One of the most popular dating books in the world is The Rules by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider. In it, one of the chapters is titled “Show Up Even If You Don’t Feel Like It.” It’s about the importance of getting out and having fun (or at least making a hearty attempt at having fun) if indeed you want to expand your social circle and meet men.

I learned a valuable lesson: show up even when you don’t feel like it. Maybe it’s a dinner you’ve been invited to. Maybe it’s a party or a concert in the park. If you feel yourself exhibiting hermit-like behavior, question where the hermit feelings are coming from. Perhaps you really do need some time alone or with a close friend to rejuvenate. However, if you’re feeling any inkling of fear or “smallness,” you’re most likely letting that little hermit voice talk you out of going. Maybe you’re afraid you won’t be good at something, afraid you won’t fit in, afraid that you won’t meet someone, or perhaps, even afraid that you will.

Sometimes it isn’t our own hermit voice keeping our social lives a dud, but our own friends clipping our social butterfly wings. If you find that your current social circle is hindering the social life you want, here’s when you need to speak up. I’ll show you exactly what to say with confidence and class.

1. When your friends invite you to the same old not-so-happy hour and you have zero interest in going:

Thanks for thinking of me ladies. I’d love to hang out, but I’m getting tired of the bar scene. Nothing ever seems to change, and we are too fabulous to stay hunched over some sticky bar. I’d love to go out and try something new together if you’re interested. If not, I completely understand, but please let me know if you have any other ideas, and we can plan together.

2. When you want to go out on the town to try something new and your friend wants to stay in and watch a movie:

I totally understand if you’re interested in more of a chill night in. Tonight I’m feeling energized and excited to go out and mingle, so I’m going to go out even if I have to go alone. Of course you are invited to join me if you change your mind!

3. When you are out having fun and your friend wants to leave:

I’m having such a great time, and I’m really not ready to leave. I don’t want to make you feel like you have to stay, so go ahead and leave without me. Have a good night!

4. When you are out with friends and not having fun, but you still want to go somewhere else before the night is over:

I’m not feeling up to this. I’m going to go look into doing something that’s more my speed for tonight. Feel free to join me!

You can leave a place where you aren’t having fun even if you don’t have a Plan B. Part of being your own boyfriend is letting go of something that doesn’t work for you and being fearless enough to improvise. You welcome the uncertainty and realize that it creates space for something unexpected to come along.

The first steps to a better social life are opening yourself up to new activities, finding what you like to do, and showing up even when you don’t feel like it. Your inner hermit will eventually give up on pleading with you to stay home. Once you’re out and about, do your best to have a good time, remember to speak up when you’re dissatisfied, adjust your attitude or gracefully exit if you aren’t having fun.

SELF-LOVE PRINCIPLE #24

Figure out what fun means to you and make sure to have lots of it by yourself and with people whose company you enjoy.

When have you spoken up for yourself in one of these settings?

Harvard Business School is exactly where I belonged in my mid-twenties because I was obsessed with analyzing and solving problems. The caveat is that Harvard encourages us to apply analytical rigor to leadership challenges and business decisions, and I was intrigued with analyzing life, love, and relationship issues. While I’m happy to have an MBA to help me analyze business issues, I have learned that many circumstances of my dating life are simply not worth analyzing in detail. In the past, nothing burned me up more than a guy not calling me after he specifically stated that he would.  Most of the time I would think of a series of convincing reasons he didn’t call, and eventually come to the conclusion that he was just not that into me.

I felt compelled to analyze exactly what went wrong, when things began to unravel, and what I could do differently next time. Once in awhile, performing a multilevel analysis of why a guy and I didn’t mesh gave me a temporary sense of control. But it never made me any happier. Your conjecturing about a guy’s undesirable behavior does not make him change. It wastes your time and mental energy, and even worse, saps your happiness and peace of mind.

Therefore, when you are dating a guy and he does something you do not appreciate or understand (particularly in the early stages of dating), just keep it moving. By “keep it moving,” I mean go about your life, doing whatever you were doing before you met Mr. Inconsistent. As hard as it is to clear your mind, try your best not to worry about why he suddenly seems to have lost interest. Do not bog yourself down with trying to figure out how to “set him straight.” As Sherry Argov, author of Why Men Love Bitches, says, “Men do not respond to words. They respond to no contact.”

If you really want a guy to understand that you are unhappy with his behavior, deny him your company and attention. By setting boundaries on how you allow others to treat you, you protect yourself and show guys that you aren’t so desperate that you’ll take whatever crumbs of attention he throws your way. It’s not about being difficult; it’s about having standards.

Keeping it moving is not a call to play games or be passive aggressive. It’s about taking a step back, relaxing, and focusing on doing what makes you happy. Otherwise, you’ll end up focusing on the cause and origin of something that is making you unhappy. If you really want Mr. Maybe Right to stop making last-minute plans with you, don’t go out with him when he tries to make these last-minute plans with you. If you want him to call you when he says he will, do not text him subtle reminders like, “Hope you’re having a great day!” (Guys see right through those “just saying hi” texts, by the way.) Just keep it moving, have your own great day, and if he calls, great. If not, you will not have wasted time and energy on obsessing over it. It’s all about subtly showing the man (or any person in your life for that matter) how you will allow yourself to be treated.

An important part of keeping it moving is to expect nothing.

 
By no means am I telling you to let people treat you badly. Simply put, you can’t put expectations on people who have not earned the title associated with such expectations. “Expect nothing” is a reminder to let relationships develop at a natural pace rather than trying to accelerate them to the “next level” by increasing your expectations.

For example, if a guy is not your boyfriend, do not expect him to perform boyfriend duties like buy you romantic gifts, help you move out of your apartment, or go grocery shopping with you. If he does these things, awesome! He is likely doing these things because he wants to be your boyfriend. However, if you don’t explicitly have that level of commitment from someone, yet you expect him to do these favors for you, you’ll most likely end up disappointed and frustrated, and he will most likely end up confused and distant.

Even if a man who is not yet your boyfriend is willing to do boyfriend activities with you, it’s often a good idea to engage in such activities in moderation and for a limited period of time (e.g., three months). I have gotten myself very mixed up in the head because I spent a lot of time doing “boyfriend” things with men who weren’t exclusively dating me or explicitly committed to me.

Each time I spent a lot of time doing boyfriend-girlfriend activities with a guy who wasn’t actually my boyfriend, I made him my boyfriend in my heart and mind, while in his mind, we were still casually dating, which included the option to date other people. This mismatch between your perceptions and reality is a recipe for disappointment that you can avoid if you—say it with me now!—expect nothing and keep it moving.

What will you do with your newfound you-time as you expect nothing and keep it moving?

The saying “You are what you eat,” should apply to everything we consume—not just food. In my teens and early twenties, I indulged in a lot of cultural darkness: depressing movies, sad music, disturbing art. I spent hours hanging out in dimly lit coffee shops—like I imagined a writer would, though I wasn’t doing any writing. I wasn’t a particularly unhappy person; I just considered sad things to be so much “deeper” and thought-provoking. Rather than question my attraction to depressing things, I heralded my penchant for melancholy as an appreciation for high art and culture.

I’m still drawn to tearjerker films, twisted psychological thrillers, and sad, soulful music, but I balance that with a healthy appreciation of stand-up comedy, upbeat dance jams, feel-good films, and goofy laughs from YouTube videos and Internet memes. Everything that you consume—what you read, what you watch on television, what you eat—becomes part of you. Just like we all have different metabolism rates, we all digest media in different ways. Art of all kinds deeply affects me—both positively and negatively—so I have to be very careful about what I give my time, emotional energy, and attention to. Just as consuming too many banana splits and pepperoni pizzas will weigh you down, so will consuming too much sadness and negativity. Remember: you can be a smart and cultured woman—and happy too!

SELF-LOVE PRINCIPLE #6

Anything that you pay attention to has the power to influence your thoughts, your feelings, and your life. Feed your mind, body, and soul with inspiration and positivity.

Just as what you consume has an affect on your well-being, so can what you tell yourself.  Self-limiting talk is a sneaky little bastard that pops up in many situations: when we are shopping for new clothes, making our career goals, commenting on a TV show, or simply sitting around talking with our girlfriends. Just like the incessant chatter running through our minds, self-limiting talk is natural for most of us. We think we are innocently stating a personal preference or just being “realistic.”

However, when we make prescriptive statements like those above, we imprison ourselves. We tell ourselves who we can’t be, what we can’t do, and what we’ll never be able to do. In effect, we put restrictions on ourselves instead of blowing the lid off of what is possible and proudly proclaiming all that we can be, do, and achieve.

Here are some examples of self-limiting talk:

• “Black/Arab/Asian/Indian/White/Latina/etc. women don’t do stuff like that.”

• “Big girls really should not . . . ”

• “Smart women shouldn’t have to . . . ”

• “You know I could never . . . ”

• “Where I come from, people don’t . . . ”

• “If I were smarter/thinner/younger/more educated/more experienced, maybe I would try . . . ”

The next time you hear yourself or someone else use self- limiting talk, stop and say, “You know, I used to think that way, but now I realize that idea is something I believed out of habit. I don’t actually believe that!”

When you refuse to engage in self-limiting talk or catch yourself mid-sentence, you will instantly feel better. You will also influence those around you to move away from self-limiting talk and toward self-empowering talk. As you move to adopting self-empowering talk, there is no need to lecture others on their self-limiting talk. By pumping yourself up through the words you use, you will subtly inspire others to do the same.

This may take time, so be patient. We all learned to engage in some form of self-limiting talk because it has been repeated to us (either in our own heads or by other people) enough times until we believed it. While you can’t control your friends and colleagues, you have complete control over what comes out of your own mouth. Make sure your words serve to lift you up rather than knock you down.

SELF-LOVE PRINCIPLE #7

Use the power of your words to make your world an abundant place of possibility.

What is something positive you say to yourself when a negative thought pops into your head?