SPFPP 232: Dating

Identifying the most recent event that triggered you in dating can often be tied to one of the first triggering dating experiences you've had. Don't try to find consistency in the situations, but instead, loo, for the consistency in emotion and you can tie it all together. I use my own dating experience lows as an example for you to work with when identifying your own patterns. I process this avoidance of rejection i've faced since childhood dating scenarios and recognize how it comes up now as I associate my identity with being @honmychest and the Founder of Something Positive for Positive People, but I also look at what dating looks like if herpes wasn't a factor. The most invalidating rejections come from one sided emotionally connecting exchanges for me, as I tend to be drawn to people who aren't available. If I intentionally "approach" those I have an interest in, I have an internalized fear there that I'm going to speak to my therapist about and explore on the podcast once I process it.

Episode 332 Transcript

The Root of Rejection: The Middle School Blind Date

00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Getting right into it so that I can maximize the 60 minutes that this recording app lets me use. I'm going to get right into the topic, skipping the intro, skipping the details about the nonprofit, and go right into the topic of dating. Uh, I at this point have had genital HSV2 to my knowledge for I believe this is my ninth year. I'm 33. I would have found out at age 20. Wow. I think it's 10 years. Regardless, um, the entirety of my dating life has really looked the same. I think that herpes has made me more uh assertive in dating. And I say that because not only do I need to or feel this moral obligation to initiate a conversation disclosing my herpes status, but also uh identifying someone who is worth me putting myself in that vulnerable space to disclose to. And I'm going to talk about this in therapy soon, but I recognize a consistent pattern in my own dating history has been that I have this avoidance of rejection.

00:02:07 Courtney Brame: And over the years, I remember the first blind date I went on, y'all. I was with my friend Nick. Um, he unfortunately passed away when we were young um in the tornado uh that happened in Missouri. But I remember that he was seeing this girl and she had a younger half sister. Uh he was a year older than me and she was a year younger than her sister. So we go to the movies after having talked for a long time on the phone and like we'd be on four-way or three-way or whatever. Oh my god, it's taking me back. So uh we finally met in person. and we get dropped off at the movies and like I was so certain I remember this and this is the first time I'm even thinking about this since I don't know how long ago but I remember I saw her she came around the corner and I just took off running y'all I just took off running and I can't remember much after that I don't remember we kept talking or what I don't know why y'all But I was just I I already talked to her and I was scared.

00:03:22 Courtney Brame: But I as an adult now linking the most recent occurrence that I've had with something like that to the first time that I can remember it. I think that that had to do with me not wanting her to see me and then reject me. Like I was so invested at that point because we've talked so much and you know we were kids. I'd say I was probably like 11, 12, 13 years old. However old you are when you get dropped off at the movies. I know it wasn't in high school. It was probably like middle school. And so yeah, I didn't really understand why I did that. But the only thing that I can think of was just like I was insecure. I was insecure to the point of avoiding rejection and regardless of how often we talked on the phone. And now this was before dating apps and we went to different schools so it's not like we saw each other every day.

00:04:26 Courtney Brame: So we didn't really have ways of sending pictures. It was like you had to take your friend's word that the person was cute and then you're talking, you get invested, and then you meet and then if it's if they don't look like or if you don't look like what the other person expected, you run the risk of rejection. And I don't know, man, I just took off running.

SPFPP and Herpes as a Defense Mechanism

Courtney Brame: And the most recent occurrence that makes me think about the avoidance of rejection that I had is um now having herpes uh and being open about it. Uh, I recognize, and I've spoken about this before on podcast episodes, that my openness and being public about it is a way to avoid anyone who's going to reject me um, intimately or from dating because I have herpes. Because I'm open about it. And not only that, but I'm open about it for a good reason. Like I help people with herpes who at the extreme end of the spectrum want to kill themselves, right?

00:05:35 Courtney Brame: So my work essentially is suicide prevention. I had this traumatic thing happen and I flipped it into something that actually does some good in the world. And so when I disclose my herpes status to a person, a person doesn't hear, oh, you have herpes. They hear the undercurrent of my disclosure being this is the kind of person who a bad thing may happen to, but he's able to do something with it. They hear he's a good person. They hear he has integrity. They hear if I've been doing this now for 5 years, they hear consistency. like they hear things that trigger the connection response to what they may be looking for in a partner, whether that be long-term or whether that be just like an indicator of safety, right? So, most recently, uh, and enough time has passed for me to be able to talk about this now, but someone I met, we've known each other, uh, kind of, uh, we connected and we went out.

The Trigger: A Recent Dating Experience

00:06:42 Courtney Brame: We had a great time. And I recognized how I like a person, like when and how I like a person is when I feel safe to really go into detail and answer the question, how are you? So, if I feel like I can tell you this thing, I can tell you what I've been working on, what I've been reflecting on, and I feel listened to, and I feel like you heard me, I fall in love. Like, that's, that's how you get me. Because then that shows me that you're trustworthy of me to open up to. I can't tell you how many people ask me how I'm doing, only to assess whether or not they’re... I'm in a place where they can get whatever it is that they need to say off and that's really the intention behind it. So, we had this connection uh that I felt and I was like, damn, you know, I really like this person. And at the time, I was working with my therapist on not just having sex on the first date.

00:07:40 Courtney Brame: Uh well, I wasn't working with my therapist on that. He just invited me to consider not doing that anymore. And so, uh, we go out, you know, and, you know, she knows what I do. She follows me on social media and she won't hear this podcast cuz she don't listen to it. A lot of women, so I think I noticed that I date women who don't listen to my podcast. There's there's been one person that I know who would listen um who would have listened and like comment um and we've had a relationship, but that's that's ended now for s*** a couple months now that I think about it. So, if you listening, what's good? I ain't heard from you. I feel ghosted, but it's all good. I know you got a relationship that you're working on and maintaining and uh I see your stories. So, hi. I hope you're well. Um, so me and this woman uh that I was talking about originally, she and I go out, we have a great time.

00:08:41 Courtney Brame: Like we are like- dancing, we're drinking, and at the end of the night, uh, we were getting to a point of which I was like, "All right, I need to make a move." So, I'm going to ask like I asked her, I was like, "Hey, so what are you thinking? Like, are you getting friend vibes or what?" And she was like, "Oh, just friends." And this was shortly after I made a sexual comment and it was like received very well. I was like, "Damn, okay. Well, all right. That's fine." So, we go on about the night and dance more and like people talking to us, socializing and all that stuff. And then at the end of the night, we go home together. So, I assumed that what would have happened was um cuz she lives pretty close, we would have Ubered to her place and I would have just walked home. But uh she got the Uber and told me to plug in my place.

00:09:27 Courtney Brame: I was like, "Oh, okay." So we come back to my place and um we go to bed and I mentioned that thing that I said that was a sexual thing that was received well and I was like, "Can friends do this?" She was like, "s***." without going into too much detail. Um, that sexual thing ended up turning into, you know, short, very short, like re-affirm disclosure. Um, because yeah, I'm open about having herpes, but I always have to make sure that a person is actually okay with it. So, I go, "Hey, so can I have sex with you?" And she's like, "Yeah, I know your situation. I trust you to keep me safe." I said, "Bet." So, not only have I fallen in love because I felt very emotionally connected to, but also I feel like this is a great thing. Like I couldn't wait to tell my therapist, "Yeah, I had a connection before having sex." Like it was legit, blah, blah, blah.

00:10:27 Courtney Brame: So, next day, uh, we had sex again and then she left. And then she about 4 to 6 hours later text me freaking the f*** out that maybe she had herpes. And I tried not to curse throughout this podcast. Damn. And then I said that too. So, um, that happened and I realized I was crushed by that. And the reason that I was so crushed, tying it back to the first occurrence of avoidance of rejection is because I put up this entire defense mechanism that is Something Positive for Positive People. That is my face being out there in association with me having herpes. and then received the acceptance, you know, not just, you know, for me having herpes, but for me as a person, like I felt that safety, emotionally, emotional safety and connection was demonstrated for me, which created this sense of of uh trust. And uh with that trust came this expectation for me and the expectation put me on this high.

00:11:32 Courtney Brame: I was like, "Oh my god, like this is somebody that perhaps I can build with or someone who cuz there's a lot more to it in terms of how I saw this person at the time in that like I'm someone who really values space and I also value quality time and connection. The more that another person has going on, and I hate how this is going to sound, but the more available someone is, the less attractive they are to me or the less attractive they become. And I say that because I have a lot going on and I need my personal space and I have a history of becoming enmeshed in relationships to where one of us is always doing what the other person is doing and like we treat that like quality time. That's not quality time. What that is is I'm a person who has my routine. I have my things that I do. I do yoga. I go to the gym. I like to just play video games.

00:12:31 Courtney Brame: I might want to watch anime. And if you're someone who isn't inherently into those things, then it doesn't feel like quality time. It feels like taking away from my recharge time. And I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that in other ways as well. But I found myself, you know, not just a partner doing that to me, but also myself doing that to a partner, being all up in their space like that. So, it has become very important to me to have my own thing going on. And so, this person seemed to like check a lot of these boxes, not to mention the sex was fire. Like, and that'll really be what sends you over the top. But uh going back to the thing about expectations is I created this imagined reality as a result of that trajectory of how things were going that put me on this high and like I'm … I'm up. I'm up. I'm up.

00:13:26 Courtney Brame: And also this person was fine with me having herpes. That's probably one of the bigger hurdles in dating um on the surface at least if that's what you're looking at when it comes to dating and relationships. Um, and she was okay with it or she told me she was. And so I'm on this high. And then for her to have been like, "Actually, I'm really scared that I have herpes. I don't want to do this." It was like the fall was so much harder because it came from so much higher, right? So it's not like I was rejected in the moment uh for having herpes. Like, "Hey, Courtney, you great guy. I just don't want to get herpes." like had it been said to me earlier on in the night or at that point of, you know, sex about to happen, um it would have been a much shorter fall, I'd have been like, "Oh, well, that's a bummer, but I respect your decision. Thank you for taking care of yourself." Thank you for taking care of yourself is the absolute best response to any sort of a

00:14:24 Courtney Brame: rejection. But we also have to, and this is a separate topic. I don't want to get too deep into this, but recognizing rejections and receiving it in a way that uh or even if you're rejecting someone, offer an alternative. If you still want to be with someone in a way that you know, they say, "All right, well, can I f*** you?" is what I said to her. You know, rather than, you know, perhaps just complying out of fear of harm or not necessarily feeling safe. Uh cuz you know these are things that women actually deal with and go through in their head. Um the response of well I don't want to have sex but we can make out right that was something that probably could have been said if um someone is um on the receiving end of a rejecting a rejection. You know if she would have said I'm not actually okay with this. And I could have been like, "All right, well, thank you for taking care of yourself. Like,

00:15:36 Courtney Brame: let's cuddle, talk, go to sleep, wake up, and then we'll go to breakfast or something like that." Right? So, I'm not oblivious to the fact that perhaps there was some pressure. Uh perhaps there was alcohol involved. Perhaps um there wasn't attraction like that. Perhaps, you know, she was just horny in the moment. And I was there. So, there's a lot of factors that play into this. Um, and I also, you know, just I would have rather it been under under circumstances where a lot of those potentialities could have been eliminated uh with let's say sobriety, you know, if we were sober and had that conversation or if um a not right now was in place. So like I, I made it a point now that for the first time hookups there will not be alcohol involved. Like that's like a new thing for me uh having gone forward from this and talk through it out loud. Um so that all said this is a very powerful lesson for me in dating because it very much hit on a consistent pattern that I have which is this avoidance of rejection.

Ambivalence, Insecurity, and the Dating Game

00:16:54 Courtney Brame: like I avoided rejection and then it still happened. Like it's going to be inevitable. That is sort of what this dating game is. And when dating, I I find that a lot of the people that I speak to will decide to not date based on their status. They'll be like, "Oh, well, I'm just going to be celibate. I'm going to focus on me." Like, we are inherently designed for and working towards connection. People that reach out to me, they are reaching out for a temporary fill in for a void that is that they're looking to be filled by a partner, a relationship. You know, it's cool to be independent. It's cool to be on your own, but at the end of the day, we all want that person or a person, some people that we can not only experience, but also allow for ourselves to be experienced. I used to host a podcast called Self and the idea behind it was self-exploration, self-discovery, self uh expression, self-education.

00:18:00 Courtney Brame: So, it was all of those things like ourselves to be able to be expressed and experienced. That's what connection is and that's what I felt on my end with this person who I felt this strong rejection from. Um, and that's like that's dating. And I recognize too that there's this ambivalence. I love using this word. I just learned it literally. What day did I record? Uh, literally last Friday. ambivalence and what it is is just like it's almost apathy but like a lack of excitement. Um, and I think that that particular interaction just sort of like put me in this state of being triggered because even in dating, like I recognize that there's no there hasn't been anyone that I'm super duper excited about and I'm finding myself like being very very very picky and my choice in dating and this ties into what I was saying about other people um who make the decision to be celibate, Right? So, as a defense mechanism, choosing celibacy could be out of fear of rejection as well to choose not to date, to choose to get off dating apps, to choose to make yourself unavailable when the reality is you are unavailable because you are unwilling to experience the rejections that may come through dating.

00:19:31 Courtney Brame: And take into consideration like for me in my case, yes, I have herpes. Yes, that could be the one thing that kept me and this woman from moving forward with more intimacy or relationship or sexual relationship. Um, but the other thing too is that maybe she just didn't like me that much. And I'm using myself here as an example, but this is a lot more common than you think. You know, a lot of people are in relationships with people who have herpes. A lot of people have herpes and are actively dating and not having issues with disclosing. And we also just need to take into consideration just to briefly play with the idea that maybe not only is that other person not super attracted to you, but maybe you're not even attracted to them. Maybe they're just accepting of a thing about you that you have a strong insecurity for. And because of that, you feel this high quality sense of connection. Let's say for me, I've had financial insecurities, and this is something that I've been very open about.

00:20:42 Courtney Brame: Um, and when I find someone who doesn't depend on me financially, it's like, cool. That's one less thing I don't have to worry about. Like, I'm not asking you to take care of me. I'm just saying I have to be at a place of being able to take care of myself. So dates look a certain way. Uh we might go do these things that are free or don't cost. If I really like you, like I'm going to go eat, so I might as well, you know, we can just eat together. Um and I'll pay. Like these are the kinds of things that I have understood about myself when it comes to financial insecurity. Um, when it comes to the insecurity around herpes, I think that I've done a really good job of just getting that out there rather early. Um, and even in like on my dating profiles, it's been on my dating profiles in various creative ways. And it's warted off people who might match with me.

00:21:40 Courtney Brame: We chat, they start to think, "Oh, okay. Well, he cool, blah, blah, blah. Oh, wait. He has herpes. Uh, I don't want any parts to that." And those aren't the people that are for me because not only do I have herpes, I'm also open about it. So, whoever it is that I'm with also has to be secure in who they are enough to be able to be in a relationship with somebody who is open about their herpes status. And it also takes a certain level of emotional intelligence to be able to receive that well uh and handle that because like that's you know I think that I've recognized that I'm very demisexual. I can have casual sex. I can have sex without the connection. But it gets so much better over time when I feel emotionally safe because again I can open up and do more. I'm a big Black dude that often dates outside of my race.

00:22:37 Courtney Brame: So, I need that safety there before I can really go into certain kinds of play or uh anything that's going to leave marks and bruises cuz you can run. I live up the street from a police station, y'all. You can walk out of here right up the street. Hell, look, he did this to me. He had these red marks around my neck. He slapped my ass. Like, all that stuff. Like, these are actual things that I think about when it comes to dating. And there's like there's so much more depth to it as well. But I think that these kinds of things really just get overlooked by the fact that we and I… I'm saying this, we as people who primarily listen to this podcast are people who are navigating the world having herpes. Don't close yourself off from having what it is that you want. Be honest with yourself. Like and I mentioned um this ambivalence like meet ambivalence with intentionality.

00:23:30 Courtney Brame: That's the last uh episode title. And I'm recognizing that I have for a very long time been unintentional with my dating because my underlying intention has been to avoid the feeling of rejection. Someone that uh we just ended our casual relationship. She closed her relationship uh with her partner and we're still friends and we were having this conversation about rejection and she asked me two very powerful questions. One was, you know, not why are you scared of rejection, but like what does being rejected look like and feel like? And also what does something essentially that made me trigger the thought of what does that mean about me if I experience a rejection? And she told me not to answer the question. I didn't answer it. I instead decided to just sit with it, reflect on it a little bit, and then I got distracted. So, this is me processing that out loud. What being rejected feels like to me is I'm not in high school anymore, right?

Redefining Rejection and Protecting the Ego

00:24:39 Courtney Brame: I don't have a community of people that I see regularly every day that uh if someone finds out this intimate detail about my life that people are going to treat me differently, right? And kids are cruel. Kids are ignorant. And so I don't have to worry about that anymore. Like I'm dealing with adults. So rejection doesn't carry nearly as much weight from one person as it does one person in a group of people in a community of a community of a community where you can lose your sense of security in community because someone is mean to you over something that they don't even understand. So I want to simplify that by kind of repeating it. What I mean is one person's rejection in adulthood does not mean the same thing as a rejection in childhood, right? Same thing with social media. I guess social media is the new high school. So if someone knows that you have herpes and this is something that you're embarrassed by, that person can use it against you in a way that isolates you from your community.

00:25:52 Courtney Brame: So metaphorically, high school social media. We're not in high school anymore. And to be honest, if you got people around you, friends and family who would do something like that to intentionally hurt you, let them see the door using this as what allowed for them to leave. There's no reason for that. There's no reason to have these kinds of people in your life. Um because there that it doesn't it doesn't feel good. like we don't we don't need that, right? And so the second question being what does it mean for my identity? Um I think that it directly goes against what my what I'm pouring my values I'm pouring my values into Something Positive for Positive People. So when a person rejects me for having herpes, I think that they're rejecting this thing that I've poured myself into and when I look at this entity that is sSomething Positive for Positive People, I see it as something bigger than me. So when I get rejected, it's like the concept of Something Positive for Positive People aiming to bring awareness to the social stigma of herpes.

00:27:14 Courtney Brame: It feels like I failed. It feels like I didn't do my job because I'm coming into contact with a person who will still reject me for having herpes even though I've got this great thing that's available and accessible to the world that people can uh utilize and help them navigate uh the herpes stigma in their own way. It's suicide prevention awareness. People are able to experience their stories uh from other people and share their stories and feel the support. I don't feel like I'm being rejected for having herpes. I feel like that ideology is being rejected for having herpes. And so that's herpes exclusively. But when we talk about my fear of avoidance of rejection long before uh my herpes diagnosis, taking it back to me running away from the girl at the movies, looking at today, today if I didn't have herpes and I was still dating, my feeling of rejection would also look like not feeling emotionally safe. You know, for me to want to have a conversation with somebody about my childhood trauma, my mental health, emotions, for somebody to be like, "Man, you acting like a little b****." Like,

Childhood Trauma and Emotional Availability

00:28:33 Courtney Brame: don't don't no man talk like that. Like, I don't want to hear about your emotions. Don't nobody give a f*** how you feel. f*** your feelings. And again, this is an extreme. This is absolutely an extreme. And I think that in my environment growing up, I did see a lot of this, not just from the people around me, but the women, like the cutest women wanted, I guess, the most, you know, nonemotional manly guy there was. And I saw it even with my mom dating. My mom dated men who were not emotionally aware, intelligent, or available. But she damn sure raised me to be emotionally aware, intelligent, and available. and she leaned on me for that because she wasn't able to get that from the men that she was dating or being or having relationships with. So here I am, you know, I recognize now growing up what I need is what I didn't get in childhood.

00:29:36 Courtney Brame: And my mom was unable to meet me with reciprocated uh connection emotionally because it was like she was so drained by emotionally unavailable people that she needed that one end of the emotional connection which was just to be heard. Like I heard my mom say you know things that no kid should hear from their mom, right? um and in conversation with me like looking for the emotional support that she was unable to get from her significant others. And so what this taught me growing up was like I became every girl's that I every girl that I wanted to like have a relationship with or date, I became their best friend. And I recognized much later that in the dating world like this there's a game unfortunately that's being played and it's a game that either you're going to play willingly or you're going to play unwillingly and you ain't going to like the result. So not in a I mean it is manipulation however you look at it but like I try to look at it as on one end you have coercion on the other end you have influence.

00:30:48 Courtney Brame: I like to think of myself as, you know, influencing a person to want to connect with me in the way that I want to be connected to. And that again, you know, I'm I'm I'm wanting to keep this themed with my experience in a way that hopefully enables you and inspires you, see what I did there, to be able to see how your most recent dating experience that triggered you went versus the first dating experience that you can recall having triggered that same feeling within you. If you're able to connect the most recent trigger to the initiation of the trigger, you get to see, it's like being in a matrix. You see every relationship in between, you know exactly why things happened the way that they did. You know why some things worked out, some things didn't work out. You know why you felt good about some things, bad about others. And that's what I'm hoping that you receive from me sharing here as I process this um as best I can.

00:31:53 Courtney Brame: uh given that this is again the first time that I've spoken about this. So uh I talked about having herpes and being rejected for having herpes to me feels like a rejection to everything that I've done over the last 5 years with Something Positive for Positive People. I feel like rejection invalidates my work and my uh affirming that people can have you know active sex lives and dating lives despite having herpes. people are going to be accepting the right kind of people and I feel like I'm living as an example of that. I am very enmeshed with my identity as H on my chest um the founder, executive director, podcast host of Something Positive for Positive People. So when I, Courtney, get rejected, that's who feels it and so much of my identity is tied into that that it hurts. It hurts because it's an invalidation of my identity because that's where my identity is tied to. And I think it's the same thing for a lot of people who experience rejection and they feel like it's a sexual rejection.

00:32:59 Courtney Brame: I'm not going to have sex with you is what people hear when uh they disclose their herpes status and the person just doesn't want to move forward with them. Because given that most of this audience is women, how often has a dude ever told you, "No, I don't want to have sex with you." You ain't never heard that before you got herpes. If you are with a guy, let's use the heterosexual language here, like men, especially let's say before late 20s, have this belief that women just have dicks thrown their way left and right. All you have to do is say yes or no. And for guys, we tend to like to jump at the opportunity to get some ass. Like that's just that's just who we are. That's what we do, that's what we do. So if that same logic is applied to your cisgendered heterosexual woman who receives a herpes diagnosis, discloses her status to a guy who never turns down sex, and then is turned down.

00:34:04 Courtney Brame: Like so much of that is invalidating because it's like, "Oh, guys never turn me down." Like, "Oh, guys always say yes to sex." And if that's if you hear no to the thing that a person always says yes to, then that rejection hits significantly different as well. But it's not about being rejected for sex that you have to look at. You have to look at that emotion underneath it. What is it that you felt in that moment? And can you trace it back to the first time you felt that? For me, again, taking this, you know, it's with herpes, then without herpes. If herpes wasn't here, the rejection that I would have experienced from that person that I slept with, if it wasn't about herpes, it would have been like, damn, you know, we connected. I feel like this is such a mutual two-way street of connection, emotional um emotional awareness and like I feel connected to you. That part feeling invalidated or rejected carries a significantly more weight to me than being rejected for having herpes and it feels as intense as it is because so much of my identity isn't Something Positive for Positive People.

00:35:25 Courtney Brame: We are not our sexual selves exclusively. That is a part of so much more of us. And I think that because I'm aware of my value, newly aware of my value as an emotionally aware and intelligent human being, especially man, um because that's not something that women are used to having available to them. I now know my value. So for me, having recently understood that my value is not tied to how uh how pleasurable meshing genitals with someone is or my finances or my physical looks. I now recognize like how much more of myself is interconnected with this intangible aspect of myself energetically. My emotions, my ability to connect with people and experience and be experienced by them to experience them and be experienced by them is more of an emotional thing. So now knowing what my value is, knowing what my worth is, I've caught myself having to consciously disengage from a lot more of those like how you doing. “How you doing?” is a litmus test to me.

00:36:46 Courtney Brame: If I am going to invest in you, when you ask me how I'm doing, then I'm going to tell you. And I started just giving people a little bit. I don't go into things like typing everything or voice messaging everything to people that I don't feel are really invested in me. And oftentimes I'm right. If I'm wrong, they'll ask more questions. But more often than not, I've been right in assuming that, okay, what this person is really doing is checking to see if I'm available for them to offload onto me. And this is like what dating has been for me. I've developed like this. I get excited sometimes, but I recognize too that my big occurrence of that rejection has influenced how I date. This happened several months ago. I want to put a timeline attached to it. And I recognize that I just haven't been excited about anyone since this person. And me and this person, we still talk.

00:37:46 Courtney Brame: Um I be sliding hands to her like, "Yeah, you playing. You playing. You playing." But it's- I mean that's … I'm past the point of you know, like hurting myself. I'm past the point of um not when I say hurting myself I mean like um putting up false hope or allowing myself to have this false hope that you know one day she'll come around. one day she'll just re realize that she already has herpes or that it's not a big deal or maybe she'll just like me so much and that's that's just not what happens. You know, some people are just again more attracted to some people than others cuz I've been with people who don't care about me having herpes because we've been that attracted to each other. But what I haven't had is that same like sense of emotional connection and trust and safety and that man like that is a rare thing to find especially in someone like close to you like I we again digital social media is high school right so we're connected with so many people we're able to connect with people through mutual interest that we otherwise wouldn't have connected with and I have very few connections that I feel like offer that to me, but to have that in a partner in to me like now there needs

00:39:10 Courtney Brame: to be like proof. I need that back. I need to experience that um that trust that comes with emotional safety. Like for me to be able to really tell you how I'm feeling. For me to really be able to say some of the f***** up s*** that goes on in my mind. Like if I can't feel safe sharing that with you, then there is no possibility of falling in love, right? And that's what is happening. Like I get this false sense of safety and then I start to see like, oh no, this ain't actually what it is. And unconditional acceptance is what I strive for. That to me is unconditional love. Every time that I have been in a relationship or been in love, the love was contingent on me not having sex with another person. And is that really what love is? Like love, I prove my love to you by simply not having sex with someone else.

00:40:07 Courtney Brame: Because what that ultimately morphs into, it evolves into I don't want you to have sex with someone else turns into I don't want you to have sex with anyone else turns into I only want you to have sex with me turns into I only want you to want to have sex with me. So that is an evolving door, not door, I'm sorry, that evolves and elevates to being so much more like this lie essentially like you got to lie to yourself. You're putting energy into lying to yourself in order to be in love. In order to receive love from someone, you have to withhold your thoughts, like your innermost just like visceral gut responses to attraction to somebody. You cannot talk to a person that you might find attractive. Yeah. But what I found is that in a lot of my relationships that haven't worked out, there's been an issue with me not exclusively wanting to be attracted to that one person and also demonstrating my loyalty in that way.

00:41:22 Courtney Brame: Like how else do we demonstrate love for each other without showing that we're willing to withhold a part of ourselves from something and leaning into diving into a thing or uh a person that may make who it is that we're sharing life with intimidated. So, these are the things that I've struggled with in dating personally is not receiving unconditional acceptance. Like, at one point in time, y'all, I was seeing 11 people. I did the math. Like, within this time period, I had 11 regular relationships like conversations and uh texts and like we didn't all see each other because some of these relationships were a little bit longer distance. And as I started to like to obtain clarity on what the relationships were, some went away, some transformed into friendships. And that's not the case now. I'm not seeing 11 people anymore. Um, but I also had to be able to differentiate between, you know, what's a friendship where intimacy may be involved or we may have sex that might be on the table um versus relationships.

00:42:38 Courtney Brame: And so there are far fewer relationships that I have now. But all the while, like the process of dating having gotten me to the point of realizing just how, you know, even though I have herpes, you would think that that would have I mean, it has changed things for me for the better, but you would think that my way of dating, having herpes, would have changed from that point in childhood where I ran like I physically ran away. like running away physically has now evolved to let me create this whole I'm going to create this smoke screen of that is Something Positive for Positive People so that I can't be rejected for not matching what a person's expectations are of me let me all right now I'm going to I'm going to go over here now and just live my life and let my people filter their way in and the people who aren't filter their way out having herpes has helped me in dating with identifying very quickly. You know, if I tell someone I have herpes and they welcome more conversation, they welcome the opportunity for me to get vulnerable with them and share what my experiences have been, then this is going to be someone who's emotionally safe.

Reframing Rejection and Dating with Intentionality

00:44:00 Courtney Brame: I have to with my moral morality um share my status with them as well as um ask them about their testing practices. So, it's helped me become a healthier communicator. Uh it's made me have better connections, but like at the same time, you know, it's the game. It's still a game of dating. and I haven't had that feeling of excitement. Uh, and maybe like this is because I haven't healed from that feeling of rejection that I had. And dating has been very just ambivalent to me. It felt like, you know, sort of a chore. Like, yeah, I want to have sex. So, this is what you do to have sex. Like, you date people. And then you at times like I'll just look up and be in a relationship and then be like uh well you know this could have happened this could have not happened this way. I'm not really excited about it.

00:45:05 Courtney Brame: Uh and that that's just been like a pattern of mine. So what I now know that I need to work on is recognizing that rejection to me is not against what I stand for. All rejection from a person in the dating game is that they have something that's just more of a priority to them than making a part of me a priority. Like prioritizing an aspect of me will negate something that they hold near and dear to their heart and their identities. So to be Courtney's girlfriend means you're going to be the girlfriend of that dude who talks about herpes and that everyone knows it. to be um in the relationship with me means that it means that you're going to have to be the kind of person who um is receptive to this deep s*** sometime often because like I think that I have my therapist, I have this podcast, I have my vehicles of expressing my emotions. I go to the gym, I do yoga.

00:46:25 Courtney Brame: Um, but I think it's still a lot and like I haven't found one person who can really, you know, receive this in a way that counteracts my childhood trauma of being my mom's emotional boyfriend and going through adulthood. Uh, learning that what women find to be very valuable about me is my emotional intelligence. And that goes from friendships to also dating. And then there are some people who just want that and want me for themselves, but you know, I don't want them in that way to give them all of me in a sense of what it means to be in love. Man, this s***'s b******* to me. Like I want for someone and I still haven't found this, you know, in someone that is going to be here full time as my partner, like unconditional acceptance. Everyone has tried to change me or change something about me. And if something doesn't change or I'm unwilling to change, then the relationship either won't work out or I find myself compromising because it's like, "All right, well, I like this thing. I like that I'm having this thing with this person,

00:47:40 Courtney Brame: the sex or the food or the rides or the adventures, the experiences. I don't want to stop having those. But do you want to be yourself more than you want to just not have certain experiences and things with a person is really what it comes down to. So, I'm beginning to really ramble. So, I want to make sure that the number one takeaway from this entire episode is that you recognize that how you date is probably how you've always dated. Herpes or no herpes, there is going to be a consistent thing that has been there from again you feel an emotion in the dating game. uh whether it be positive or negative, you want to think back to the first time you felt that positive or negative emotion. And then you'll see what the pattern is. And once you recognize a pattern, you decide whether or not you want to change it. Put boundaries in place. Put a process in place that counteracts that pattern or uplifts and supports that pattern.

00:48:46 Courtney Brame: For me, it's when people ask me how I'm doing, I offer a little bit and then see how they react to that. And if they ask me again, I know, okay, you're not you're not going to be my person. Like, that's just what it is. Because I can't fall in love with you. I can't feel safe to… I don't feel safe trusting you. I don't feel like you accept me because like that's what it is. And then even, you know, looking at my mom, like I don't even think my mom has fully accepted me because she couldn't really know me because I was rarely given an opportunity to express how I was feeling, but I always knew how she was feeling. I always know how people around me are feeling. And so that, metaphorically, should be whatever your thing is. And this could be something with a relationship with a family member, a guardian, uh someone who was very influential on your life because that might actually influence how you choose to date.

00:49:55 Courtney Brame: And I said this before in one of my first podcast episodes, y'all, dating with herpes is just like dating. You know, there's going to be ups, there's going to be downs, there's going to be things that you need to deal with. And all in all, you have to recognize your intention in dating. And if you don't know what it is, it's to connect. In what ways are you connecting? In what ways are you feeling connected to? When do you feel most connected? Do you feel connected when your identity is being validated? When you feel seen? because I recognize that I know that um through social media that I make a lot of people feel connected to. Make a lot of them do that. And it's short term. You know, it's like eating a Laffy Taffy versus having a regular practice of eating a Laffy Taffy. That was terrible. That was a terrible analogy.

00:50:52 Courtney Brame: I was going to use sugar verse Coke. Uh and that that's not a good one either. But um dopamine versus serotonin, I think one's short term, one's long term. I offer people dopamine hits, whereas I hope that these dopamine hits inspire people to put practices in place that allow for them to have ser serotonin consistently flowing through by giving them the opportunity to recognize their availability, their capacity to date, and then be able to welcome in the kind of people that can calm their nervous system so that they can naturally produce that serotonin. You should be with people who are easy to be with and that you're excited about being with or excited about being with you. Like I just recognize for myself like I don't have that excitement. And it could just be that my focus is in a different place. But it also could be that I'm being a little b**** about how I approach dating. Cuz another thing, and this is something that I'm going to talk to my therapist about, is that I don't approach the kinds of people that I'm interested in because of that fear of rejection.

00:52:01 Courtney Brame: And it's not like a fear of rejection for having herpes anymore. Um, since I just talked it out now that I recognize that I feel like the rejection is for Something Positive for Positive People. It's a rejection that validates that all I'm good for is being a placeholder for being, you know, someone that women can come and get the emotional support from a substitute rather than the person that they actually want it from. And that's kind of been my story with dating unavailable women. And I say unavailable um in the sense of like I've dated women who were single, who were open, but always had like a guy that they got from me what they wanted from them. And I could see it because sometimes arguments or disagreements just did not make any f****** sense at all. And then it was like, "Oh, it's because I'm not giving you what you want from that person." So, you're settling to get that emotional support and connection from me so that you can go on and continue to receive the emotional abuse or neglect, negligence, emotional neglect from the person that you have a physical connection with or that you actually are attracted to or whatever.

00:53:31 Courtney Brame: So, there's so much that really goes into this whole thing about dating that isn't on the surface of just herpes and compatibility and attraction there. It gets a lot deeper. All you have to do is recognize what your intentions are. Because when I got on Tinder, I said, "Y'all, I really need to have sex." So, I'm getting on Tinder to meet somebody I can have sex with. I did that and I was like, "Yeah, the intention was there. The intention was great." Like, when you set your mind to doing something and it happens, like it's that much more satisfying. But when you navigate the world, you know, ambivalently like me right now, like you you just feel so meh, right? Like I'm not excited about, you know, anyone that I'm dating right now. I'm not excited. Uh I don't see the potential of being in love at this moment and that can change. But I just like really recognizing that dating is a matter of intention.

00:54:49 Courtney Brame: And if you don't have that intention, then you won't be able to pull your focus into the things that you need to work on within yourself in order to be the kind of person who is capable of enduring the ups and downs of playing in this game. Like getting ghosted, I heard being ghosted is like the most clear, concise definition of being ghosted is being dumped without knowing that you're being dumped. And I was like, whoa, that is so good. Um, and it can be for a number of reasons. It can just be that, you know, maybe there is um an insecurity that is just like radiating from you that you're completely unaware of and it just shows up through your habits or something. because it could be the same thing with me. And my insecurity of, you know, being rejected may keep me from making approaches to the kinds of people that, you know, yeah, I would be excited about dating or that I would, you know, be able to potentially fall for and fall in love with.

00:55:53 Courtney Brame: I hate even like saying falling in love with, but I just h know that like I know that I need to talk about this in therapy, so I'm looking forward to it tomorrow. And then um what I'll do is I'll come back and share the conclusion. I honestly thought about recording this next therapy session that I have to have. But I know that I'm going to say some s***. He going to say some s*** that we don't need to have recorded for the world to hear cuz somebody come back and use that against me and be like, "Courtney, but you said, "Yeah, I said it." That was that was some s*** that probably shouldn't have been heard by the rest of the world. Um I thank you for listening to this point. Uh, and I really do hope that you are able to take something out of this. Um, that dating with herpes, man, it's just like dating. Whether you have herpes or don't have herpes, there are just compatibilities, attraction, incompatibilities, unattraction, and like the understanding of what you keep coming against in your dating and linking that to the very first thing that made you feel the same way.

Outro: Breaking the Cycle of Avoidance

00:57:08 Courtney Brame: Like, look at the feeling. Don't look at the situation, look at the feeling. because that feeling can be triggered by a number of different situations that all have one underlying emotion. And if you start to feel that, like you got yourself a damn good radar for being able to recognize and identify these potential, you know, incompatibilities with a person um and then go on about your business. like they don't need to, they don't need to um enter your space if you're already aware that this is someone who doesn't belong here. And I say this out loud because you know I need to hear this myself. I need to practice what I preach. Um, and so yeah, I mean I I I've condensed and really gone down on the number gone down. I've gone down in that number of how many people that I'm seeing and just like giving more energy and connection to fewer people. But like I even asked this question myself, you know, like why do I need so many people?

00:58:16 Courtney Brame: Cuz even now after condensing I'm like uh but I still need this. like I don't have something. And this is what it is that I'm hoping um talking through this whole thing about rejection will get me through is being able to identify an approach with assertiveness like the assertiveness that I got from having herpes or having to initiate a very challenging conversation. I can initiate an approach to someone that I'm interested in and be willing to deal with the rejection having an understanding that, you know, this isn't a mark against what it is that I've done for the last 5 years if I get rejected or if it's a mark against like who I am as a person. You know, the more sure I am about myself, the more a sure person about themselves is going to be able to make their way into my space and we'll be able to share space as two sure ass m************ about who we are and then be able to do whatever this thing is in this reality called life that we want to do.

00:59:22 Courtney Brame: So, um I wish that for myself. I wish that for every one of you. you know if that if you are looking for a person or some people um but just know like we we're here to connect we want to connect we want to experience other and we also want to experience ourselves through others and so like with that understanding like please don't don't isolate yourself don't let choices be made for you in terms of like how you choose to date how you choose to connect with people be proactive active and make that choice. And if you're feeling ambivalence, if you're not excited to be with someone, however it is that you are mutually agreeing upon being with one another, don't do it. Don't do it. And the way to counter that ambivalence again is with intentionality. So go into it intentionally. Know what you value. know what you um what you need from a person cuz now like I'm learning that and understand what your trauma is because it's going to continue to resurface in the dating uh in various situations. But again, being able to lock on to that feeling when you most recently felt it and when you first felt it, that's going to change the game for you y'all. Thank you for listening. Again, um no intro, no outro needed. This is just dating.

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