What Is This Site For?
Short answer –
To give me a place to put my writing, and to provide somewhere for people to find it.
Long answer –
Because I think our dating market is fundamentally broken, and adults are growing up with less and less control over their social lives. Pretty much everyone I know has either lucked into a social circle through their workplace or their school, and if you ask the average person how to make friends or find love outside those vectors, there won’t be an answer forthcoming.
You might agree or you might not, but the issue is there. I come from Australia, and we’re right behind the USA in things like ghosting, horribly managed boundaries, selfish behaviour, lying and general disrespect when it comes to our relationships.
I certainly never used to feel equipped to manage my personal life, nor did I see an easy way to find that information. This website is my attempt to remedy both of those issues.
Who Is Cain Parish?
I was never deformed. I didn’t start life with any big disadvantages. I’m just average. Painfully so.
I had your standard smattering of bullying in my school years and a less than stellar relationship with my parents.
I don’t know if those things contribute to social success, but all I know is; I didn’t have It.
For all intents and purposes, the guy in that photo may as well be anyone. Replace him with your average dude and I don’t think much changes.
You might be the same. Never as lucky as some of the guys and gals born with perfect bone structure and a god-given metabolism.
Not quite as confident as the class clowns or popular kids.
We’re not broken, just a little left behind.
I didn’t know what the difference is between someone that knows how to find friends and create stable, lasting relationships.
Growing up skinny, pale-faced and very dorky, I wasn’t naturally good with people. I had all the enthusiasm, but none of the technique. As a result, I was considered obnoxious and annoying for a decent chunk of my childhood and young adult life.
This was me. I wasn’t ugly or gross, just a little uninformed and underprepared.
But still, I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. More than school, more than anything, I wanted the relationships that other people had. The brotherhood that I saw in the guys around me, or the large networks that the girls weaved together.
I wanted the person in that photo to change. It was important that I found a way to be in control of myself, and my relationships.
It was important to me that I could find strong success in my social and romantic lives. At that point, I was in the passenger seat of any of the parts of my life that featured other people. I was being bullied, ignored and rejected by everyone in my life.
It wasn’t fun. We all know what it’s like to be dismissed or discarded.
I thought ‘fuck it’, maybe I can learn how to fix this
So I started to work at it. Relationships are like any other skill. They take time, practice, effort and concentrated learning. I took from every single source I could and condensed and synthesized until I was confident I could be in control of my social life.
It took me 10 years. Ten. Whole. Years. Of learning, practicing, studying, trying and failing. Until eventually I felt confident. I’d spent so much time on a skill that I was finally getting good at. And suddenly the world fell into place.
I can approach anyone in any situation and make friends, connections and develop strong bonds and relationships.
I know how to ask for what I want and maintain healthy and appropriate boundaries. The people around me understand and respect my emotional well-being because they genuinely care for me.
I have strong friendships and a healthy romantic life, that I’M in control of. I know how to make and maintain friends, partners and how to find people to have fun and spend time with.
And alongside it all came a deep appreciation for other people. I strongly believe that you can’t take care of others until you’ve taken care of yourself. You can’t fill someone else’s cup until yours is full and can freely overflow.
And so, above all the tactics and lifehacks I use to help me communicate with others and create the life that I wanted, I developed some values. Strong principles that I believe in, that I firmly think would guide our dating and socialising culture into a more positive, healthy direction.
Believe me, I was in the pits. I know every piece of toxic advice, selfish trick and manipulative stratagem that gets peddled on the internet. I’m sure you can think of more than one online ‘influencer’ giving advice that is doing more harm than good.
And look, if I’m being honest, I have good days & bad days. I still look in the mirror and see the pimple-faced, depressed kid that used to be lonely and dejected because he just couldn’t click with people.
I’m not interested in being an influencer.
I don’t like putting myself out there. I’ve never felt photogenic or drawn to cameras. I don’t have a desire to be plastered over social media feeds. That’s part of why I became a writer. It’s a hell of a lot easier to let your words speak instead of you.
But some part of me, however small or large, wants to give a helping hand to other young people like myself that never put themselves through the pain of learning a skill that, by all rights, should be a fundamental pillar of our education.
So that’s why I have a career. Not as an influencer, not as a guru, just an educator. Someone that teaches the things I’ve learnt to people that need it. I have a few paid ways that you can support me, but by and large, everything I know is plastered across this site for free. That’s entirely by design. I want everything that I know and value about social skills, development and emotional intelligence to be easily accessible – all in one place.
So who I am isn’t super important. You either resonate with me and my story or you don’t. As long as you can take something from what I have to share, that’s what matters. Cheers.
And on the off chance you feel like joining me, in figuring out your relationships and soft skills once and for all, there are, admittedly, links almost everywhere, but here’s where I’d start. It’s a lovingly prepared master guide to literally every fundamental concept of relationships that I know about. If you get through it, you’ll know more about human interaction than most people. Best of luck.
