Dating Up-Date – Why Do Men And Women Play Dating Games?
Here is what some of you have been waiting for ☺. A short dating up-date from my personal life 
. My date and I went to a nice jazz club last Saturday and they had a killer band playing. I used my strategy to compliment her (see my previous post: How To Compliment A Woman?) and scored some brownie points (At least so I hope ☺).
After the jazz club she wanted to go salsa dancing, so we headed to a local salsa club (I think she just wanted to see my smooth salsa dance moves again ☺). To my great surprise they also had my favorite bay area salsa band playing. After some fun dancing, we left a little early and went for a nice short walk.
On our date we had an interesting conversation about men and women playing dating games that prompted me to write this post.
Here is the question she made think about: Why do we play dating games and what does it really mean to play dating games?
Playing games really means to be dishonest in your communications when dating others in order to hide your true feelings or intentions.
When a woman says that she does not play any games, what she means is that she strives to be completely honest and up-front about her feelings to you and she expect you to do the same.
Usually the reason a woman says that she does not play any dating games is because she has been hurt in the past and she feels like her partner at the time was being dishonest with her. As an attempt to protect her from future hurt she says that she does not play any games to try to notify her partner that she expects him to be completely honest with her.
Men, on the other hand, usually don’t go around saying that we don’t play any dating games. This does not mean that men do not expect women to be honest. We do.
So if both men and women intend to be honest, why are there so called dating games in the first place? Let’s look at the real reasons.
Deep down all these so called “dating games” stem from our own insecurities. Allow me to explain.
When a boy grows up and he never witnesses his father being able to make his mother happy he automatically forms the belief that there is no way to make a woman happy. He thinks to himself: “If my dad can’t make my mother happy, how I could I ever possibly make any woman happy?”
Many men carry these types of false beliefs about themselves inside of them for the rest of their lives. Insecure about how they can contribute to a woman’s happiness many have simply given up trying.
When a little girl grows up and she does not witness her father being honest to her mother or if she does not witness a man being there to make her mother happy, she forms a belief which is: “You cannot trust a man to be there for you to make you happy”. She thinks to herself: “If my mother does not deserve a good man into her life what makes me think that I ever deserve a good husband?” Swamped with negative beliefs and experiences many women have simply decided it is easier to give up hope.
All of these are, of course, false believes. As adults we can use logic and easily make the correct conclusion that even if a boy’s dad could not make his mother happy it does not of course mean that he is now incapable of making a woman happy. But the problem is that these type of insecurities and false believes often travel with us undetected below the level of our consciousness, often below our subconsciousness.
As we are growing up, the only way we are able to understand more about ourselves is through interpreting the behaviors and actions of others. Our parents were like a mirror to us reflecting back an image of who we are. We form a big part of our own image based on the way our parents treated us and the way they treated each other.
The problem is that none of us had perfect parents. Most of us grew up seeing ourselves from one of those circus mirrors with a very skewed picture of who we really are and what we really deserve in this world.
These skewed images from our childhood are then imprinted in to our consciousness.
If you don’t see yourself clearly it is impossible for you to communicate yourself to others in a clear honest way as well. Even worse, the way you also interpret the verbal and non-verbal communication of others is also distorted by your own skewed image of the world.
This then leads to poor communicating. And this is how the dating games begin.
A man with insecurities either gives up or misrepresents himself and thus unknowingly lies to a woman to win over her love. A woman with insecurities often believes that she has to do or give something to win over a man’s love. She thinks she has to pursue men or she sacrifices herself and unknowingly sets herself up to be hurt only to perpetuate her belief that she is not unworthy for any better.
While this may sound depressing, realize that once you become aware of how you are really fully 100% responsible for the relationship successes or failures that you create, it is possible for you to change for better. The good news is that you can learn to change your subconscious and even unconscious beliefs. You can learn to know and the truth about yourself, which is that you deserve to be loved just the way you are.
To learn a very powerful method that I personally use to change my own deep beliefs about myself and to gain deep insight into my own life, make sure to subscribe to receive my ebook on the right side of this screen. I have been working on it for a long time and once I finish it, I will send you a free copy via email. (You can thereafter buy it for $29.99).
The other factor that perpetuates this concept of playing games is that we often fail to consider how our partners may interpret our positive intentions and action in a negative way. And vice versa, we fail to be aware how we often interpret the positive intentions of our partners in a negative way.
For example, after a few dates when a man does not call for a few days, women often automatically think that he is either not interested in her any more, that he is angry about something, or that he for some reason does not trust her anymore. The reason she automatically thinks this is because the only reason she would not keep in contact with him would be one of the above reasons. Being able to only look through her own intuitive assumptions, it is very hard for her to interpret his behavior any other way.
And while, of course, her assumptions could very well be correct, she fails to consider any other possibilities for his actions and rather than trusting that he has good intentions behind his actions, she chooses automatically to assume the worst.
Men in this same way often mistakenly misinterpret women also.
When a woman shares her frustrations or asks questions while dating men often mistakenly interpret it as a personal attack on him. If she shares a disappointment on their date, like sharing that the fish in the Japanese restaurant they went was horrible, he mistakenly assumes that she thinks he is an utter failure or stupid for taking her there. If she asks him why he has not called or text her, he automatically thinks she is mistrusting or questioning his character or integrity.
He fails to realize that often women simply want to feel heard, validated, and understood.
The reason a man would often interpret her incorrectly is because he intuitively knows that the only reason he would ever complain or share feelings of frustrations is to point out to someone that he doesn’t trust that person and/or that he wants him/her to change.
And while, of course, his assumptions could very well be correct, he fails to consider any other possibilities or reasons for her questioning or sharing her feelings.
And there you have it. My two main reasons why men and women play dating games: Insecurities and a lack of communication skills. In. Do you think men and women play dating games, and if so why? Share your thoughts.
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