People Who Find 'The One' And Make It Last Always Embrace This Truth
Trusting relationships happen when people show up as their authentic selves.
Nicoleta Ionescu via Shutterstock All of the ingredients are there: the shared smile, the brief accidental brush of skin upon skin. Next thing you know, a romance begins. While this idyllic image is how we imagine relationships beginning, for many people, the simple and pale-lit romance scenario is a myth.
A lot of us go into romance on the defensive, ready to avoid anything negative or the least bit awkward. But will the effort to appear perfect really pay off when you're looking for real love? Absolutely not.
People who find 'the one' embrace their awkwardness
Embracing the awkward in love and life is why YouTube personality, intimacy expert, contributor to Own the Awk, and bestselling author of The Game of Desire, Shan Boodram, joined the Getting Open podcast, sharing her insights with host Andrea Miller.
Four ways to accept your awkwardness
1. Stop trying to appear perfect or even normal
We get nonstop social messages on who and what we should be, and these messages often don't match up with who we are or want to be.
Shan Boodram explained how she turned it around, "My entire life, I thought I was looking to be perfect. I was actually looking for the permission to not care about any of that, the permission to surrender perfection and feel good about yourself, to finally let go of self-consciousness and feel you deserve pleasure."
You have to go on your own journey to decouple yourself from societal messaging that tells you what a person is supposed to be or look like, what pleasure is or isn't, and what feels good or is acceptable.
Blocking yourself from expressing in your style of communication, about your dreams and desires, or asking questions about your concerns does nothing for building trust in yourself or another person.
2. Know that feeling awkward is unavoidable
Motortion Films via Shutterstock
Getting to know someone and moving from strangers to something more requires having awkward conversations that you don't want to have. It means expressing yourself in ways you might not be comfortable with, it means asking those questions you are afraid of knowing the answer to.
"A lot of the most important pieces of information are on the other side of an awkward conversation," explains Boodram, "Sometimes you can get around things, and sometimes the only path is to go through them."
That's one reason Shan is involved with Own The Awk, an organization dedicated to helping young people build the confidence to handle difficult or uncomfortable conversations so they can have better relationships and build deeper intimacy.
3. Let the person get to know who you really are
The best way is a direct line through the awkward conversation, and the direct way through is by having the conversation, asking the uncomfortable questions, and discovering what the answers will bring. As Boodram says, "If I'm avoiding a hard conversation, I need to have it."
When you face the tough topics and deal with the discomfort together, the other person gets to know who you are. Embracing these awkward conversations can lead to deeper connections, greater self-awareness, and a more fulfilling love life by improving intimacy and connection.
4. Allow others to show who they are by shining your own light
When you own your awkwardness, let it shine, and present it to a person in your life, it allows them a chance to see the true you, the person who might be mostly masked for the general public. In turn, you can make space for them to embrace their own awkwardness.
Holding your self-expression in is an unhappy and unhealthy way to move through life. If you are both doing it, your relationship will be stifled, secretive and repressed. So stop expecting perfection not only from yourself, but also from others, in order to truly find and maintain love.
When your partner experiences all the awkwardness and uncomfortableness with you, truly shares in the expressions of vulnerability and risk involved with divulging the parts of yourself you find challenging, you build trust and a safe space.
Will Curtis is a creator, editor, and activist who has spent the last decade working remotely.
