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David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

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Will you uncover your blind spots? Or will you ignore red flags again?

By David McElroy · July 4, 2018

Human beings tend to make the same mistakes — over and over again — but we can be incredibly slow to recognize what we’re doing to ourselves.

I used to ignore red flags in relationships, at least until it was too late for me to deal with them gracefully. As a result, I made the same sort of mistakes again and again — and I was too blind to realize what I was doing for a very long time.

It’s very rare for me to fall in love. I can count the instances of long-lasting romantic love in my life on one hand — and probably have fingers left over. But when I recognize what I want, it’s easy for me to become blind to a woman’s faults. It’s easy for me to make excuses for her. It’s easy for me to assume her tremendous strengths will eventually overcome the scary weaknesses that lie hidden inside her.

As a result, I’ve put a few women on pedestals — only to find that real flesh-and-blood human beings don’t belong on pedestals — because they’ve disappointed me with weaknesses which I didn’t anticipate. I ignored red flags — because I was oblivious to my blind spots.

About 10 years ago, my blind spots led me to confuse myself. After I backed out of marrying a woman and ended the relationship, I later changed my mind after it was too late. I had no idea why I’d behaved in such a contradictory way, so I spent the next year in therapy with a very good psychologist.

I learned that I’m afraid I’m going to be abandoned by a woman I love. I learned to understand that in the context of the loss of my mother early in my childhood. And I learned that I was pushing away love instead of accepting it.

I learned that I was terrified of receiving the thing which I needed most.

From that experience — and from a year of counseling — I learned two important lessons which I’ll mention here.

First, I learned that the sort of woman I will fall in love with is horribly flawed. Every single time. That’s because I fall in love only with a very specific type of amazing woman whose brilliant qualities can make it seem difficult to notice her flaws. It’s easy to become awed with love and adoration for someone and ignore the very ugly parts underneath.

I learned to see the ugly parts from the beginning — and to decide what can change and what can’t. I met a woman a few years ago who filled a lot of the positive things which I need, but I wasn’t blind to her red flags. I realized she had characteristics that would be fatal flaws in a relationship with me, so I never pursued her. Everything I saw afterward confirmed that I’d been right.

Second, I learned not to run away when the right woman offers me what I need. There has been a part of me in the past which feared I didn’t deserve the sort of woman I want, which had something to do with running away when she wanted me. I determined not to give up on someone unless I’d given her every opportunity — and not to run away when she offered me a chance which scared me.

We all need counseling, for one reason or another.

In our society, we tend to see counseling as something we do to fix an immediate problem or a flaw. In reality, counseling — with the right therapist, which is hard to find — can help you to make a good life something far greater than you dreamed of.

If you were in a serious romantic relationship with someone and that person were unwilling to do counseling with you — just to look at potential problems and make sure the two of you are on the same page — that person is probably afraid of himself or herself. Every relationship I’ve ever been in would’ve been better with counseling. I wish I had known this in the past.

Do you keep making the same mistakes? Have you chosen romantic partners who can’t possibly give you what you need? Are you playing out unconscious patterns from childhood? Are you acting out expectations, either of what you fear you deserve or what someone else thinks is right for you?

We all have our blind spots. We’re far better off if we learn what they are and learn how to compensate, because our blind spots are forcing us to ignore the red flags in life which are bringing us back again and again to the same mistakes.

Most people never have the courage to learn the truth about themselves and make changes. Most keep thinking that if they’ll become a little more successful or make a little more money, they will finally feel loved and appreciated and understood.

That’s because they’re lying to themselves. It’s easier — in the short run — than getting honest with yourself and making a change. In the long run, though, it’s going to cost you everything. It’s going to leave you empty and unhappy when you finally have to slow down and feel the things you hide from yourself.

Do you want to see your blind spots and make a change or would you prefer to just keep repeating the same old pattern?

If you like what your decisions have given you in life, keep doing what you’re doing. But if you’re like most of us — full of regret about wrong decisions and missed opportunities — maybe it’s time for some serious change.

I made some scary emotional changes 10 years ago — and it’s made all the difference in the world.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: blind spots, counseling, love, psychology, red flags, relationships

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Briefly

It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me that night, but she didn’t know it, so she was terrified. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. If you’d like to know more about Lucy’s journey from scared dog to brave queen of the household, here’s something I wrote after her first year with me. I’m hoping this girl will have many more happy years with me.

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

I’ve come to believe that some of us — including me — aren’t very good at knowing how to be happy. I don’t mean that in the sense that happy talk and positive thinking should be able to make us happy regardless of the circumstances. I mean that some of us had so much experience with being unhappy when we were young that we were trained to be unhappy — and that being happy is an unconsciously uncomfortable thing. When I look at times in my past when I should have been happy, it rarely lasted. I believe now that I found reasons to be unhappy — and caused real problems for myself — because being comfortable and happy felt so foreign to my programming. If I’m right, this means that some of us have to do more than just change our circumstances. It means we have to learn how to accept the happiness that we unconsciously fear we don’t deserve.

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