The Best Date of My Life!

And Why It Wasn’t About Her!

You never can tell where transformative coaching takes you. Maybe it heals an addiction. Maybe it helps with weight loss. Maybe you simply start to believe in yourself more. You never can tell. Which is why I was surprised when it led me to having my best date ever, one special day in May, 2015…

 

INTRODUCTION: My Best Date Ever

I have to write this. About my best date ever. After 15 years or so of internet personals, first dates galore, ‘masculine’ dating tips etc. I have to write this.

• Not because I finally met “the one”! (I didn’t.)
• Not because this is easy for me to write about. (It isn’t.)
• Not because I know what makes for the best date. (Even though I do.)

I just have to write this. And it’s about vulnerability. It’s about openness (not wanting to control). And, it turns out, this ‘best date ever’ piece is about the unknown, too, and ALL that comes from that place.

 

My Best Date Ever?

We met in the Coop car park in Holmfirth. A sunny lunch-time, in May. 2014. I walked towards her smiling face, said hello… Then we kissed, full on, passionately, just like that.

• We talked. We held hands. It was easy.

• We spent all day together, making the best of what the sunny West Yorkshire town of Holmfirth had to offer.

• We walked around beautiful Digley reservoir, arm in arm…

And then we sat down (see photo below) and we kissed. Long, long kisses. And we kissed some more. Then we got up to finish the walk. And like David Deida himself was working my strings I stopped her just a few seconds later, and kissed her mouth hard again (and I thought to myself, “Whoa, where did that come from!”).

It was probably the best version of me I’ve ever experienced on a single date. And my first date, A, was loving it too.

We spent ALL day together, and a respectful night too. We were both in love. Wow, how easy is this!

So, with all due respect to the lovely women I’ve met over the years – the great relationships I’ve had and all (just in case they’re reading this) – this really was the best date ever, for me.

 

 

Why Openness/Vulnerability is The Best Thing To Wear on a Date

And it all started with openness and vulnerability, this best date, some two weeks earlier.

She called me “impossibly handsome” in her first email to me (I know, wow!). And I joked that that sounded like a line. But she said she’d never said that about anyone before and she couldn’t believe that she’d actually shared that with me.

This is what vulnerability looks like, and openness. And it looks like this:

• No ‘trying’ to make the best impression
  – simply a “I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but it’s what I feel so here goes.”

• Not trying to control the outcome
  – just enjoying the outcome-independent ‘being’ instead.

And, not so strangely, vulnerability begets vulnerability.

So in the next few weeks we emailed and Skyped and shared. We connected. I said things to her that I’ve never said to a woman before. Things that sounded foolish even then – e.g. “it feels like destiny, our meeting, like you are my woman, my wife” kinda thing – but I still shared them.

So when we met, that fateful first day, we had already opened our hearts to each other, we really had. It was wonderful. Vulnerability is wonderful. (I didn’t say painless, nor easy, just wonderful.)

 

But the best thing about this best date was not my openness to this sexy, ‘perfect’ woman. It was my openness to this sexy, ‘perfect’ me. Yes, for the first time in my life I felt the truth that it wasn’t about her but it was about me.

I could see why the search for “Prince Charming”, “The One”, Conscious Man or whatever this mythical He or She is being called these days was doomed to fail! The searchers were looking in the wrong direction (d’oh!): they needed to look inside.

 

“Okay, So What Happened To Your Best Date, Steve?”

Well, a funny thing happened out at sea – swimming in the unknown, staying open and trusting – a funny thing. 3 very enjoyable weeks later, and not without some unwitting ‘influence’ on my part, she decided to give it another go with her ex. (Her last but one ex, actually. A man she hadn’t spoken to for 5 years.) 

The expression “out of the blue”, comes to mind.

As do the words: sudden, abrupt, head-spinning! (For her, too. It was the last thing she ever expected to happen again, for she and this man to even consider getting back together again.)

But. Poof! There it was. Over.

Done. Dusted. And no T-shirt.

And it still is over, some 2 years later. But we did meet up for the first time last year, she and I, to talk about the inevitability (or otherwise) of our abrupt ending. And it was mostly a loving affair. (Thank you, A.)

But I still hurt. As I’m sure she does. And that’s okay. Onwards! Onwards!

I had to write this. (And I’m glad I have…)

 

 

CONCLUSION

“It’s me, not you!” Hah, after lots and lots (and lots) of dating over the years – some more ‘successful’ than others – I finally got to see the truth of those words for myself. Via my ever-deeping appreciation of how life works,  how I work (from the Inside-Out), I came to have my best date ever.

I was relaxed, open, and as comfortable in my masculinity as I’d ever been – all without trying. And I could see that this was all because of me, not her – I felt it.

For the first time ever I knew, tangibly so, that what I was looking for was in me, and not in another. (I told her this, too. Of course. Kind of felt important, y’know!)

Yes, it’s in the eye of the beholder – beauty, ‘the one’ for me, problems/solutions. So inside the beholder is where to look.

 

RELATIONSHIPS: Some Next Steps To Take?…

Hmm, so what has this got to do with you? And what has me having a ‘best date’ go to do with transformative coaching? Well…

• When you deepen your Inside-Out understanding of the human experience
• When you realise that You Really Are Okay, no matter what
• When you feel, deeply, that what you are looking for is within you…

Why then you are free to wholeheartedly, and wisely, commit to your romantic relationship(s) – openly, vulnerably, without wanting to control how it turns out. A kind of surrender you might say…