The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free. Dr. Kenner.com.

Marcus, you misread a girl's romance signals. Tell me about that. Yes, pretty badly, pretty much. She said that she was going on dates with this other person, okay, and that was a month ago. I had told her, like, "Well, I'm not comfortable with you dating me and him," and then I added, "but just because we're just friends doesn't mean that I'm closing the door," basically saying that I'm still interested in her, but it's not going to be like that, right?

So you didn't want to share her. You wanted an exclusive. Yeah, I didn't really feel comfortable in that situation, right? So then a couple of weeks go by, and I'm still talking to her, and we're kind of flirting. Then Valentine's Day comes around, I send her something small, and apparently the guy that she's also dating is now her boyfriend. I had no idea, so I wasn't really particularly hurt. I was more relieved that I got out of an ambiguous situation, yeah, and it was kind of like, well, I wouldn't want to be dating someone who is flirting with someone else all the time, right?

Very good. But, um, glad, what is the right thing, or as the right thinking about this? But I suppose, was I wrong to have done that? If I maybe she was just being friendly, not flirty. Who knows?

Oh, you know something, you take a risk. I mean, as a guy, and nowadays as the women. When the women ask the guys out, too, but in my day, usually just the guys ask the women out. You are always at risk of being shut down, or, you know, somebody says no to you all the time. What do you do? That's part of dating. You want to have that strength, that resilience, to be able to reach out and be able to send someone something very nice.

In fact, when I was dating my husband, my former boyfriend sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers the same day that this new guy I was dating, my husband, sent me flowers, and it wasn't even Valentine's Day. I remember, I was at Brown University at the time, and my roommates are the people, the girls on the floor, saying, "What's going on here? You got flowers from two different guys." So now, do you think I liked that or didn't like that?

Well, I bet you liked it. But her response was not very happy.

Oh, okay. Why was she not happy? She basically said, you know, "not cool. Don't text me again." It was kind of hurtful. It was clear, at least, at least, it wasn't leading me on. It wasn't, you know, I think it was too far in the direct direction.

Okay, so when you're first dating, you're always going to have some ambiguity, and she's not married yet. Who knows that if you sent her something, she might have thought it was the sweetest thing. What did you send her?

I just sent her a flower, a flower.

So that sounds very sweet. That sounds within reason, and it sounds lovely. And if she had called up, I would have said, you know, it would have been a little nicer if you said to him something along the lines of how sweet, "I want to let you know that if I weren't dating, you know, I might be a little more interested. I'm very happily dating right now, and I apologize for not having made that clear earlier." You know, she could have been nicer. I don't know what went on on the other end, maybe her boyfriend is not the coolest guy, or maybe he felt very threatened and made it very rough on her. And you just happened to catch her right after she spoke with him, right after he kind of grilled her out. You know, what the heck are you doing? Are you still dating?

Not even her? I mean, I'm still, I suppose on the market, I'm still going out exploring. I wouldn't say I'm exclusive or anything like that.

Okay, but you're searching, and I would definitely not hesitate to send a little note or a little gift to somebody else in the future. I think that's part of the reaching out and part of giving them a little piece of information of who you are. What? If she ever broke up with this guy, you may not want her back, but she might say that was really sweet, that he sent me that flower, even though I couldn't tell me. But you may not want her. You know, people do change, right?

Right. Listen, thank you so much for the call, Marcus. Thank you very much for the advice.

Okay, you're very welcome, and if you want to ask me a question, my number is toll free, 1-877-DR-KENNER. That's toll free, 1-877-DR-KENNER. And you can also visit my website, Dr. Kenner.com, D-R-K-E-N-N-E-R.com.

Do you ever have a situation where you held something in for years, and it's really haunting you now? That's what's happening with our next question that I received from Dan. Hi, Dr. Kenner, my name is Dan, and I live with my parents, my older brother Caleb, and my sister Andrea. Caleb sexually harassed me four years ago. I didn’t tell my parents because I was scared. It haunts me because I still live at home with Caleb. I told my sister Andrea by texting her; she never acknowledged it. How do I deal with this?

Dan? Dan, your goal is to get peace of mind for yourself. So the first thing that leaps off the page for me is haunting. Why does it haunt you? Why does anything haunt any of us? And that means that we have a really terrible feeling, this dark cloud over us, that something is really bad and that we're powerless to do anything about it. So something made you feel strong enough to use the word haunt. So you want to ask yourself, and you know the answers to this, what was the actual damage done by Caleb and also the damage done by not getting closure on it? For example, you might feel that there's no justice, or you might be left feeling unworthy, or maybe you feel that you're incapable of speaking up, or that people won't hear you, or they don't care.

For example, when you reached out to your sister, there was no response. She didn't answer you. Or maybe you feel you can never trust people because you couldn't trust Caleb. Or maybe you fear your parents' response. You feel fearful of others. And what is your view of your future? Maybe you feel that you don't have a voice to defend yourself and may never have, that you never want to leave yourself in that situation.

So second, you want to understand the nature of the sexual harassment. The first thing was to really understand the word haunting, and you want to take action. You don't want to leave yourself that way with that cloud hanging over you. The second is, what is the nature of the harassment? And there are a range of things that people call harassment, anything from benign touching, which shouldn't be in the category of harassing. You might be two young kids, you touch mine, I'll touch yours. And basically, they're both curious. No harm is done, and there's no coercion. It could be being called a sissy or some such, or it could be a lot worse. It could be real heavy belittling with words, or it could be something physical, which we usually call abuse. Was it a one-time occurrence, or was it more frequent? You know, these are some questions to explore.

Then, why could you not tell your parents? That's another area to explore. Would they not be supportive of you? Would they just tell you to get over yourself and dismiss it? Would you feel too embarrassed? Would they possibly deny what happened and call you a liar, or say it was so long ago? Can't you just forget it? Or would they turn on Caleb and severely punish him? Or you? You know what would happen in your family? It might feel like a huge thing. Maybe it won't feel that huge to them, but it's unpredictable to you.

And what do you make of your sister ignoring it? Why not? I mean, you could always go back in a quiet and inquire. You could ask, you know, four years ago, I sent you a text, and I want to understand what went through your mind when I sent you that text. You want to be inquiring, not attacking.

Another question is, is there a possibility for repair? Could you talk with Caleb himself? I mean, this has gone underground now, and maybe he feels very guilty and would like the opportunity to make a meaningful apology. Maybe it's not. Maybe the damage was very severe and you need to address it more. But the main thing to focus on is that you want to give yourself a voice, and if you can't, if you don't know how to do it in the context of your family, or don't feel safe doing it, you can always get therapy. You can go to my website, Dr. Kenner Academy of ct.org. It's a cognitive website also, and here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.

Hello, Dr. Kenner. This is Chet from Whitby Island. I gave you a call last year. I was having pounds of low self-esteem.

Ah, I see. And did my advice help you to become more assertive?

Damn straight. You know, people say I'm downright arrogant.

Well, I would say, screw them.