Bear with me, I saw this on some guy’s Tik Tok...
Bars and Night clubs have long assessed a cover charge to get in. Just a minimum amount of money for you to pay to enter their establishment. The bar, unless you are a celebrity, cares not at all who you are, just that you meet the dress code and pay the cover charge.
Establishments such as these decide there is a minimum standard one must exhibit to enter. Why do we not have these standards in dating? And if we do have them, why do we fail to collect this "charge" so often?
I mean we all have deal breakers. But deal breakers are not the same as perhaps a “cover charge.” And no, I am not suggesting we start making people pay to date us. The dating cover charge would be a minimum standard of behavior, attention, communication and general personability before you allow the person to enter your life. Just enter, not reside.
And just like the clubs, if you can’t pay the cover charge, you aren’t getting in.
What would your cover charge look like?
I have been mulling this over for a few days. Thinking about what my cover charge should be. And it is harder than you think. I mean, seriously, what minimum standard of behavior am I willing to accept? And then look at all the ways that you accepted so much less. It is painful to review your past dating engagements to see what you actually accepted as a minimum charge was so far below where you should have been that it makes you kind of queasy.
We teach people how to treat us. And like it or not, if we have someone in our lives that is gaslighting us up, cheating on us, being disrespectful, or abusive, we do have a part in all of this. No one deserves this kind of treatment. Ever. But what we allow, persists.
In my last relationship, he lied, cheated, gaslight the fuck out of me and I knew it the whole time. Which is the real ass kicker. I fucking knew it and I stayed anyway. Why? Because in some bizarre fucked up way, the treatment felt familiar and I was so invested in what I knew to be true, not being true, that I stayed to my own demise. My presence in that relationship was 100% my fault. I did not know in the beginning but not having an appropriately high cover charge, someone like him just walked right in. Fuck, I am pretty sure he didn’t even pay the nominal amount requested, and just ducked under the ropes when an altercation broke out.
Regardless of how he wormed his way into the entry line to my life, I am the one that didn’t immediately bounce him back to the street. I wanted all the things he said to be true, even though I saw daily that his behavior didn’t match his words...more often than not. I saw this, and I quite desperately wanted what I saw and felt, to be untrue. It wasn’t. And to continue this metaphor, he stood their arguing with the bouncers of my life, unable and unwilling to pay the cover charge for entry into my life, and we all just let him dance his way around the fact that he didn't have the capacity to pay it and, and this is the hardest part, he didn't feel like HE needed to. He was above all of that...ummmm, no the fuck he wasn't.
It is hard to admit that my own unhealed trauma left me wide open for this whole debacle to unfold. I had so many unmet needs, felt so unseen and under valued that he just walked right in, cover charge waived for his non-celebrity ass. D U M B! Well, no, that is not right, U N H E A L E D! We need to do a better job of labeling what it is we are doing. I am not stupid but I absolutely was unhealed and broken.
It has taken some time for me to unravel all of that and see what is mine and what is his. And I would love to tell you right here that it was like 99% him and 1% me. That is not what I have found to be true. In fact, the opposite, it was almost all me, and very little him. I am the one that is in charge of who enters my life, and I didn’t do the bare minimum research on this person. I was just so desperate to be loved and wanted, I took complete leave of my senses and allowed a narcissistic fucker to jump the ropes and sashay into my “club” cover charge canceled.
Lesson learned.
I have successfully eradicated myself from the grip of the delusion that was him and healed not only the wounds and scars he left, but also used my part in this whole fucking disaster to address some long standing unhealed parts of me that had nothing to do with him, he just saw them and exploited them.
Today I am in a better place. I know my worth and am not willing to allow anyone like him anywhere near my life. And this idea of a setting my cover charge is an interesting thought process. What exactly would be my cover charge? What is the minimum I am willing to accept?
And like a club it is kind of like an all or nothing proposition...you can’t pay the charge, you ain’t getting in. No discounts at the door, in fact, the cover at the door is often more than it was a couple of days before the event...and if I am the event, I might want to think about how very little I am “charging” by what I am asking for from people I date.
I am still working out this concept in my mind. But I wanted to throw it out there because it really does require some thoughtful investigating.
I know that honesty, which is something you can only know over time is the first and foremost on this computation of my cover charge. If you can’t be honest, about where you are, what you are doing, how you are feeling and why then I want nothing to do with you. I can handle almost any truth, but one lie and I am fucking out. Because I have learned, the hard way, that if you are going to lie to me about any of the above, you have absolutely no respect for me at all. The lies are just a manipulation for you to get what you want without any regard for me or my wellbeing. And while care and concern over me and my wellbeing seems like it should be a much higher standard...I have to own that it wasn’t.
I think another one would be employed. I know, that also seems like it is a no brainer. But people are really good these days spinning all kinds of bullshit about their means of supporting themselves that lead you to believe they are taking care of shit when really they are living on a wing and a prayer.
This also goes back to the honesty factor. Just tell me the truth so I can make an informed decision and I will do the same for you. If it works, great. If not, then it was a pleasure to meet ya and I wish you the best! No hard feelings or bad vibes, just keep it moving, buddy.
I think the whole set your cover charge idea is not a bad one. The metaphor kind of falls apart for me that I do not think of myself as a nightclub or bar. Kind of a hard sell for someone in sobriety, but it made me think and I am all in favor of anything that gives me pause and makes me take stock in perhaps a way and manner that I haven’t previously.
So set your cover charge and accept no one without shirts or shoes or the ability to pay the cover charge just to gain entrance to your life. Then understand that there is a whole other process to be vetted into the VIP area...but I will save that rant for another day...
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