Are you dating a HSP?
At many stages in your life, dating or otherwise, you are likely to have come across a HSP - a Highly Sensitive Person.
It gets even more interesting when you think about the innumerable benefits and challenges for HSPs when it comes to relationships and finding love.
What is a HSP?
15-20% of all people are born HSPs. Dr. Elaine Aron began the study of high sensitivity in 1991 and since then many other great thinkers have made various contributions.
We can’t cover every single trait of all types of HSP out there but they do often include:
High sensitivity to bright lights
A deep emotional response to things that others might perceive as arbitrary
Sensitivity to loud or overbearing noises and sounds
Easily overwhelmed by a busy environment or crowds
Highly sensitive to caffeine
Often challenged with social anxiety
Often needs alone time
If you are a HSP yourself then you are well aware of the many areas of stimulus that can be overwhelming in everyday life.
Many HSPs (not all of them) will also tend to notice the hidden subtleties in their environment to a greater extent.
Brilliant traits only HSPs have
There are many advantageous things a HSP has in their stable. Especially in meeting people since an acute intuition will lend a hand in filtering out the genuine people from the not so genuine. These advantages vary from person to person.
For some HSPs the capacity for empathy is much stronger. Seeing a friend or a family member express joy can be a shared feeling on a deeper level.
A simple conversation for a HSP can mean a few days worth of warm introspection and rewards. They may fall in love deeper once they decide they have found a worthwhile connection. Decision making can also be a much deeper process and therefore better outcomes ensue.
They are also far less likely to seek out or engage in conflict since this a source of stress that can overwhelm too easily.
Should HSPs avoid dating apps?
Looking for a meaningful relationship as a HSP can come with an insurmountable level of complexity, but a HSP should never avoid something that they have decided will be pleasurable and will enrich their own lives, so they are of course well suited and well adapted to loving relationships.
But with so much anticipation it’s easy to become anxious and overstimulated. A few wrong words come out and things can already start to feel uncomfortable.
The wide open extraverted nature of dating apps can contradict the way a highly sensitive person likes to navigate the world of romance. A more reserved and deep processing mind may want to step back in every situation and analyse more, establishing whether something feels right.
What kind of partner does a HSP need?
Another misconception might be that a HSP will do better looking for another HSP. This has never been the case for any categorised personality type or inherited human trait.
HSPs thrive on finding connection within any and all dispositions and no one should have closed doors on who they feel they can get along with.
What can be helpful though is a mindfulness between HSP’s and their partners so they are both aware of some of the triggers that can overwhelm or cause stress, which in turn can bring distance between you both.
A HSP will often seek to reduce the time they spend doing things that they find overwhelming. But this does not have to include dating, despite how stressful dating can be.
How to stay mentally healthy on dating apps as a HSP
The nature of dating starts off shallow and with little context. No matter how well your messages are going, your upcoming date is still a brief showcase. A short sharp snippet of who you might be with none of the fundamental groundwork established.
This brief window is where a person with high sensitivity might feel like they are at a disadvantage. They have huge depth to show… but all done within the small window of a conversation.
Don’t stack the negative experiences. If something hurts, if you’re feeling rejected or someone says something you don’t like, it's time to take a break from the apps. If you’ve had a couple of dates go wrong in a row, it’s time to not date for a while.
This withdrawal will allow a HSP time to do something they do best… introspect, take pause, realign, reevaluate and make better decisions for next time.
A few rejections back to back can give us what clinical psychologist Dr Michael Yapko referred to as Global Cognition. This is when a person takes the unfortunate things that are happening in their lives and creates general conclusions…
“no one ever wants to date me”
“of course they ghosted me, i’m not interesting”
“I’m never going to meet someone right for me”
This is of course the worst way to analyse an experience and the worst way to arm yourself for your next try in the world of dating.
How to date a HSP
If someone tells you they’re a HSP then you have a head start when thinking about some of the different ways they connect with the world and how it can affect them.
When you’re talking to someone who’s sensory inputs are easily overstimulated, many of the impulsive, brash, spontaneous or ‘fast moves’ you want to put to them can easily be met with a negative response.
Chatting before meeting up might be a longer process since there is often more time needed to establish whether or not things will feel right in a meeting. A HSP will feel emotions on a much deeper level than most. It might take longer to offer trust to someone you have just met online.
With a deeper recollection of what might have gone wrong in the past or all the ways this could repeat they might have a more acute sense of caution and, to some, might seem like a closed door.
All you need to remember is that softly spoken date of yours very rarely has nothing to say, their ability to have a deeper connection will allow them to feel on a level most people couldn’t dream of, so when they do talk, you should listen.
The joy of dating if you’re a HSP
Spend longer on dates, hell, spend longer before the date! Take time to understand what might work between you and the differences that might clash.
There are no rules, sometimes a brash abrasive person might be the contrasting confident personality you happen to be looking for, allow the time it takes to work out if that’s what you want.
There is a documentary featuring Dr. Elaine Aron that takes a deeper look into how to thrive with the traits of a HSP. Enjoy. Also taking the written test that Elaine produced can be helpful to identify these traits in yourself.
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