I recently had an occasion happen where I had to deal with close relatives on a daily basis over a period of some weeks. Naturally, I started focusing on their shortcomings and how such shortcomings would make it difficult for me to get along with them. But I had no way of escaping the reality of having to deal with these family members a lot over a period of around three weeks.
I give myself token rewards in the form of stickers on my calendar for accomplishing certain tasks on any given day. These tasks can include anything from housework, to abstaining from sweets for a day, to taking a walk for exercise. So I decided to establish a token reward system for getting along with my family members. If I could behave nicely to my family members until midnight on any given day, I could give myself a little apple sticker on my calendar at midnight. On the first and the fifteenth of the month, I could buy an inexpensive, easy to acquire present for myself, such as a classic rock CD.
This system worked very well. The family members I tried this with both reported to others that I got along well with them during our time together. It worked so well I've decided to extend the life of this token reward system for getting along with various people past the point where I needed it for my relations with family. I've decided to use if for anyone in my world I deem it necessary for me to get along with, which means I will use such a system every day for lots of people, pretty much.
Today I thought about my perceptions of discrimination from women I had or have an attraction to, regardless of what these women really represent to me in the real world. One time I went on a date with this woman who said, "I don't compete for men," in this self-satisfied, smirking tone as we sat and talked. I took this to mean that she didn't feel as if she had to compete for me. I took great exception to this perceived slight in regards to my viability on the dating scene, and this became one of many reasons I pretty much had nothing to do with her after that one date.
She would occasionally write me, inviting me to come visit her city and hug me when she did see me after that, and I, for my part, did nothing to discourage those kinds of gestures from her, but I still pretty much rejected her. That said, I never did anything to sabotage our deal, such as tell her she can suck my dick if she wanted to or call her names or behave in any other hostile, alienating manner. Even though I really didn't want to date her, I still wanted to get along with her okay.
I will keep that in mind moving forward as I navigate my way through the world we live in. I've vowed to give myself a token reward each day I make a sincere effort to get along with anyone I could potentially have a problem with. Just because I perceive that a lot of women I have an attraction to seem to look down on me, that doesn't excuse me from trying to get along with them the best I can. I can apply this same system to people such as guy friends who don't call me back anymore, but whom I'm likely to run into at a club one night in the foreseeable future, or the wives of guy friends who seem to know more about my past than I care for them to know and how that might affect their opinion of me, or that female gatekeeper type at that one comic book convention who tried to behave towards me in a less than wonderful way. This kind of token reward system, one that materially rewards good behavior towards people I may have problems with in any context, can apply to all kinds of scenarios in my day to day life.