***Do Talk To Strangers - The Power of Projection in Dating

The most impassioned, powerful time of a physical interaction with a woman is early on in dating, when you don't even know each other as more than strangers. Ironically, it is also the most fickle, fragile, and potentially confusing time - one of missteps and miscommunication because it is so much about the physicality of the body and less about conversation. There is a reason for all of this, and for why it can be so enticing for men and women to indulge in everything from that romantic first kiss on one end of the spectrum, all the way up to a one-night stand on the other: It's called Projection. If you could imagine that your personal boundary is like a circle around you and the woman's is a circle around her. Then imagine a small hole carved in this circle. Inside each of you there is a wealth of life's happiest and satisfying moments of pleasure, as well as big disappointments. Now imagine those personal boundaries - those circles - being quite a distance from each other. You might imagine it difficult to "send a message" to the other person that's both clear and accurate. You might see plenty of room for confusion simply because you are so very "far away" from each other psychologically. There's a great deal of "missing informatio " about the nature and background of the other person, their personality style and life's story. Much of it is a question mark, and frankly, that's a good thing, since it is this missing information which allows us the experience of idealizing the other person - that "magic" of falling in love which psychologists call limerance. Enter, Projection, a special survival skill that the brain naturally gives us. Imagine what it would be like if you were to walk around always having to be worried about whether with each step there would still be ground under your feet. What would that be like? Maddening, right? You would literally have to spend all day every day calculating the chances of danger to yourself with each step you take. You wouldn't be able to focus on anything else really, or plan for other useful things about your future. It would always be about the mundane concerns in the simple act of walking. Luckily, we don't have to do that. Our brains do something miraculous for us instead of all that. They take past information about our history of walking, and basically fill in the missing parts of the story about the walk we are taking today, informing us that yes; floors and sidewalks are generally safe and can be counted on. Our brains are storytellers which fill in the gaps of half-complete stories. This is how projection works - it is your brain filling in the gaps in an otherwise incomplete story and the way it does that is through use of your own past history - positive or negative... Projection is a double-edged sword when it comes to starting out with strangers, and seeking to get to know them better. The positive side deals with a positive person with a positive life's experience. You then "fill in the gaps" in the story of who you are with idealized positivity. (In fact, in a romance, this limerance or "falling in love" sees her project an actual ideal man onto you!) The down-side is very dark indeed - it is a negative person with a tragically negative life's history, projecting negative, derogatory information from her own past onto you to complete the story of "who you are." Its usefulness is so immense that it gives you predictive, "instant reads" on women - because in many cases, when what the woman says or thinks about you in speculation says far more about her past than about you. Fair's fair though, and the point here is that when you get started in getting to know a woman you've just met, you will most certainly need to contend with projection, both positive hopefully, and negative at times. Don't feel hurt if she labels you something negative. It really is just her. Maybe that knowledge alone could help you get over some of your fears of approaching women in the first place.