<h1 style="text-align: center;">Heartfelt or Prideful? Navigating Mixed Feelings in Dating</h1>
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<p>She said I was going to be fine, but I didn’t believe her. First of all, how dare she put words in my mouth and thoughts in my head. I wanted to be with her and she didn’t want to be with me, and somehow she’s trying to convince me that if I just went along with this, I would be all the better for it. I thought she was wrong. I thought what I was feeling was real, but as it turned out, it was something else. Less like heart, more like ego. My problem was, and has been for quite some time, not being able to distinguish between what is <a href="https://blog.loveawake.com/2020/10/26/why-guys-shouldnt-put-women-down/">motivating me to pursue a woman</a>: Is this heartfelt or prideful?</p>
<h2>Questioning Motivation in Relationships</h2>
<p>I don’t pose this question in hopes of someone answering it for me. Nor do I ask it so I can answer it myself. Ultimately, the question might be rhetorical — with one of those depends-on-the-person type of answers. But I have given a lot of thought to it as I continue to date not just one women, but multiple women at the same time. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about the way women have been quick to <a href="https://blog.loveawake.com/2019/10/14/dont-make-promises-you-cannot-keep/">quit me as of late</a>. We’re dating, everything seems to be going well, then suddenly, they quit. Sometimes they say it’s not me, it’s them. But I’m too smart to know it’s never them entirely. Something about me affected them to the point where they choose to move on. What happens as a result is I make an effort to change their mind. Sometimes this is a two hour effort, sometimes it’s a two day effort. I suggest we slow down instead of stopping things entirely, tell them, “Not so fast. Let’s talk about this.” And I feel like it’s all coming from the heart, like I don’t want to stop dating them because by doing so, my feelings would get hurt. Two weeks later, I’m dating someone entirely new.</p>
<h2>Lessons Learned from Heart and Ego</h2>
<p>As hindsight is wont to do, I look back and see it wasn’t my feelings getting hurt at all. It was my pride. I will be fine, like they say, and it is not necessarily because I have found someone new, so much as it is I have gotten over the blow they delivered to my ego. Hat tip to them for seeing what I couldn’t. I was confusing <a href="https://blog.loveawake.com/2020/08/31/is-your-ego-killing-you/">matters of the ego</a> with matters of the heart; a common mistake we all make, but men especially because so much of what we do is swallowed up in hubris. So thank you ladies who quit me. I appreciate your foresight and the ability to see my feelings for you were real…real egotistical. Had it not been for you, I’d still be out here chasing you down, thinking that it was with you I would be most happy when all it really was that fueled my pursuance was a need to satisfy something I can easily satisfy on my own. It was with you I realized, just because I like someone, doesn’t mean I have feelings for them. I have a feeling for them. It’s singular and usually a matter of pride. The women who quit me delivered a blow to my ego, and because of them I realized, a blow to my ego is a lot easier to recover from than a blow to my heart.</p>