What are we doing about bad feedback?

Getting older is a bitch except when it comes to people telling you about yourself

A few years ago, when I was dilly dallying around, going viral on TikTok, I’d made a video about declining to give a guy I’d gone on one date any feedback about why I didn’t want to see him again.

I searched “bad feedback” and this image came up, which is what I’d rather be doing than incorporating someone’s feedback who I’ve known for less than a full day. Photo by Amir Kiani on Unsplash

As far as I can remember, it was a fine date. I’d shown up to our meeting spot about 10 minutes early, mostly because I like to sit at the bar rather than a table for first dates, and I like to get a spot that’s easy to see from the door. I find the interaction with the bartender, combined with the shoulder-to-shoulder rather than face-to-face takes the pressure down considerably. Also, the only unsafe experiences I’ve had on dates are when I’m sequestered in a corner, far from a server’s ears.

When he arrived, I could tell he was nervous. I don’t remember a ton about him but he did have very nice, piercing blue eyes and shoulder-length, dark hair and a smattering of freckles across the pale bridge of his nose. In my memory, he wore glasses. I remember thinking he was attractive enough, in the way that a good sense of humor and a glimmer of empathy could make him gorgeous, but a lack of confidence and inability to hold a conversation could make it painful.

Unfortunately, it was the latter. We had dinner, and I don’t think I laughed once, except near the end, which encouraged me to suggest a second location, a dive bar across the street, where not a single further laugh was had.

One the street, we hugged goodbye and I sent a follow up text when I got home saying I wasn’t interested, though I appreciated the date. The next day I received a text back, thanking me for my time, and also asking if there was any particular reason. He thought the date went well, but my abrupt departure left him wondering if he did anything wrong. He said he was surprised at how attractive I was in person (?) and became nervous when he saw me sitting at the bar when he arrived.

Awkward backhanded compliment aside, I was baffled. We’d been on one date, spent less than 3 hours together. Barring him clipping his toenails in front of me (which I would have pointed out) or saying something disgusting (which I also would have pointed out), I couldn’t imagine what type of feedback he was looking for from a complete stranger.

And like all things that confuse me, I took to the internet to say as much (I guess this means I need to un-private my profile again so you can all see how that went).

My main take was (and still is) this: it’s great to want feedback, to be encouraged to improve, to want to be conscious of behaviors that may be unconscious. It’s incredibly vulnerable to ask for feedback, for someone to point out your flaws, for someone to hold leverage over your feelings. ESPECIALLY if that person has known you for 2 hours and thirty minutes.

But when you’re asking for (or receiving) feedback you have to consider the source. You have to know whether or not the person’s opinion matters. And you have to be confident enough in yourself to know how much it matters.

In this case, I didn’t think my perspective mattered that much at all. I was just a “more-attractive-than-he-thought” woman who probably showed genuine curiosity and had a decent sense of humor. But our senses of humor didn’t align, or he didn’t have an engaging way of maintaining a conversation with me, or, I don’t know, I was tired and maybe should have stayed home instead.

I couldn’t have explained that to him - imagine me saying “I just didn’t think you were that funny” which would have then begged me to explain what I did think was funny, which is not a helpful or attainable goal for someone I barely know. I could have said “you should have asked me more questions” but some people like to relate to each other in statements rather than direct questions. I, in fact, get the feedback often that dates feel like they’re a job interview, which is feedback I ignore because if you can’t handle me asking you direct questions then we are not compatible, and figuring that out IS THE POINT OF DATING.

But TikTok did not agree. They said “what’s wrong with asking for feedback? It’s good to know how other people perceive us.” Or “I always want to know why some guy doesn’t want to see me again, and I think asking why is perfectly ok.”

And if you’re wondering when I will finally, after 800 words, get to the mf point, congratulations, here we are! The point is not to be ignorant of our flaws - the point is that ALL FEEDBACK is subjective and until you have a very strong sense of yourself. Asking for feedback from people you’re not even sure you respect will lead you down the path of chasing validation at all costs instead of chasing yourself.

I actually don’t think being able to receive and incorporate feedback is some great skill. If a client told me tomorrow that they wished I smiled more during calls, I would ignore that feedback, which I can do because I’m only beholden to that client for the length of my contract.

I do think being able to decide whose feedback matters is the better skill. It’s a skill that we DON’T teach young women (and the majority of the women in my comments are youngish women looking for long-term relationships), and for young men, we indirectly teach them that the only feedback that matters is their boss’ or other men’s. Yay, patriarchy. Most of our lives, women are told that all men’s feedback matters, no matter who, no matter what - and all feedback relating to the male gaze also matters (which is insane because it all contradicts). This is why, I suspect, this man thought it was totally appropriate to tell me I looked more attractive in person than in photos when I did not ask - because he’s been told that his opinion matters.

So though I am out of the advice giving business, I’m going to recommend that “being able to receive feedback” is not a strength. Being able to discern WHOSE feedback matters and why it matters to you is what’s important. I think this skill would solve a lot of interpersonal relationship issues - because if my partner can receive feedback from his boss but not from me, then that shows me that there’s a hierarchy about whose feedback matters and it’s clearly not mine.

Unfortunately, once you’ve been taught to abandon your sense of self, it’s not so easy to just get it back. It takes trial and error and swinging the pendulum back from “everyone’s feedback matters” to “no one’s feedback matters” and ultimately settling somewhere in the middle. When I was working on this, I started with my friends. My friends had the least to gain from giving me feedback; they could just stop inviting me around if I continued to be a prick about some things. Not all of their feedback was helpful, but ultimately, I cared about maintaining our friendship enough to make some changes to how I interacted with them and how I pursued our friendship. Also, when solicited, my friends delivered their criticisms kindly. I trusted them enough to hear it because they were vulnerable enough to say it.

One more thing on this: I think women are socialized to exist as if their lives are self-improvement projects, which teaches them to abandon their own instincts and seek validation externally. It’s a bold act to tell someone, particularly a potential romantic partner, that you’re not interested in their critique no matter how constructive. And I think, the older you get as a woman, the more you learn how to trust yourself again, such that when a random man on the internet asks how he can get with a “more-attractive-than-he-thought” woman, we don’t feel like we need to explain our side, and instead, just tell him “it’s not you, it’s me” and go back to reading our favorite novel.