h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Beeing yourself is a very good tip to start with.
If you claim beeing someone else you will have to stick to the roll in later dates. Beeing yourself is the most honest thing you can do. No mask no problems is what I can say ( i sadly noticed myself just recently that faking is very bad for yourself)

I couldn't agree more. I met someone on a date, who on the surface seemed a lovely man with everything i could wish for. I had a song running through my head on the date, the message of which was to be myself. Turns out that he had *very* oldfashioned and chauvinistic attitudes towards women. Must be the boss, women's opinions are inferior to men's etc.

We didn't meet again and I'm so glad that that came out early. No-one these days wants a master/servant relationship. Well, at least I don't!

I totally agree... people are at their most attractive when they're relaxed and enjoying themselves (It's actually been scientifically proven)! The worst date I've ever had is with a guy who seemed really funny and interesting before he asked me out, but then on the date was *so* nervous and was evidently concentrating far too hard on his manners and general etiquette!

The whole *etiquette* thing is, in my opinion a crime against humanity. Why is it that you feel fine talking to anyone else exactly when you want to contact them... but with that special person who you haven't yet got all that far with there's that dastardly "do I seem too desperate" factor? I'm like it with this guy who I have a huge crush on, but due to circumstances beyond my control can't yet ask out. (just don't ask, it's complicated, but he's not gay or in a relationship, or in jail!) To start with on some days I was almost too shy to even say "how are you?" and then I kept on worrying that being at certain places at certain times made it seem like I was constantly following him! It's CRAZY! And then there was the time I decided I'd try getting over him... that really makes me cringe!

Why does love have to make such fools of us? No wonder Greek philosophers considered falling madly in love to be a punishment from the Gods! Although love is strangely beautiful.... even unrequited love!

Unrequited love - ouch - that's painful stuff. Luckily, the last time was a long time ago, but - ouch!

Utter Bewilderment, I know EXACTLY what you mean.

Any girl I seem to be fond of, I worry that everytime I go to see her, perhaps at work to say hello, I get this feeling that they think I'm a pest or stalking them. I'm always paranoid about how I conduct myself in a conversation - did I seem to self-interested? Did I avoid eye-contact to much so's to make it seem they're unimportant? Did I, with consciously realsiing it, keep staring at her chest? I get so worried about these things.

Even just going to say hello every week. Does that appear obsessive? Will they get fed-up of me?

I know what you mean! I seem to be a professional at the unrequited love business. and i'm in exactly the same boat as "Utter Bewilderment" with no clue how to sort it out. If you're in this situation, it is definitely NOT a good idea to go for the "have a few drinks and see what happens" approach as recommended by a good friend of mine. inevitably a few turns into a few too many, and if you're anything like me, you spend weeks avoiding the object of your affection like the plague due to the shame of it all!!

So I'm not the only one! That's fantastic... maybe I'm not going mad after all! My idea is when the right time comes just to tell this guy how I feel... that's all I can do really.

My main problem is that I know this guy who likes me and is REALLY bizarre and IMMENSELY embarrassing... and has the added nightmarish quality of always turning up when my favourite person's around and starting a heated discussion which inevitably brings out the worst in me. Usually my favourite person will be scuttling around in the background getting on with normal life whilst these arguments occur, and the guy who likes me always wonders why I get unnaturally touchy when certain sensitive topic (ie. Exes and personal scandals) are mentioned. For obvious reasons, telling person X that I fancy person Y would not be a good option... so I've decided that next time the situation arises I'll simply ignore person X. Person X despises person Y even though he doesn't know... if he did know he'd probably want to behead him! But hey... when these arguments occur (and the sad thing is they're very good stress relief, just not when person Y is around!) at least person Y, when he decides to get involved, always sticks up for me!

So, after all that rambling on the moral of the story is, when favourite people are involved, try to avoid any individuals who might humiliate you around them!

I always seem to come across all wrong with my "person Y" so to speak as well. In any other company I am relaxed, chatty, amusing etc (i.e. exactly the way I want to be perceived by person Y) but in his company I am a gibbering wreck and lose all ability to converse normally! I also overanalyse everything I'm saying as I say it, making it almost impossible to sustain a normal conversation with him. I then spend weeks wishing i'd never even seen him on a particular occasion, because that would be a lot easier to cope with than the torture I put myself through! Such a nightmare and the worst thing is, as a rational human being, I know i'm just being utterly ridiculous!
(As an aside, just while I think of it, if you're UK based and watched the BBC2 comedy "Coupling" this week, I totally identified with Sally's worry of being overly nice to potential new girlfriends of Patrick...happens every time!)
Does your person Y know all about person X's feelings towards you?? At least he's sticking up for you - always a good thing!

I told my person Y about person X... his response was that it must be extremely frightening for me! It's all like a sitcom in a bad daytime telly kind of way... person X thinks person Y is a smarmy little runt with an answer for everything and person Y considers person X to be twisted and grotesque! Although person Y thinks it's humourous that person X likes me, i'm starting to get paranoid that he's laughing at the entire situation including me and not just person X... so I'm going to try eliminating person X from my life! Anyway I hope the researcher working on the dating article finds something of interest from these insane ramblings!

Talking about analysing what you've said for ages, there was a time when I tried to get over person Y, which meant trying to be mean to him and not speaking to him! It never actually worked and I still feel really ridiculous about it!

In my case (as mentioned above) I felt like beeing in a daily soap opera. But now this all is over and i feel way better.

No faking for me pals!

What are you supposed to do if you *do* have a really unpleasant personality though?

I suppose the only good way of dealing with that is to do some personal development work, so that your personality undergoes change. Wouldn't help in the short term though!

I was only half tyalking about me. I'm not unpleasant, just very very odd, and with a sense of humour not very many people share. I am after one of them at the mioment, but that's not the point...

lol! I'm very odd, but when on a date I make no attempt to hide it as my ideal person must also be most peculiar! The other day I was gleefully bumbling along and happened to joyously swing around a lamp post weilding umbrella "singing in the rain" style, when my favourite person came around the corner and started to giggle like a small chinchilla! But anyway, he's just as odd... he sat there the other day telling me this bizarre and nonsensical little story in an animated manner, then after a few minutes frowned quizically and exclaimed "but anyway, what the hell was all that supposed to mean?"!!

My personal theory is that you tend to attract like people to you. If you were a methodist and interested in quilt making, sooner or later you would join a methodist quilt making society.

Honesty is usually the best policy. If you try to be someone you're not, it gets you into trouble, because you won't be able to be consistent, and even if you are, after a while, you'll find that trying to be someone else is uncomfortable. So revel on your oddity and you will no doubt find someone who really appreciates you.

- !!

>

Indeed... it's a bit like when you're at school/college, and there are different groups of people with different levels of "coolness". When I first joined my college at the start of the 6th form and didn't know anyone, I naturally decided to congregate with the trendies who hogged the best corner of the common room and strutted around like they owned the place... I guess it was because they were the first people I bumped into. Anyway, I somewhat had to hide my eccentric personality and outwardly appeared to get on really well with them. However, it felt really wrong because I was completely unable to express myself... if they'd heard my normal insane ramblings they would have screwed their faces up and groaned "U WOT!?". So then, one day, I stumbled across the eccentric and arty people who lurk in the computer room or outside. Although a bit lower down on the coolness scale, they proved to be the most fascinating people I have ever met. As soon as I discovered them, I became much more open about my idiosyncracies and realised they're what makes me individual, (and the others' peculiarities were what made them so interesting). So who needs to be in with the shallow trendies anyway? I can't imagine what it must be like to go out with someone you have to put on a fake personality around... after all, those are the most intimate relationships anyone ever forms!

Even so, since I've been here, I've made more or less exactly three frineds like that, and I must admit, I am strongly attracted to one of those. I'm not trying to hide who I am, I'm about ther least coolest person anyone could hope to be, and I really don't care. Why on earth would anyone want to be cool anyway, I really don't get it. Anywho, back to the point, to a certain extent, doesn't everyone have to alter theirselves slightly to interface with everyone else?

If you wear a mask, so to say (and some people try to be all things to all people), you lose sense of who you are, which is very disempowering. Same thing if you hide behind a 'cool' mask, or pretend to be something else, it robs you of your self esteem.

Of course, on the other hand, one of the best ways of appearing confident is to 'act as if', and the trick with this one is, by doing this, you often actually become confident. Not the same as wearing a mask, though.

The people who hide behind the "cool" mask always seem more confident, but on the few occasions when I have done it completely ridded me of my confidence! I agree that being "cool" is totally pointless... it's peculiarities that make people interesting. I've always wondered whether its a mask for everyone, or whether some people just happen to have that sort of personality. On the other hand, bending the truth to yourself is always good to ensure confidence. For example, if you're trundling down the street looking all bedraggled in the rain and on your own, if you imagine you look like a pathetic, half drowned rodent, that'll show in your body language, and a pathetic, half drowned rodent is precisely what you'll look like. however, if you don't let the bedraggledness effect you and imagine you look great, you'll certainly appear more attractive!