cold toward you and you're very confused. You've been nothing but wonderful to them, and you don't know why they're behaving that way. So you're giving someone a version of your heart, your kindness, your love, and the way it's being received and treated is smashing it to pieces. None of this comes from one or two or ten personal experiences here. This is everyone's life story from the time we were teenagers and even before. And it's extremely painful to be so open and vulnerable, whether you're a man or a woman and not just put yourself on the line and be rejected. But usually the way that people go about rejecting you is very ugly. Because what are we actually hoping for or wanting? I don't want to say expecting, but what are we hoping is going to happen when we share ourselves with someone else or when we like them? We're hoping they feel the same way, obviously. But at the very least, if they're going to be the ones who are custodians of our hearts or our emotions, that they'll have some tact or some care, some consideration, some respect, some love, some sensitivity. But what most of us wind up doing is defaulting into some really, really low class behavior. We're colder, we're curt. We cut them off. We cut off contact with them. We treat them worse than other people who we don't know. This is too much. This is too complicated. I'm too sensitive. I can't handle this right now. And more often than not, there's no sympathy or sensitivity to the other person's vulnerability. We just don't want to get caught up in them liking us too much. So the first thing I want to put forth is that anytime you're in a position where someone's been vulnerable with you, open with you, shared their light or their energy, or their affection with you. Even if you're not attracted to them, it's really worth acknowledging that this is a gift. It's a gift to be liked and appreciated and adored and respected. So it's really important that you are patient with them, that you take time to honor their feelings. And at the very least, that you're just respectable, considerate, sweet and friendly. Not fake, not brushing them off, but just a thorough acknowledgment of how you feel. And this type of thing doesn't have to take very long. But it's really about sincerity and authenticity rather than fakeness. Closed offness, being shut down and distant and cold and not knowing what to do because you're uncomfortable. You are not in the uncomfortable position here. The person who's putting themselves out there is in much more of an uncomfortable state. You're not obligated to be with them, date them, marry them, sleep with them. You are under no obligation to do anything. Most of us live in a world today where we are onto the next. Onto the next. I don't want to waste my time. Let's get on with it. Swipe right, swipe left. I don't care. I'm not interested. This doesn't matter. Get over it. Everything is so me focused. And that's a problem.
[00:06:15] There is value to having a tougher skin, to being able to withstand rejection, to being tough in the world. Yeah, we need that. But we don't need it all the time. And we don't need to be the ones deciding if we're going to inflict that on other people. We often forget that we are not an island. In other words, we are not the center of our universe with no one else around us, all by ourselves on some island where it's up to us to fend for ourselves. We need other people for almost every component of our lives, whether it's technology, food, shelter, water, power. Everything is dependent on us needing to cohabitate with and interact with other people, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. Being sincere, respectful, thoughtful and loving is of paramount importance. Sure, we could pretend for a while that nothing else matters except ourselves, and watch how quickly we lose friends and lose trust and lose people wanting to spend time with us. We could hide all of that with makeup and clothes and hats and sunglasses and acting way too cool. But we all know it doesn't feel good on the inside to treat people poorly. And if we're really sincere, it's a direct reflection of how we care for and treat ourselves. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard of empathy, caring, love, respect. And this is for all men, all women, all people, every country, every continent. Learning how to be empathetic and how to emote and how to be sensitive to other people's feelings does not take days, weeks and hours. It does not chew up an enormous amount of your time. But what it does do is take you off the hook and disconnect you in a healthy way from having ties to someone where there's tension, frustration and irritation. When you authentically communicate your feelings to someone that you're not interested or you don't want to be with them, they get the message and they are no longer attached to you. And that's huge. What are some simple ways you can communicate Your truth to someone? I really appreciate your interest, but I definitely do not want this to go any further. I authentically do not feel the same way about you that you feel about me. I'm sorry. And there's a difference in delivery as well. Feel the difference between I'm just not into it, sorry and I just don't think you're attractive. Sorry, no disrespect. That's not an authentic apology or a sincere offering of your heart. How about I don't feel the same attraction that you feel toward me, but I really do appreciate your interest. I'm really not interested in pursuing anything with you at this point.
[00:08:53] How you reject someone, it really takes a lot of care and I think especially women, because you're so used to being hit on that your sensitivity level to how you reject becomes very, again, knee jerk like you swat men away like flies. You disregard them or brush them off. And you forget how bad it hurts you when you're rejected. Now, most importantly, if you do communicate your feelings to someone that you're not interested in them, your actions should really line up with your words. You can't continue to have sex with someone, but also tell them that you're not interested in them and expect them to think that you're serious. I think there's huge value in communicating that you enjoy having sex with someone, but you know 100% that it's not going to go any further. That is a critical sentence. And then the person can decide for themselves if they want to keep having sex with you. But being crystal, crystal clear, I know I do not want to move this into a relationship. This is just something casual for me, or this is just something that I enjoy for a little bit of fun. And if you're good with that, I'd love to continue sleeping with you, et cetera. But I understand if you need to move on or not. Let your heart get involved. Wow. If a woman told me that, that she's willing to continue to have sex with me, but she knows it's not going to go anywhere, and I have the choice of whether I want to pursue it or not without my feelings getting involved, that's incredible. All right. What do you do if you find yourself in the position of spending time with someone who you like more? You feel it and you know it, and you want to know what to do about it? Maybe you're having sex, you're spending time together, you're seeing each other from time to time, maybe hanging out and even maybe being taken out to different dinners and events. What I've found is if it's a woman who's on this end of it, she has to close the whole thing down, shut it all off, never speak again, end communications and end ties. It seems like this is very fear based fear because she doesn't want to get hurt, so she has to close off all of her emotions. To that, I say, how good is it? How much are you enjoying spending time with this person? Are they everything you've wanted? And they treat you really wonderfully, but maybe they're just not emotionally there, or they're not willing to commit to you at the time. If you're in a good situation like that and you're not in a hurry to have children, or you feel like you need to be living in a house with kids and a dog, et cetera, et cetera. I actually am a big proponent of staying with something like this. Rather than pressing the eject button or using terrible language like, it's not going anywhere anyway. I don't want to waste my time. What am I doing if it's not working, if there's more positive things than negative, I think it's worth staying in it. If you can trust your heart and your emotions and if you know how to handle yourself in situations like this. I'm a fan of staying with it because you can actually learn so much. Having a true, authentic connection with someone is amazing. And every time you get to look into someone's eyes, every time you get to have incredible, hot, passionate sex or do something fun or go to an event, you are not wasting time. You're growing. Your heart is expanding. You're sharing closeness and intimacy, and that's a very good thing.
[00:12:18] If you had never had a papaya before and I introduced you to this juicy, succulent fruit whose flesh was soft and taste was sweet. And you knew by looking at it, it was going to be the most incredible, succulent, tasty thing you've ever had in your mouth. But I told you, if you have this one, you can never have another one again. You'll never be able to enjoy that taste again. Would you say, don't let me taste it? I don't want to try it. I don't want to know what it's like. What about an experience like being in another country or someplace very exclusive and very exotic? But you knew it can only happen once. When I'm saying once, I'm referring to how special and unique another human being is.
[00:13:05] There's never going to be another man or woman who's identical to the qualities that you're in love with. And so I'm a big fan of, really, in a healthy way, milking it, savoring it, enjoying it for what it is. You just have to make sure that you're metering your emotions, checking in with yourself regularly, seeing if you can handle it. But there's nothing wrong with getting swept up in closeness and love. You just have to know what this is. And what this is is an experience.
[00:13:34] And great experiences are worth having. It's worth doing it and trying it and going through it when the emotions are so positive. If, on the other hand, you've just gone on a few dates, maybe you've had sex a few times or hung out a bunch, but you feel like you're not cherished, respected, honored, appreciated, considered, then it might be time, or is likely time, to call the whole thing off. In fact, I don't think anyone should spend time with anyone who doesn't have their best interest in mind. But I don't believe in never trying something because you're going to lose it in the end. We lose everything in the end. It's a little bit morbid to say, but someone is always going to die first. If and when you find that perfect relationship and you spend the next 40, 60, 80 years together, one person passes away first. Someone is going to experience massive, massive loss and heartbreak on a scale they have never known before.
[00:14:37] We know this intuitively. Are you not going to have an incredible life with someone, knowing that you might be the one to lose them first? Or if you're a super sensitive person, that you'll be the one to abandon them through your death? Isn't that a little absurd?
[00:14:55] Knowing that, would you choose to never love, never have relationship, never explore and never savor based on that fact? Or would you dive wholeheartedly into something if you knew you could spend the next even decade with someone? So I'm a big fan of having great, powerful experiences. It comes down to knowing how to take care of yourself and looking out for you, knowing what you're getting into and communicating with your partner the whole way through. Just because you're involved in something today does not mean you can't step out of it tomorrow. Or that you can bring it softly to a close, or that you can change the nature of how you hang out. You and only you know if sex is going to muddy things up for you, if being treated to dinners or going out to events is going to make you feel too much like you're a girlfriend or boyfriend, or if that's actually something that you can enjoy lightly. Now, if you are in one of these situations where you know that the person is not as into you as you are into them, if they've expressed to you that they don't want to move forward but you are on board, I think you need to take time to figure out if the person who is less interested is actually done and pretending to not want to hurt your feelings, or they feel bad or guilty, or don't know how to approach the subject so they're still spending time with you anyway. Are they done? Or do they really like you and enjoy spending time with you, but they just know it's not a long term fit? If you're the person who's in the relationship who's liked less and you feel yourself being treated worse and worse, or maybe you're hanging out and in the moment it feels good, but there's total disconnection until the next time you see the other person or you're not feeling valued or appreciated, it's very likely time to exit this relationship. If someone's not willing to save savage, repair, fix, or explore, or work together with you to solve it, then it's likely not going anywhere. If both people are not on board and you've been involved with someone for a while who has maybe flipped off like a switch, or they were nice one day and then cold the next, or you find that their behavior is really inconsistent, you've got to do a lot of damage control. The first thing you should do when you feel this type of behavior is self care, self love, and get yourself centered to where you can communicate with your partner in a healthy way. Because changes in behavior, extreme changes in behavior, can be very dangerous. You also need to be careful of not falling into a pattern of codependence because that behavior of a partner pulling the rug out from under you, or switching from hot to cold, or being friendly one moment and then not into it the next can cause some very serious consequences in yourself. So it's really, really critical that you take care of yourself and that you know exactly where you are in this relationship and that you ask if you don't know and that you persist on figuring out what the truth is without tolerating wishywashy replies or uncertainty. In sum, this is an emotional discussion for anybody to have. For the most part, we don't want to face these kind of feelings. We don't want to think about them or deal with them. So we sweep them under the rug and then they get drawn out and drawn out and drawn out. I hope that you've gotten benefit from tuning in and hearing these options, because sometimes just hearing that we should be speaking about things that we're silent about makes a difference. I've been on both sides of this. I know what it feels like when someone likes me way more than I like them and vice versa, and it never feels good. I find that if someone genuinely is not interested in me, I have zero interest in pursuing them. And I think that's a good maxim for anyone to hold on to. It's usually really obvious if you are in a position where you feel like you need to convince someone to like you or show or demonstrate or prove, that's giving the upper hand to someone, that's giving all of your power away. But when there's a mutual curiosity, when you've got eye contact, presence, connection, chemistry, intimacy, some form of sexual tension building, either real or moving towards that, that's when it's worth exploring and seeing what's there. Finally, in some yes, always protect yourself and always protect your heart. But explore if knee jerk responses of being flighty, darty, running away, disappearing, not calling someone again, not returning calls, being cold in your responses, and all of this really sort of negative shutdown behavior, are you really serving yourself and the person you're involved with? Is there a better way to have more closeness or have it end in a way that's healthy, where you can be friends, or you can be at least cordial to each other if you bump into each other, or if you run in the same circles? It's always an interesting balance. We don't want to get hurt, but we want to live the best lives that we can. And I want to encourage you to live more, feel more, enjoy more, even if you haven't met the most perfect person on the planet who's going to be with you for the rest of your life. Unless you feel your biological clock ticking or you're in a hurry to start making babies right away. Maybe the person who you're with right now, whether you like them more or they like you more, has more to offer than just temporary fulfillment. Best wishes and I'll catch you next time. Thank you for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this immensely. You can learn more about the closeness, lifestyle and movement by visiting getloseness.com. If you've been touched by what you've heard here today or this has made a measurable difference in the quality of your life or sex life, or if you'd like to get one of your own intimate questions answered on an upcoming episode of the Closeness podcast, please consider donating now or
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