Advice - On Moving On

Advice - On Moving On

One of my hobbies...reading the bestof threads in Reddit once in a while.  People are on occasion truly eloquent or give advice or moments of clarity in a way that you had never truly considered before.  This one is a piece from a person with the nickname 'ChubbyDane' who wrote in response to someone saying "How do I move on?"

Ok, listen up, because I'm going to tell you exactly what to do, and then I'll cross my fingers that it'll work.

Ask yourself what kind of excuses you've made to keep chasing the girl. Let's break it down.

1. At some point you knew you liked this girl.
2. At some point, you made a move on her. If she knows you like her, it was a move. If you didn't do a very good job, it was a bad move, but that's besides the point.
3. You decided to keep chasing her after she didn't reciprocate.

Ok, so ask yourself, which excuses did you make for number 3. This is really important. Write it all out. Why did you think it was a good idea to keep chasing someone who wasn't interested.
All the reasons now. Even the most humiliating ones. Write that shit down. What comes next is the hard part:

All those reasons are wrong. There is no excuse for chasing a girl after you find out she isn't interested. It's beneath you. It wastes your time. Think of it like this: If you treat her any differently than a dude after she doesn't reciprocate, you can't be near her. That's the rule. She has to be a man to you. If you can treat her like she's a dude, there's no harm in associating with her. If you can't, tough shit, don't be around when she's around. If you have to make yourself scarce, make yourself scarce. Go find some other place to be. Put on loud music. Do whatever you need to do. Anyway, all of that doesn't help you now.

The key however is that list you wrote down. You must come to terms with the fact that every reason you wrote down was wrong, and you were being an idiot. I'm using harsh language because that's how I have to think of it; maybe you can be a little bit more mellow with yourself, who knows, but I could only take it seriously if I was very harsh with myself.

Ok. Now here's the crucial part. Write down why those excuses to keep chasing her were terrible. You should be able to puzzle it out. Now write a letter of forgiveness to yourself. You can address it in another persons name if you want. A father who isn't dissapointed in you, a mother who is proud of you, or a genuine letter to yourself. Explain all the things you need to say to yourself to understand that the mistakes you made are ok. That it is ok to be fallible and allow your emotions to impair your judgement. That you're a stand up person. That people like you and enjoy your company, regardless of whether you might act the fool on occasion when it comes to girls.

Read that letter every morning and every night. This is how you come to terms with it. You stop blaming yourself. You recognize that the only thing you did wrong was pursue this too far, and you forgive yourself for it, and you do that by reading that letter every day for a week, two times a day. Even if it doesn't feel real when you write it - even if it doesn't feel real the first 5 times you read it - you just need to trust me that eventually, you'll recognize that it is the truth. And then, you'll know you were a fool, but that you are no longer a fool. You'll know that you understand what went wrong. Whatever emotions may linger, you know they pull you into a bad place now. That they are bad for you. You have to fight them so you stick by your rules.

This is bitter medicine; especially admitting that it was all your own fault, and then forgiving yourself. But you have to be a man. If you don't take responsibility for your life - if you rely on women being kind to you and babying you? You are in for a world of hurt. They are not kind. They are every bit as ruthless as men. They take what they desire, just like a man would, and they don't look at the spilled milk with regrets. They assume you're man enough to not fall apart just because they ride the ding dong of one of your friends, because honestly, it's their vagina and they can do with it what they want. Can you imagine a dude not nailing a hottie he's crushing on just because her girl friend is crushing on him? I don't think so. He'd say, not everybody can be happy, and I'm looking out for number one.

But I'll tell you this: Before you man up and take responsibility for your own emotions - before you stop blaming others and start blaming yourself - you'll never be able to forgive yourself, and you'll keep feeling like an idiot. So do what I said. Write the damn lists and letters. Read them daily. Understand that you aren't a fool, you were just foolish. Move on.

The original post an the ongoing discussion is here, also still very fascinating.  http://www.reddit.com/r/OneY/comments/192hbx/how_do_i_move_on_from_this/c8k79dv

I'll write some of my own thoughts on this later, to follow up.  Maybe when it isn't 4 am.