Wherein my Kiss was Rejected
jamesaltucher.com
jamesaltucher.com
I say this as someone who has irresistible urges to "shake things up" when I'm going through rough patches. In fact, I think that desire is really common. I bet that's why this guy did all that stuff; he had the urge to do crazy things.
But just because it's typical to have the urge to do crazy things when you're in a rough spot doesn't mean that you should do them, or that it will solve anything.
In my experience there's a reason these things are called "crazy." I've ended in some pretty undesirable situations. The best consequences were several hundred dollars in fines. The worst could have left me in jail or dead.
Giving someone like me permission to do crazy things is not good.
For one thing, it is probably difficult to become "ready for a relationship" without actually practicing being in a relationship. Read and meditate all you want, I think growing within a relationship should beat that in effectiveness. Oh yeah, you can practice with your therapist? That advice is good for the therapist, as it actually says "you should be dependent on me indefinitely".
I've had many friends who were psychos unfit for normal life right after they'd had a particularly bad break up. Example: One friend who, shortly after a serious break-up, did lots of LSD, then went out late at night in the dead of winter and ground his front teeth on the iced-over asphalt in the middle of the street and required two burly friends to drag him back inside. (After the fact, he said something about knowing, "It would feel so neat!") Some years after, he's in a great relationship with a great woman, happy, and getting good grades.
It would not have been a good idea for him to go out with someone right then!
That advice is good for the therapist, as it actually says "you should be dependent on me indefinitely".
Therapists do tend towards that, despite what they say. A year is a bit excessive for many. I've heard 6 months. I think 3 to 6 months is a good idea for some people. A lot of guys I've known say they feel like there's a "Loser" sign on their foreheads for that interval of time after they break up, anyhow. They can't date someone for about that long anyways, until they get their confidence back.
Someone who's a serial relationship love junkie? Maybe a year's a good idea.
Maybe she's grieving or needs to come to terms with some loss, but instead of doing so she keeps burying herself with busywork - new job, new relationship, new house...
Or maybe she came out of a terrible relationship recently and just needs some single-time. God knows I've been there - you're hurtin' and you feel like jumping on board the next boat that sails by, but it's better if you didn't.
The list can go on. Either way, she could've been blowing him off, or she could've been honest. We'll never know and this is all idle speculation; it's even more pointless to speculate as to what the therapist was doing without more information.
What I learned from an undergrad education in psychology was: Everything works for some people 100% of the time. In that if you map human psychology down to a binary point (e.g. feeling stressed? shake things up or buckle down), you'll find that for about half the population one generalized choice or the other is going to be perfect and unfortunately you can't know which half you are in, or which half you are dealing with until after the fact usually.
Of course, I'm not talking about going CRAZY and committing a few felonies or anything. Just things like moving, selling my motorcycle and buying a different one, even simply culling my wardrobe or collection of miscellaneous stuff. It all helps get you out of a rut & start moving forward again.
He's just saying that a good way out of a rut is to "mix it up" a little, do things you don't usually do. It's good advice, and can make stressful things not seem so important and final.
There are a lot of people who have had certain times in their life when they would really benefit from following this advice.
When we're looking for meaningful change, the truth is that a little bit of outside feedback and guidance is often what is needed the most to affect it. Even intelligent people tend to strongly gravitate to what is comfortable when left to their own devices.
My favorite.
I sometimes live a 36+ hour day: (10 + x) hours of sleep + (12 + 4 + y) hours of waking.