I Have Never Been in Love
Speaking on the theme Love Lessons at Speaker Slam® in Toronto on Mar 26, 2019, Tyler Boyle took the stage with a five minute story.
Transcript
my name is Tyler Boyle I'm 36 years old and I have never been in love I am what you might call professionally single or a chronic dater and let me tell you the dating scene ain't pretty hey men that dating is so tough sometimes that I actually run workshops called dating survival bootcamp dating is a mental and emotional [ __ ] asaurus it it makes me so confused half the time so today what I want to do is I want to share with you the patterns that I've realized I have in my thinking that actually sabotages my dating life let me take you on a
journey into my head where I will introduce you to the three villains I like to hold responsible the first is six six is my inner child I call him six because he's six and a half he is my mommy and daddy issues we all have them he have you ever heard the the saying if you're hysterical it's probably historical oh that's six six also has this habit where he likes to make me wallow in a feeling so there I am triggered and he likes to make me wallow and not move past the problem you can see how this is affecting my dating charisma I don't
care that he's six he's still a little jackass the next of my internal anarchists is Ida Ida I call her this because she is an idealist Ida idealist get it yes Ida wears rose-colored glasses and lives in a land of fantasy she fills my head with fluffy fairy tales have you ever been on a first date sat across from somebody and envisioned your wedding to this person I have have you ever ignored red flags or made excuses for someone's douchebaggery that's Ida's particular flavor of sabotage and that's why I hate her guts my biggest adversary however is my demon he is my negative self-talk he
is my fears my anxiety and my insecurities he's my most pungent form of self-sabotage he sucks out my confidence he sucks out my courage and replaces it with the fear of rejection the fear of reject being rejected again as he likes to put it this guy has been sabotaging my dating life since puberty he stuck me in a dating loop where I was dating the wrong people over and over and over again from a very early age anybody relate the problem that I realized I was having dating people was that they all had vaginas yeah self-sabotage is playing for the wrong team oh [ __
] so the lies my demon told me run really really deep when I was 25 I came out to my best friend I didn't really plan it but there the two words were two words I'm gay two words that my demon filled with such poison that the second they slipped through my lips I actually collapsed to the ground in wailing sobs then my body gave out and I went into shock over two words that is the power of our thoughts two words that my demon told me if you say these two words your friends and family will abandon you but they're my best friend lie
on the floor beside me not going anywhere so wait so wait wait wait what you're saying is my demon is a liar my thoughts are lies huh yet I believed his lies for another seven years and I didn't come out until I was 32 years old if my demon was standing here beside me on the stage I'd kick them in the nuts dating is tough but it's not dating that makes it's tough it's our thoughts that make it tough our brain lies to us we self-sabotage in dating and make ourselves miserable when we believe all the crap that our brain feeds us but our thoughts
aren't true what Ida what six what demon tells you is not true our thoughts aren't true huh you are enough you are desirable you are worthy you are lovable and you are loved and the right person is out there for you beyond that beyond dating we all have these voices in our head don't we we all have these voices in our head that tell us lies constantly they sabotage us enter jobs they sabotage us at our pursuit of new endeavors today is your wake-up call or your reminder don't believe everything you hear even if it's from your own thoughts my name is Tyler Boyle I'm
36 years old yeah I haven't been in love but now that I've got these thoughts on a short leash that's not going to be for long
Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.