I had no idea what I was doing was wrong until I wasn’t doing it anymore.
Let me explain.
A few months ago, I was in an incredible relationship. The kind where you feel genuinely seen, understood, held. But my partner became overwhelmed with work-genuinely drowning in it. She couldn’t give me what I needed from the relationship, and we decided to split.
That was the right decision. It was also painful.
So about a month ago, despite being ridiculously busy with my own work, I found myself on dating apps. Casually. Just to take the edge off the loneliness, I suppose. I matched with a few people. Had some conversations that were entertaining enough.
But here’s the thing: I was dismissive. Judgmental. I’d connect with someone, have a bit of banter, and then just… disconnect. Mid-conversation, sometimes. I’d ghost people. Not dramatically-just fade out.
And I knew it wasn’t kind. Deep down, I recognised that I was using these people to entertain myself. That if the situation were reversed-if someone had done that to me-I’d have felt hurt and confused.
Yet I kept doing it anyway.
The Session
I brought this to a coaching session about a week in. Not because I was desperate to fix it, but because it was niggling at me. That cognitive dissonance-knowing something’s wrong and doing it anyway.
The coach opened the way they always do: “What would you like to focus on today?”
I told them the situation. Laid it out fairly plainly. And then they started asking questions.
Not “Why are you being unkind?” or “Don’t you realise how that makes people feel?” Nothing judgmental. Just questions.
They asked me what was driving the behaviour. What need was the dating app meeting. What I was really looking for in those connections.
And as I spoke, something started to shift.
The coach reflected back something I’d said: “So you’re busy, overwhelmed with work, not really in a place where you could show up fully for someone. And yet you’re reaching out to people, connecting, and then disconnecting?”
I heard it then. The parallel.
That’s what my ex had done. She was overwhelmed, drowning, and couldn’t show up for me. Not because she didn’t care-but because she genuinely didn’t have the capacity.
And here I was, on the other side of it, doing the same thing to people who didn’t deserve it.
The coach didn’t need to tell me I was wrong. I saw it. The moment I articulated it, the justifications dissolved.
The Realisation
What struck me was the speed of it. One focused conversation. Maybe 30 minutes. And I went from doing something I knew was unkind to understanding why I was doing it and being able to stop.
That evening, I deleted my dating profile. No drama. No internal debate. Just clarity.
And here’s the thing that keeps surprising me: I’m genuinely fine with it. Not white-knuckling, not wishing I was still on the apps, not struggling. Just… at peace with the decision.
Because the insight didn’t come from outside me. The coach didn’t impose it. I discovered it. And when you discover something yourself-when your own thinking leads you there-you own it in a completely different way than if someone told you.
Why This Matters
This is what non-directive coaching actually does.
The coach didn’t say: “You’re being unkind.” They didn’t give me advice about how to treat people better. They didn’t tell me to delete my profile.
They asked me questions. Good questions. Questions that helped me think more clearly about my own situation. And from that clearer thinking, my own wisdom emerged. My own ethics. My own choice.
This is why I keep coming back to the point about advice in Post 2. When someone tells you what to do-even if it’s right-part of you resists. But when you figure it out? You’re unstoppable.
The Connection to Prison
I keep thinking about my time as a listener in prison. Working with people in genuine crisis-suicidal ideation, trauma, desperation. The skill that mattered wasn’t having answers. It was asking the right question and then genuinely listening to what emerged.
“What’s going on for you right now?”
“What do you need in this moment?”
“What do you think might help?”
Those same foundational skills-empathetic listening, genuine curiosity, the discipline of not offering advice-they work everywhere. In a prison cell with someone in acute distress. In a coaching session with someone figuring out their dating life. In a therapy room. In a parenting moment.
The context changes. The human need doesn’t.
What This Means For You
If you’ve ever experienced that moment where something just clicks-where a conversation suddenly makes everything clear, and you know what to do-that’s what coaching does.
It’s not magic. It’s not someone outside you fixing something. It’s someone creating the conditions for your own thinking to become clearer.
And the thing is, that clarity lasts. Because it’s yours. You own it.
In my case, I went from being a person who was unknowingly hurting other people to being a person who was at peace with not dating at all. Not because someone shamed me. But because I saw my own behaviour clearly and made a different choice.
That’s the power of coaching.
