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A lot of men walk into relationships with this quiet little fantasy in the back of their minds:
“I can fix her.”
Maybe she’s emotionally unavailable. Maybe she’s chaotic. Maybe she’s constantly sabotaging herself. But you convince yourself that if you love her hard enough, stay patient enough, and sacrifice enough, she’ll eventually heal and realize you were the good guy all along.
Sounds romantic.
It’s also how a lot of guys slowly destroy themselves.
Let’s just get the obvious thing out of the way:
Yes, being a short guy in dating can absolutely make things harder sometimes.
There are women who care about height. Some care a little. Some care a lot. Some treat “under 6 feet” like it’s a felony conviction. Dating apps have turned height into this weird RPG stat where people filter human beings like they’re shopping for refrigerators.
That sucks.
Fear gets a bad reputation.
People treat fear like it’s some kind of disease. Something to eliminate. Something to medicate, avoid, numb, or scroll away.
But most of the time, fear is just information.
The problem is that we’ve trained ourselves to interpret fear as a stop sign instead of a compass.
You’re standing at the edge of one of the biggest decisions of your life, and there’s a small voice in your head asking, Is this really the right person? I get it. Choosing who to marry isn’t a casual Friday night decision. This is the person who’s going to be with you through the best and worst moments, someone who will challenge you, encourage you, and maybe even drive you a little crazy sometimes. So how do you know if you’re making the right choice?
Most arguments aren’t actually about truth. They’re about ego protection.
That’s the part nobody wants to admit.
You think you’re fighting about politics, parenting, money, dishes in the sink, whether pineapple belongs on pizza, or why your coworker is an idiot who keeps replying-all to company emails. But underneath all of it is usually the same thing:
“I need to prove I’m not wrong.”
There’s a weird disease a lot of people have that nobody talks about directly.
It’s the constant need to prove themselves.
To their parents.
To their ex.
To their coworkers.
To strangers online.
To the people from high school who probably haven’t thought about them since 2014.
Alright, let’s talk about cosigning a loan. Picture this: your buddy, cousin, or maybe even your own girlfriend comes to you with those puppy-dog eyes, asking for your signature on a loan. They promise they’ll pay it off, and it’s just a formality, right? Wrong.
Here’s the deal: if someone needs a cosigner, it means the lender doesn’t trust them to pay back the loan on their own. That’s the first red flag waving right in your face.
Most people walk through life starving.
Not for food. Not for money. Not even for success.
They’re starving for significance.
For the feeling that they matter to someone. That their thoughts count. That their existence leaves some kind of dent in the universe besides paying bills and answering emails and pretending to care about quarterly reports during Zoom meetings.
And here’s the weird part:
The people who understand this tend to become magnetic.
A lot of people secretly believe attraction is something you can negotiate.
Like if they just say the perfect thing, become more successful, more caring, more patient, eventually the other person will wake up and realize: You were the one all along.
But that’s not how attraction works.
You can’t convince someone to be attracted to you.
You walk into a coffee shop. The guy behind the counter barely looks at you, mutters something, and hands you your drink like it personally offended him.
Your immediate thought: What an asshole.
You don’t think: Maybe he’s been on his feet for 9 hours, got yelled at by his manager, and just found out his girlfriend is cheating on him.
No. He’s just an asshole. Case closed.
