Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)

Some things you should consider if you suffer from the fear of missing out on other women if you have limited experiences.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a 20 year old viewer who got his first girlfriend and has been in a great relationship for a couple of years as a result of what he learned from my work. However, she was his first and only experience with a woman. He says he has a fear of missing out on other women when he gets hit on, but politely declines. He’s shared his concerns with his girlfriend, who told him they could have an open relationship so he could explore, but he still feels guilty about it and is unsure of what to do.

She worries about him forming an emotional attachment to another woman and therefore losing her protector. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Yesterday, I had lunch with one of my dearest friends in the whole world, and we’ve been friends for about 17, 18 years now. He’s literally the coolest friend that I’ve made in two decades. He’s an extremely unique guy. I always seek his counsel out, he seeks mine out. I love hanging out with him and love philosophizing about life with him. People like that, they don’t grow on trees. They don’t come along very often. And so, when you find somebody that you click with, whether it’s a great friend or a great woman, you shouldn’t be so quick to toss them aside – especially if they’ve never done anything to give you reason to toss them aside. Unless you should have never gotten into it in the first place.

Viewer’s Email:

Hi Coach,

I truly love your videos and I am very grateful for what you have taught me. I have read your book, and by learning what it teaches, I got myself my first girlfriend and we have been together for a couple of years. I am a young guy, at 20 years old, and she is an awesome girl. My core issue is not regarding her or her attraction. Her attraction has always been very high, and I love her as well. What has been bothering me for some time now is that as the relationship progresses, I am feeling less and less freedom since it gets more and more serious.

Every guy feels this in a relationship, and that’s part of the double-edged sword of being a man. You love having a woman in your life, and you love being close to her but, as a man, you also want your freedom to be who you are and to explore. And I would say, because you’re 20 years old, that you should just spend some more time doing things with your guy friends and a little less time with her. In other words, you can’t stop being the guy that you were, just because you’re in a relationship and she wants your attention all the fucking time, as women do when they’re in love with you.

I would suggest that maybe part of that fear of losing your freedom is that you’re often doing things with her that you don’t really want to do, because you’re trying to please her. You don’t want her to get upset or hurt her feelings, because she’s such a great girlfriend to you. And that’s understandable. You don’t want to let people down, especially people that love you. But also, self-love means you’ve got to take time to be your own man, to spend time in your man cave, to go hang out with the boys and have few drinks, shoot the shit and talk about life. You have to take time to do that.

You have to have your hobbies and your interests, and you’ve got to have your purpose and mission in life and things you do while you’re away from your girlfriend, so when you do get together with her, you’re really excited to see her. But if you’re around her all the time, because she gets upset when you don’t spend enough time with her, and you’re doing it to please and placate her, you’re going to definitely feel like, “I’ve gotta get out of here! I’m boxed in.” It’s just a natural thing.

And oftentimes when I see guys feeling this, especially young guys like yourself, you’ve probably given up too much of your hobbies, you’re interests and time with your friends to spend with her, and so, you feel like you’re kind of losing yourself a little bit in the relationship. Two people come together to share their completeness, not to complete one another, so it’s important that you do that.

Maybe you take a week and go camping and hunting with your guys, or something like that, where you’ve got no cellphone service and you can’t talk to her for a week. You can’t talk to her, she can’t talk to you, there’s no messages going back and forth, and then when you get back, you really, truly missed her and really want to catch up with her and see her, be with her, and make love to her again.

I have never dated nor slept with anyone else, and I believe what I am feeling is a fear of missing out. I am confident and would consider myself good looking, which has led to girls shooting their shot at me several times during the relationship. She has had partners before me and feels ready to have something very serious and wants this to eventually lead to marriage.

That’s pretty cool. It sounds like you’ve got yourself a good, good woman. The important thing is that she satisfies you in every way. Especially when you first start dating, you’ve got 6, maybe 12 months of the infatuation period before that wears off and you’re kind of your normal, everyday self. There’s going to be days you’re going to be in love with her and think she’s the best thing since sliced bread, and there’s going to be other days where you just don’t want to be around her and you want to do other things, and that’s normal.

There’s going to be other days where she gets on your nerves and she’s a pain in the ass, and you want to go do your own thing. Or you want to be left alone, or you need time in your man cave. It’s okay to say that. As men, we need time alone to think about our problems in our man cave. So, if you feel like you need time by yourself and she’s wanting your attention, just say, “Babe, I need an hour or two” or “I need a half a day. I’ve just got a lot of things on my mind that I want to sit an contemplate in silence. Put the smoking jacket on, smoke the pipe, have a beer with the guys, a shot of whiskey, throw some darts,” whatever it happens to be.

Women solve their problems by talking about them, but us guys are introspective. And if she doesn’t understand that, you’ve got to explain that to her. Say, “It has nothing to do with you. It’s just, as men, we internalize everything. But as women, you guys are very external, and you literally solve your problems by talking about them. We’re just not built that way, so you’ve got to give me the space and the time to do it, and I’ll love you even more for that. You’ve got to respect that, because we need that. We need time alone in the man cave, time in our garage, time in our tool shed,” or whatever.

I actually brought up the issue to her and she was sad for a week or two, but said she understood me and suggested an open relationship.

This girl seems to really care about you.

She told me the issue for her is not about the sex, but she does not want me to leave her and get emotionally attached with someone else.

Yeah, she’s afraid of losing her protector, her man, the guy she’s considering marriage with. For me, as I wrote about in “3% Man,” I always felt like something was missing when I was with my wife. She was an awesome woman, and obviously as I’ve gotten older, I appreciate what a good wife she really was to me. But at the end of the day, something was missing, it didn’t feel right. My whole problem at that point of my life was, I was a pleaser. I was doing what everybody else wanted me to do and not listening to my own inner voice. And, eventually, I worked up the courage to do what felt right for me.

It was hard. Leaving a marriage when there’s like not really any major problems or anything, it just doesn’t feel right to you, it sucks. It doesn’t feel good. It’s not fun going through a divorce. It’s not fun dealing with the divorce attorneys. It’s not fun having to explain why you split up a thousand fucking times to everybody that wants to know, “What’s the matter? I thought you guys were so happy. Why didn’t you stay together? Why did you leave? What’s wrong?” After a while, you get sick of explaining that to people.

It wasn’t pleasant. And so, I experienced a lot of pain going through that. And that’s why, for me, the lesson – what that was really about and one of the great gifts that my wife did give to me – was helping me become the man I was supposed to be, helping me feel comfortable standing up for myself, instead of being a pleaser and doing what everybody else around me wanted me to do. It was like literally taking my power back and becoming who I was, and no longer just going along with things because everybody else talked me into it and ignoring that little voice on the inside.

Everything is back to normal now with good, fun dates and a high attraction, and I am allowed to venture outside, but I still get feelings of guilt and have, therefore, still not slept with anyone else. I don’t like cheating, which is why I was completely honest with her, but it still feels like cheating. I’m not looking for a new relationship, I just get a weird feeling when thinking about never getting to explore anyone else ever. Is breaking up the right way? 

You’ve got to put your big boy pants on, dude. You know, my situation was unique. Now, I don’t know what you felt about your girlfriend when you dated, if you went through that infatuation period where you thought she was the hottest woman on the planet and you were going to be content forever. I never felt content with my wife. I never felt ready to settle down at the time either. Everybody was like, “Oh, you’ve just got cold feet, Corey. That’s all it is. It’ll go away.” And it didn’t go away. But if you were like that for a long time and now you’re looking around and going, “Oh, that girl’s pretty hot and she likes me,” and you’re like, “Boy, it’d be nice to hit that, and it’d be nice to have a little variety,” that’s up to you.

What do you think I should do, Coach? Or in what way should I think about and look at the issue? 

Thank you for your time.

Regards,

Bob

Well. The one thing you brought up in the beginning, like I said earlier, is you feel like you’re losing your freedom, and all men feel this in relationship. And so, what that means is you’ve got to go and honor that. You’ve got to go spend time with the guys, and you’ve got to have hobbies and interests outside of her and do your own thing. You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it’s okay to spend a few days apart from your girl and do things without her. But if you were never really that into her, and you were never head over heels in love with her, then I would say, yeah, you definitely need to go explore.

But if you had the infatuation period, the infatuation phase, if you will, and it’s just now, because you’ve been together several years and you don’t have other experience, you could leave her or you can get involved with another woman and have an open relationship. I mean, it’s really cool that she loves you enough and cares about you enough, even though it hurts her, that she wants you to go and explore that. Because, obviously, she would want you to explore that, sow your oats, if you will, and come back to her. And then if you do come back to her, then you’re going to stay with her forever and ever.

That’s the whole idea of marriage, that it’s supposed to be “til death do us part.” And if you don’t feel ready to get married, I mean, you’re 20 years old, you shouldn’t get married. But if you really don’t want to be with your girlfriend anymore, if you’ve fallen out of love with her or she’s turned you off, then yeah, it’s time to move on.

But the only thing I really saw that jumped out at me was that you felt like you’re you’re losing your freedom. So, that tells me you’re being a pleaser, and you’re doing too much with her and not enough things on your own. So, I would go and do that. But you’ve got to listen to what you feel internally. And keep in mind, if you do start hooking up with and dating other women, it may become too painful for her and she may break it off and never want to be with you again. The downside risk is you lose her forever.

People who are good for you, good to you, good for your soul, man, they just hardly ever come along. And being young like you are and having a girl with this kind of a great attitude, I mean, the reality is most really great women that come from a great family and value loyalty, monogamy, commitment, most of them are wrapped up by their mid-twenties and they’re off off the dating market forever. Unless there’s a death or something, or they just make a catastrophic error and marry some guy that’s just a dirt bag, which typically doesn’t usually happen with women that come from really good, strong families where they learn those good family values and they know what it feels like, and they find a guy that kind of gives off that same vibe their dad did.

So, I wouldn’t be so quick to toss her away, but I would spend some more time doing things for yourself, doing things with your friends. You’ve got to see how you feel. But, the reality is, you either want to stay with her, or you don’t. And the only thing I saw was that the freedom is an issue. You kind of feel like you’re being smothered a little bit. And so, as a man, you’ve got to honor that. You’ve got to go and feel like you have the freedom to do your own thing. Maybe just talking to and flirting with other girls, but never going any farther with it just makes you feel good. It makes you feel good that you can you have other choices and other options.

But you’ve also got to look at what you’ve got. I don’t see any drama. I mean, this girl’s like, “Hey, yeah, go.” She totally gave you the hall pass to go sleep with other women. Even though I’m sure it’s going to be soul crushing to her, she wants you to be happy, because she obviously loves you. She loves you enough to tell you to go and do that, because she knows she may lose you to another woman if you do go and do that.

So, that’s what I would do. Spend some time by yourself and spend some time with your friends and your hobbies and your interests. Enjoy flirting with other women. And if you meet somebody that you click with on a better level, just remember, you’ve got 6 to 12 months and then the infatuation wears off, and you’re going to basically be at the same level of emotions and feelings that you have right now with your current girlfriend. With the next one, you’ll have those high highs, but then it’ll wear off eventually. That’s just that’s reality. And that’s kind of where you’ll always normally be if you choose to stay in that relationship. It’s like, you get a peak and then it kind of goes down to normal.

It’s kind of like when you’re a kid and you want a certain toy for Christmas. You’ve been thinking about it for six months. Or, for your birthday, you want a specific toy, then your parents get it and it’s the greatest thing ever. You’re showing everybody in the neighborhood, you’re showing all of your relatives. And then two weeks later, it’s at the bottom of your toy box and you’ve completely forgotten about it.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly.

“As the saying goes when it comes to having choices: one is no choice, two is a dilemma and three is a choice. Human beings feel better about their choices and options if they actually have choices. In a sales negotiation, if your first offer is accepted, then you know you probably paid too much and often regret it later. When it comes to intimate relationships, finding someone who shares your goals and values is extremely rare. People who are good to you, good for you and good for your soul are hard to come by. Cherish and value the people who cherish and value you, because you won’t find that many of them over the course of your life.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne

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