Changing who I am for someone else..

[Thierro]

I wonder if I need to change certain parts of who I am. I am the overly sweet guy. I always get the same stuff over and over; ‘Wow, you are so sweet, you are adorable, you’re the kindest guy I have ever met’. Sometimes people are weirded out by my kindness in general. I am a sweet guy, It’s just who I am and what I do, but I wonder if I need to hold back some of it to be more successful in relationship to women. A reason my ex broke up with me was because I was too sweet.

 

I am just wondering if I need to change that part of me to become the “better” more evolved me? I don’t know if I need to see it as a bad habit that needs some tuning. I believe that I wil generate more success with a girl when I tune it down, but this does mean that I hold back/change who I am for someone else?

 

Thanks.

[Cee]

I've gotten comments like "You're so honest. I could never say that even if I was thinking it." I decided to tone down that quality, but essentially I'm still the same person. I don't say emotionally revealing things that often anymore. And I choose who I am open with.

 

I think it's smart to take that feedback and use it to grow. What is it about you that generates those comments? And is your kindness appropriately placed? I think even our best qualities can be shaped to be even more positive.

 

I know people say that people will love us for who we are. But I like to think that I'd like to be a better person. And sometimes being better is changing a bit.

 

It will take self-reflection to figure this out. To find out what parts of your kindness you want to cultivate and what you want to prune back.

[Eeyore79]

I don't think you should have to change yourself for other people. How can anybody be too sweet to someone they're dating? - I've never heard of such a thing! (sounds like an excuse to me)

 

The right girl will love how sweet and kind you are towards her. Just make sure you are genuinely being sweet, and not just being a doormat and letting people walk all over you.

[shayan]

It's good to be firm with women. I think there is a time and place for being very sweet and sensitive, but it is generally good to be kind. Where should you draw the line well that's up to you, and requires you evaluate your own behavior and see. You should not have to change yourself though just realize if your over doing it to tone it down a bit.

[denise_xo]

I wonder if I need to change certain parts of who I am. I am the overly sweet guy. I always get the same stuff over and over; ‘Wow, you are so sweet, you are adorable, you’re the kindest guy I have ever met’. Sometimes people are weirded out by my kindness in general. I am a sweet guy, It’s just who I am and what I do, but I wonder if I need to hold back some of it to be more successful in relationship to women. A reason my ex broke up with me was because I was too sweet.

 

I am just wondering if I need to change that part of me to become the “better” more evolved me? I don’t know if I need to see it as a bad habit that needs some tuning. I believe that I wil generate more success with a girl when I tune it down, but this does mean that I hold back/change who I am for someone else?

 

Thanks.

 

In the light of some of your other threads, my question to you would be whether you are honestly happy that way or whether it is a mechanism through which you try to detach from other feelings that you would rather not associate with? I am posing this as a genuine/ constructive question, not a rhetorical one It also depends a bit on what you actually mean with 'too sweet'... I sense that there is more to it than what is detectable in your post.

[AmItheOnlyOne]

Honestly, yeah, you do. Well maybe.

 

Well, depends what she means by "sweet".. She might just feel limited. That's the key word.... Sweetness tends to be very limiting (can't go to such and such place, or know so and so people)

 

Not because it's your fault. Because it's their fault--some people just can't function with sweet people.

 

Maybe her friends are like that, maybe they're more rowdy.. But that depends, are those the girls you want?

 

If yes, then yes, you do. If no, then no you don't..

 

Peace out.

[Thierro]

Thanks for responding.

 

(Hey Denise, how have you been? I hope you are doing ok.)

 

Well.. I don’t believe it has anything to do with my previous posts. Especially because I have changed a lot since the break-up.

 

Maybe I should add the words ‘ too feminine’ to the list. I believe that I am too feminine to be able to attract and contain a good relationship with other females. I am very nurturing and I have always been very caring of others; it seems girls get turned off because of this. I have studied PUA and was successful at it, but I really don’t like the idea that girls want me because I am portraying a desirable image that I created out of communities and self-help books.

 

I often feel like the gay friend. I have always been around girls. I never had guy friends and I was always on the go with a group of girls. I grew up with them and this created the caring, sweet, soft character I am right now. People go to me when they need help, people want me to go shopping with them, a girls night out isn’t complete when I am not around; doing each other’s hairs, nails, reading girls magazines, talking about emotions, doing girly things. I really enjoy this. But I become one of them and they don’t realize that I am actually into girls and desire them. They tell me everything.

 

Do I need to change myself? Becoming a more manly man? A more rough and sexual being that takes control?

 

I don’t understand how someone can be overly nice and sweet. I don’t have examples. Well, maybe a few: Last week, during school, a girl that was sitting next to me had a cold. I asked her if she needed a handkerchief. She replied ‘Yes, please’. So I stood up and went outside the classroom so I could get to my locker to get the handkerchiefs. When I got back her eyes were saying; '?..' Same when she said during break-time; ‘Ah, I forgot my money and lunch, darn it!’. So I went to a local supermarket and bought her something to drink and 2 croissants. I just didn't want her to feel weak and hungry.

 

I always get the idea it’s taking negatively whenever I am doing something 'nice' in general.

 

Oh, one night the same girl had a headache while she was on msn busy with her homework. I told her to send it to me so that I could finish it and that she could go to bed and sleep it off.

 

I don’t understand why things like that can be ‘too’ much and be 'weird'? It feels like I have to become more of a dick and less caring about others to be more successful and desirable and come across “nicer”… It seems girls get irritated by my calm and loving nature.

Edited October 3, 2010 by Thierro

[Meaplus3]

I wonder if I need to change certain parts of who I am. I am the overly sweet guy. I always get the same stuff over and over; ‘Wow, you are so sweet, you are adorable, you’re the kindest guy I have ever met’. Sometimes people are weirded out by my kindness in general. I am a sweet guy, It’s just who I am and what I do, but I wonder if I need to hold back some of it to be more successful in relationship to women. A reason my ex broke up with me was because I was too sweet.

 

I am just wondering if I need to change that part of me to become the “better” more evolved me? I don’t know if I need to see it as a bad habit that needs some tuning. I believe that I wil generate more success with a girl when I tune it down, but this does mean that I hold back/change who I am for someone else?

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

Lordy.. lordy.. lordy! No.. NO..NO! You never change who you are for a person. Be yourself. If the person you are with does not see you and like your for who YOU are then your with the wrong person. I think I made my point. Good luck.

 

Mea:)

[carhill]

OP, you're just a bit ahead of your curve. Allow others to catch up. If it takes too long, you'll get bitter like me. Avoid that, or you'll be nuturing cats instead of people

 

 

 

 

So, no, don't change yourself for another. Accept that they are different and have a different life path. No harm in that. At the other end of the tunnel, it really doesn't matter that women don't find you attractive, if that is the case. It matters how you've lived *your* life. Good luck

[Thierro]

I don’t want to change who I am for someone else, I want to change for my own good to become a better person. Sometimes you need other people to show you your flaws that need development, because sometimes you are not aware of those flaws.

 

I do agree with ‘ It matters how you've lived *your* life.’.

 

Example:

 

When I used to take a walk with my ex, I would walk the side the traffic was going. Because if a car would crash into us, it would crash into me first and not my ex (over protective). I never told her this but she figured it out on her own because it began to irritate her a lot.

 

“Sweet” behavior isn’t always good behavior and it sometimes needs tuning.

[denise_xo]

Thanks for responding.

 

(Hey Denise, how have you been? I hope you are doing ok.)

 

Well.. I don’t believe it has anything to do with my previous posts. Especially because I have changed a lot since the break-up.

 

Maybe I should add the words ‘ too feminine’ to the list. I believe that I am too feminine to be able to attract and contain a good relationship with other females. I am very nurturing and I have always been very caring of others; it seems girls get turned off because of this. I have studied PUA and was successful at it, but I really don’t like the idea that girls want me because I am portraying a desirable image that I created out of communities and self-help books.

 

I often feel like the gay friend. I have always been around girls. I never had guy friends and I was always on the go with a group of girls. I grew up with them and this created the caring, sweet, soft character I am right now. People go to me when they need help, people want me to go shopping with them, a girls night out isn’t complete when I am not around; doing each other’s hairs, nails, reading girls magazines, talking about emotions, doing girly things. I really enjoy this. But I become one of them and they don’t realize that I am actually into girls and desire them. They tell me everything.

 

Do I need to change myself? Becoming a more manly man? A more rough and sexual being that takes control?

 

I don’t understand how someone can be overly nice and sweet. I don’t have examples. Well, maybe a few: Last week, during school, a girl that was sitting next to me had a cold. I asked her if she needed a handkerchief. She replied ‘Yes, please’. So I stood up and went outside the classroom so I could get to my locker to get the handkerchiefs. When I got back her eyes were saying; '?..' Same when she said during break-time; ‘Ah, I forgot my money and lunch, darn it!’. So I went to a local supermarket and bought her something to drink and 2 croissants. I just didn't want her to feel weak and hungry.

 

I always get the idea it’s taking negatively whenever I am doing something 'nice' in general.

 

Oh, one night the same girl had a headache while she was on msn busy with her homework. I told her to send it to me so that I could finish it and that she could go to bed and sleep it off.

 

I don’t understand why things like that can be ‘too’ much and be 'weird'? It feels like I have to become more of a dick and less caring about others to be more successful and desirable and come across “nicer”… It seems girls get irritated by my calm and loving nature.

 

Hi Thierro, nice to have you back on LS. Here are my two cents:

 

I think you need to zoom out a bit and consider the following:

 

1. Principles form part of a holistic whole. Zoom out from one or two particular characteristics ('kindness', 'sweetness', etc.) and place them in a larger framework.

 

2. Principles only take on meaning in the context of practice. Zoom out from a philosophical understanding of 'kindness', 'sweetness', etc, and place them in the context of real life.

 

On the first point: Yes, you can have too much kindness, too much of any seemingly positive characteristic. In fact, a lot of evil is played out under a genuine desire to do good, a lot of colonialists for example actually believed that they were doing a service to humanity by trying to 'civilize the natives'. A more contemporary example would be the project of 'building a state in Afghanistan' - several people 'believe' in that project in a way which actually produces very negative results. A more mundane example: I have spent considerable time teaching young people. Take some really basic features of classroom behaviour as showing up on time, showing up with your books and a pen, and coming to your exams. I have taught in a war zone where it would have been extremely easy to say 'oh poor you, of course I understand that you didn't do your homework/ was too tired to study for the test/ was too distracted to show up prepared today' - , etc etc - followed by 'let me assist you with this in the following way...'. In reality, though, the principles that lie inherent in that kind of response ('understanding', 'flexibility', 'consideration') were useless if they were not balanced with principles that took the abilities of these young people seriously (placing demands on them that showed that I respected their capacities as young, bright people, encompassed in principles such as 'showing respect for others', 'treating people as adults', 'holding people to account'). If I didn't strike that balance, I would be facilitating their laziness, inalertness and their succumbing to the aspects of their lives that were indeed very challenging and potentially debilitating. In short, what I'm trying to illustrate is how 'positive traits' can become 'too much', and in reality turn into something that is negative or which encourages negative behaviour. You may want to re-examine your kindness in that light: What kind of behaviour are you facilitating through your actions? Are you situating your kindness within a wider framework of principles? Life is a composite of a whole range of principles, and we need to continuously reassess the very complex relationship between them to guide our actions. This is very different from "becoming a dick" or "becoming less caring". In reality, it might actually mean that you care more.

 

On the second point:

This is closely related to the above, but I'm emphasising it separately because from the way you write you seem to be a thinker and very philosophically minded. That's great because it means you have potential for cognitive self-awareness, but the potential danger is that you try to over-intellectualise things and don't make appropriate connections to practice. Philosophical/ conceptual principles such as 'kindness' or 'caring' have to be constantly monitored against what it achieves in practice (which is what you are doing through your posts above) and adjusted accordingly. Beyond 'thinking', it is about developing your intuition and your ability to tap into a social dynamic and adjust your behavioural pattern on that basis. An academic approach to that would be e.g. Dreyfus and Dreyfus' model of expertise development, which shows how expert intuition is based on something very different than rule-bound, explicit deliberation. A non-academic approach would be the concept of the 'second circle'/'presence' in the Rodenburg book I mentioned in a previous post to you. IMO, acting out of principles have to be complimented by that type of 'tuning in' to life, and taking the feedback from that tuning in very seriously. So, it's not in that sense about 'changing yourself', but developing your capacity to monitor the change that you create in the world through your actions, and adjust that action in an informed manner without that meaning that you are necessarily changing the core of 'yourself' (although sometimes it means that, too).

 

Does that make any sense?...

[Rashad]

I wonder if I need to change certain parts of who I am. I am the overly sweet guy. I always get the same stuff over and over; ‘Wow, you are so sweet, you are adorable, you’re the kindest guy I have ever met’. Sometimes people are weirded out by my kindness in general. I am a sweet guy, It’s just who I am and what I do, but I wonder if I need to hold back some of it to be more successful in relationship to women. A reason my ex broke up with me was because I was too sweet.

 

I am just wondering if I need to change that part of me to become the “better” more evolved me? I don’t know if I need to see it as a bad habit that needs some tuning. I believe that I wil generate more success with a girl when I tune it down, but this does mean that I hold back/change who I am for someone else?

 

Thanks.

 

The purpose of kindness is to make people feel comfortable... now if too much of it makes people feel uncomfortable then you do need to tune it down.

I don't really understand what you mean by changing yourself because of somebody else. To me change is TWO, positive change and negative change and change is always for yourself.

 

Why does excessive kindness and sweetness make people feel uncomfortable?

They say one good turn, deserves another.. if you're nice to people, people try to be nice with you. Now if you are TOO nice some people just can't keep up with the niceness that you bring, so they feel pressured and uncomfortable.

 

I was like you when I was in high school, I know what you are going through... My advice for you is to focus your kindness i.e. do BIG nice things once in a while rather than numerous small nice things. Also not everybody deserves niceness so you need to focus on those who deserve it and those who respond well to it, understand that every person is a code, we are all unique like that. Once you are niceness is focused to your small circle, outsiders get curious and girls be trying to hollar at you.. make em work hard for your kindness and when they get it don't overflow them with it.

[skydiveaddict]

I wonder if I need to change certain parts of who I am. I am the overly sweet guy. I always get the same stuff over and over; ‘Wow, you are so sweet, you are adorable, you’re the kindest guy I have ever met’. Sometimes people are weirded out by my kindness in general. I am a sweet guy, It’s just who I am and what I do, but I wonder if I need to hold back some of it to be more successful in relationship to women. A reason my ex broke up with me was because I was too sweet.

 

I am just wondering if I need to change that part of me to become the “better” more evolved me? I don’t know if I need to see it as a bad habit that needs some tuning. I believe that I wil generate more success with a girl when I tune it down, but this does mean that I hold back/change who I am for someone else?

 

Thanks.

 

 

Yes, you should change. You must stop being "sweet" and "nice" to women. "Nice guys" are ALWAYS sent to the friend zone.