It's mind-blowing.
By David Wygant — Written on Aug 12, 2015
Dating as an adult has become a grown up version of hide and seek. Think about it for it a second.
When we were kids, it was straightforward. There was a hider and a seeker. One would count to 20, and the other would go and hide. The game was to see how long it took the seeker to find the hider, and then you’d swap.
Now, think about what dating really is. We put up our profiles online but we don't expose our true self. We hide it.
We write down what we think we should say. We write about the super hero version of ourselves.
We want to meet people, but we play it safe. We don’t want anyone to know our truth. We’re afraid someone will find us. So what do we do? We hide.
We hide who we are at the beginning of a date. We’re on our best behavior. We’re afraid to show who we really are so we role-play a version of ourselves we think the other person will like.
Hide and seek is really what we do when we date. If you think how a relationship progresses, from when we like someone all the way too where it doesn’t work out. We over analyze it to death.
We look for things inside us they may not like, and find ways to hide that part of us. We play hide and go seek with our feelings, with our authentic selves. We're afraid to show someone how we really feel because we're afraid they may not feel the same way, so we hide our feelings.
You're out on a date and want to them again but you don't want to reveal yourself, so you play hide and go seek. It's ridiculous. We play hide and go seek in dating, but all we're seeking is love.
We're seeking is somebody to love and to love us. Somebody who makes us feel wonderful.
To be honest with you — we all hide.
We hide behind our phones. We hide behind our computers. We hide behind avatars. We hide behind our work. Then we're out on a Friday or Saturday night we don't fully connect, because we're hiding within our group of friends. It's getting harder and harder for people to seek us out.
If you want someone amazing to find you, you have to make the game a little easier for them. Yes, that means making yourself a little more open and vulnerable, but think about it this way ...
When you were playing hide and go seek as a kid, if you’d have left a leg or a hand just a little bit exposed from behind where you were hiding, what would happen? The seeker would find you faster!