Category Archives: Relationships
This Is How To Tidy Up Your Dating Life, Marie Kondo Style | HuffPost Life – HuffPost
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve undoubtedly heard about Netflix’s new show “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo.”
Kondo teaches the untidy masses how to declutter their homes using the KonMari Method, a home organization system the clean queen introduced in her 2014 New York Time bestseller, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
While Kondo’s focus is on the home, her philosophy on tidying up ― only hold on to items that “spark joy” ― can easily be applied to other segments of your life. If you’re single, you just might benefit from applying it to your love life. (Be honest with yourself: What’s more of a hot mess than your personal life?)
Here are a few tips on how to thoroughly KonMari your dating life.
Delete the apps that aren’t bringing you joy.
Chances are your dating life is dominated by dating apps, some good, some horrifyingly bad and full of dick pics. Use one of the core tenets of the KonMari method of tidying up and ask yourself: Does this app truly bring me joy? Have I found any promising leads on it or has swiping through its endless deck of cocky finance bros left me utterly joyless?
If it’s the latter, remove the app from your phone. Only let apps you genuinely appreciate take up valuable storage space!
Be mindful of your feelings about people you’re seeing.
Kondo tells people to streamline their home spaces by focusing on how their environments and possessions make them feel. Be cognizant of how people you date make you feel, too.
Meeting face-to-face is the dating equivalent of holding the garment in your hands for appraisal. Your date might look good on paper, but you can’t make a solid decision about how someone or something makes you feel until it’s in front of you, said Emily Polak, a psychologist and matchmaker at Tawkify.
“Check in to see if you feel a spark of joy, or maybe something similar, like ease or lightness when you’re with the person,” she told HuffPost. “If there is a spark of something that feels good and nourishing, keep the date around. If not, thank it for its time and move on.”
Let go of your baggage, and thank your exes for everything they’ve done for you.
Throughout the season, Kondo asks people to thank items they are letting go in an exercise of appreciation. You don’t just toss old purses from your closet in a cardboard box and call it a day; you lovingly send them off and thank them for their service, out loud. (“You held so many things. Thanks, Michael Kors!”)
Do the same with your exes. Before jumping into the dating scene, work through any issues from your past relationship so you don’t drag baggage into the next. (You may want to let go of digital reminders of your ex, too ― untag photos, unfollow them on Instagram.)
Then, with a lighter heart, find your inner Ariana Grande and say, “Thank you, and goodbye. I am ready for something new.”
One caveat here: Don’t let all that reminiscing drive you back into your ex’s arms. Getting back together with your ex is kind of like donating a J. Crew cashmere sweater to Goodwill only to buy it back the next day. You don’t repurpose things you’ve given away.
Commit to messaging everyone that you swipe on so your DMs don’t become a cluttered mess.
At her core, Kondo really just wants us to take a hard look at our pack-rat tendencies and live simpler, happier lives through sensible organization.
Pack-rat tendencies can take hold of your dating life, too. If your dating app notifications are through the roof, stop and ask yourself why you’re so swipe-happy. Are you swiping out of pure interest or are you just looking for a quick fix to your boredom or an easy confidence boost.
With decluttering in mind, only swipe on people you genuinely see yourself meeting in real life, said Samantha Burns, dating coach and author of Breaking Up & Bouncing Back.
“Make a pact with yourself to message everyone with whom you match. That way you’re not inundated with a queue that will clutter up your match list,” she said. “You’re forced to pay more attention to why you’re swiping right if you know you need to strike up a convo.”
Don’t hold on to people you feel so-so about.
If you start seeing someone and don’t feel a spark after a handful of dates, let them go. You’re doing both of you a favor.
“Obviously, don’t stay in a relationship or in contact because of guilt,” said Alessandra Conti, a matchmaker at Matchmakers in the City in New York. “The longer you stay in a relationship that you know is not long-term, the harder it will be to break it off.”
When you find someone you like, value them.
On the show, Kondo says the goal of tidying is to learn to “cherish everything that you have.” To that end, if you find someone who’s worth cherishing, don’t fixate on their shortcomings and nitpick them out of your life.
Sure, the new guy you’re seeing leaves beard shavings in the sink, but he’s promising and might be worth keeping around, just like your favorite old T-shirt from college.
“You have to observe the magic in each person you get to spend time with,” said Justina Victoria, a matchmaker at Tawkify. “When we focus on what a person is doing right, what is uniquely beautiful about them and what they offer from their heart, the dating experience is transformed from lacking and dull to an experience full of abundance, wonder and magic.”
Sarah Paulson's Scandalous Dating Advice: “Become A Nudist & Sit On His Face!” – Glamour UK
Sarah Paulson has quickly become our go-to icon. After serving up impressions left, right and centre on the Oceans 8 promotional tour, the actress, who rose to fame in American Horror Story, joins GLAMOUR’s Josh Newis-Smith to reveals some seriously funny life advice.
After starring in Glass (alongside James McAvoy and Bruce Willis) as a therapist who specialises in individuals who believe they are superheroes IRL (what a niche skill set), Sarah Paulson gets her best agony aunt ON to show you how to navigate through your dating life and so much more. Strap yourselves IN and watch the video above!
Like your clients in Glass, I’ve got a superhero within who’s desperate to come out, but she’s got some bad style. What style advice would you give?
I think she’s best undressed – I think you should have your boobs out! I want your boob out. Is that really sexist of me? But I think your boobs should be out just because it’s empowering, and you’ve got fabulous ones so you should just let the pendulum hang. Let it out – free the nip! I don’t want any Instagram censoring. I want my nipples out and I want yours out too. I feel like why dress when you look the way you do. Just let it be. Clothing would actually diminish your light. Let the true you come out. Become a nudist. That’s my advice for your empowerment.
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I’ve just started dating a lad who’s got so many layers to his personality and I can’t work out who he really is. How can I break him down to work out who the true him is?
I think you need to get a hidden camera and film him at home, at the office all day so you see what he is really like when you’re not around. So basically, be a secret lying spy. Get the information you need and then attack. I think that’s sound, sage advice. It may be a little duplicitous, but I don’t care. I was going to say you could sit on his face and be like, ‘you will tell me everything! I wanna know or I will not get off your face!’ I think it could work if you position everything the right way. My mother is going to kill me!
I’m looking to adopt a new tough guy image, I feel like maybe I need to masc it up a touch more. What tips can you give me for bringing out my inner Bruce Willis?
I think you could squint your eyes a little bit, put your chin down a bit, put your head to the side. But you can’t be laughing – that doesn’t work! Now, you don’t have any Bruce Willis in there. Put your head down, squint. Go a little bit lower with the voice. But not too much because all of a sudden, you’re Elvis!
My drunk personality needs a name – what should I christen her?
Her name is Vivian for sure. She’s a bit of a mess but so chic and glamourous. But when you first meet her, if you call her Viv and you don’t know her, she gets pissed.
Sarah, you have quite a lot of different personalities – what do you name them?
Mostly my names for myself are really stupid things like, Grumpy Sarah and Irritable Sarah but I call myself Sarah. I’m like, look at her she’s grumpy, oh sleepy Sarah, don’t bother her, she’s ti-ti! Give her a little bottle and a nuk nuk. I don’t know what that nuk nuk is.
You have been known to pull off a cracking crime – mainly stealing. What mug shot poses would you recommend?
Take the mascara and then you dip your fingers in water, then you mush, mush, mush to get a proper smokey eye and then cry so you’ve tears of mascara running down. A little brow furrow would be good. I think it’s the tears dropping with black mascara at the bottom would be the most dramatic. Sort of sexy trash but refined, sexy, editorial trash.
Glass is in cinemas from 18th January
Maynard Webb's advice to founders who are pitching new ideas – Fast Company
Editor’s Note: This week, Fast Company is launching a new advice column by Maynard Webb, former CEO of LiveOps and the former COO of eBay. Each week Webb will offer candid, practical, and sometimes surprising advice to entrepreneurs and founders. To submit a question, write to Webb at dearfounder@fastcompany.com.
Q. How do I raise seed money but protect myself from someone else stealing my idea? I’m meeting with angel investors and small VCs, and some people want to make introductions to big players in my space. What do I do?
–Founder of a matchmaking firm now launching an app in the dating space
Dear Founder,
Don’t worry about someone stealing your idea. Everyone thinks what they are doing is so important and big and special. But here’s the surprising part: That doesn’t mean other people will want to go do it. Companies and investors are busy and have hundreds of other existing priorities. This is your one priority, so just go do it.
Amazing things happen when you share your idea. When Marc Benioff started Salesforce, he didn’t initially share his idea with a lot of people, but over lunch, his friend Bobby Yazdani, the founder of Saba Software, encouraged him to, saying that the number-one mistake entrepreneurs make is they hold their ideas too closely to their chest. Marc considered that and shared what he wanted to do. “It’s very good you told me,” Bobby said, and then introduced him to three contractors he had working for him who soon became Marc’s cofounders and helped him build an incredible service and company. Today, Marc has described meeting Parker Harris, one of the original three developers, as ”the luckiest thing in my life.” That’s synchronicity and it happened because Marc articulated his vision and shared it with someone who had experience, understanding, and a desire to help.
You’ll find way more synchronicity and power in sharing your idea than you will danger.
In fact, you’ll be more at risk if you are too closed off. It can be a real turnoff to investors if you are too secretive or cagey. We recently met a founder we really liked and we wanted to invest in her startup. We recommended that she meet a contact of ours at a big company who we thought could be helpful. She was afraid he would knock it off and build it on his own, so she refused to meet him. Her worry about being knocked off trumped her curiosity and dedication to build the best service possible, which was concerning to our team. It was such a big deal for us that we decided not to invest–even though we were very excited about what she was building.
Being too shy about what you are doing is a defensive move, not the offensive move you need to get money and to succeed. VCs are investors, not builders. Get them excited about you and your company, and get them on board so they can share their resources: money, connections, experience, and wisdom.
Of course, please remember, you don’t have to share everything. You can speak broadly but enough to make sure they are interested. I imagine it’s similar to what you would tell your clients. When you first start dating someone it’s imperative to share who you are, what you do, and what your values are, but you shouldn’t go into detail about your crazy sisters or bring anyone home to meet Mom and Dad on the first date!
As far as meeting someone who is in your space, do that later. Sharing your idea with investors is one thing, but you will not want to meet potential acquirers until you have traction. Control your own destiny as long as you can. Raise the money you need without going to those who can gobble you up.
Finally, if someone can steal your idea and do it better, then shame on you. But for now, let’s focus on what you can do if you stay focused on what you uniquely know. If you focus too much on the competition, you lose sight of where you are going. It’s hard to run up the stairs when you are always looking right and left, and for who’s coming up behind you. And, it’s not always as important as you might think.
Please allow me to share an example. Right when I joined eBay, Microsoft and Dell launched an online auction site called FairMarket. Everyone was very worried about this initiative. Could this be the end of eBay?
Obviously, we now know how this story ends: FairMarket never became a real threat and eBay wound up buying it a few years later. Had we gotten bogged down in competing against them we would have lost track of what we were doing, changed our strategy to be influenced by theirs, and given them validation in the market they didn’t warrant. It was more powerful to focus on what we wanted. We prioritized what was most important: scalability (we had significant service issues due to our success), trust (we had to make transactions safer for consumers), friction (most of the payments were by check or money order as opposed to PayPal, etc.), and user experience. We also expanded into multiple countries, either via new launches or acquisition. So, while we kept an eye on what the competition was doing, we spent most of our time making our successful service better, safer, easier to use, and more global.
Remember: You are your most important competition and ultimately your biggest threat. If you don’t build a product or service of relevance, it really doesn’t matter what your competition does. Believe in yourself, stay focused, and go out and create something amazing.
Maynard Webb is a longtime technology executive, investor, board member, and best-selling author. His most recent book is Dear Founder: Letters of Advice for Anyone Who Owns, Leads, or Wants to Start a Business
Ask the Astro Poets: How Do You Help Someone Who Loves to Suffer? – W
Ask the Astro Poets is the monthly advice column by W‘s resident astrologers, Alex Dimitrov (Sagittarius) and Dorothea Lasky (Aries). At the halfway point of every month, they take a breather from writing poetry and horoscopes, and take your questions about love, career, even the big existential questions in life. From matchmaking and compatibility, to friendship, professional, and dating advice, the poets of the stars are here to guide you through any challenge:
Dear Astro Poets,
I have befriended and dated many Capricorns in my life and they all have something in common: they love to suffer. As a hedonistic Taurus, this is something I simply don’t understand. Ignoring red flags, staying in bad situations for the “security,” feeling guilty about everything, overcommitting. Most of them are straight-up sadomasochists. Is there anything I can do to convince them that they don’t necessarily “deserve” bad things? How can I cheer up these Debbie Downers through tough times? Or, a better question: how do you help someone who hates to be helped?
Love,
A Hedonistic Taurus
Dear Hedonistic Taurus,
Helping and giving advice to Capricorns? That’s a tall order. But since it’s Capricorn season I’ll try to answer your question. I’m going to be very honest and—full disclosure—tell you that Capricorns are not my most compatible friends or lovers. But that’s a Sagittarius thing. For me, there’s just not enough mystery to many of them. Which leads me to your very astute observations. Yes, they’re practical and diligent. They’ll stay in it until the end (even if it hurts), and security is one of their main goals. Though I haven’t known too many Capricorns that ignore red flags. They’re just too smart and too resourceful for that.
So why are Capricorns always living like martyrs? Well, first of all, they have a lot of pride. They are convinced nothing will kill them and that no battle is too big. Capricorns actually love a battle. Anything that will prove how resilient and tough they are is going to get their interest. Suffering is something they accept as coming with that territory. And while they can endure it, and do, they’re always reminding you of that. I can’t tell you how many Capricorns I’ve had to mute on Twitter because they’re constantly complaining, performing their suffering, while really, using it as an opportunity to boast about their accomplishments. Honestly Capricorns, this is life. Not a campaign for best actor in a horror film. Chill out.
Helping a Capricorn chill out is so hard. They are the worst at vacations. So don’t take them on one. All they’ll do is remind you of the things they have to finish when they get back, or the things they’re working on (while vacationing!). I really think we should legalize weed immediately and everywhere as a way to help Capricorns. (Or maybe they should all move to Colorado or Maine.) I say all this with love. I want them to prosper and to let me live. That’s the thing about Capricorns—not only are they their own taskmasters, but they love being taskmasters for others. Unsolicited ones, too. And for you as a Taurus, that’s a big no. Every Taurus is their own boss. Everyone knows that.
The truth is, life would feel very boring to Capricorns if there wasn’t a Herculean task or a hoop they had to jump through. They are incredible planners and in their resourcefulness is where they find real pleasure. I know that as a Taurus. you’re horrified by this. Of course, you’d much rather sit down with a $500 bottle of wine and reminisce about your past lovers. But that’s just not the Capricorn way. They have work to do. They might, honestly, be the ones who save us all. Good luck to them trying to tell me what to do though.
Always a Sagittarius,
Alex
Dear Astro Poets,
I’m a Scorpio sun with Pisces in moon and rising. I have struggled with relationships over the past three years, always going out with people who tell me that I’m an amazing person but they’re “just not in the right place” to have a relationship with me. When I meet someone I often find myself diving in, emotionally and sexually, starting from the first date. I’m very honest with my partners and want to grow with them through life (that’s a relationship after all, right?) and I tell them about my feelings quite earnestly. I tend to think about them for months, even years, after things end, with no sense of regret but a looming melancholy for having lost them. Do you have any guidance for a very lonely Scorpio who just wants an honest relationship?
Yours,
A Confused Scorpio
Dear Beautiful Scorpio,
Thank you so much for your very thoughtful question! Of course, I would assume no less from someone with your watery chart, but I appreciate nonetheless the heart-filled and earnest way you have approached writing us.
Let me start off by saying that you are a very special person. I’ve known a few people with your astrological make-up and they’ve all been extremely psychic, fair, and kind. I’ll put an emphasis here on the psychic part as a Pisces moon blending into a Scorpio sun is going to bring you some crazy kinds of intuition, and you tend to know what’s going on, in very deeps ways, in most situations you’re in. As you continue along your life journey, it’s important to remember this power that you have—to see into the past, present, and future simultaneously—as it is a gift which makes you a real asset in any relationship, let alone a romantic one.
But part of the burden of this deep empathy is that you do tend to bring out your partners’ “issues” into the space of your interactions with them. When people are with you, they feel a sense that they are truly seen. Although this is a dream for many, for others it can bring out things about themselves they may not want to see for too long. I am sure you are a wonderful person to reminisce with and to bring up a whole host of past memories, both painful and joyful. But I could see some of your partners not being ready for this and needing to walk away from the intensity. As they say, it’s their loss! But truly, it really is their loss to not be ready. Personally, I believe emotional intensity is quite literally what makes the world go around.
A lot of people who don’t known astrology see Scorpios as loners. But of course if you know anything about the signs, you know that Scorpios just want exactly what you say: an “honest relationship.” And they aren’t going to settle until they find it. The good news is that Scorpios always get what they want, because they’re determined, hardworking, and steadfast. It’s easy to say this, but I do think that these trial relationships are just that. It’s time to move forward with a sense of the immense empathetic strengths you bring to your lovers and to find the right partner(s) who want exactly the same thing. An easy answer is to look for a Pisces or a Virgo, as these two signs (the Pisces more so) won’t be scared of seeing the truth about themselves.
Another thing to think about when you find a new person is making intense memories with them. Sometimes there’s a tendency in a relationship, especially when it’s new, to drudge up the past or plan for the future and to neglect the present. When you find your special person, concentrate on everything new. If they know what’s good for them, this connection will last for eternity. And if it’s the right person—which eventually it will be—I know you will do your best to keep them with you past eternity too! Eternal love is a good thing.
Sending you luck and love,
Dorothea
Related: The Astro Poets Predict What Your 2019 Will Look Like
