The Shiny Toy

Shiny Toy Syndrome: knowing what’s real

A guy recently pointed out a certain conundrum that he believes guys face. I think it applies to both genders and it’s sort of a flaw of being human, so I’m going to share. No matter how much we grow up the “kid in a candy store” analogy applies to all sorts of our behaviors. For our purposes let’s call it a “kid in a toy store” analogy. Of course most of us don’t really care about toys anymore so if you want to you can apply it to entering an Apple store. All the pretty, shiny technologies! It’s the same thing the minute we step foot into a new ward. We look around to scope out the prospects. You know you do.

So what happens after our eyes pop out of our head from the exciting array of newness in front of us? Well we’re kids, we’re not grown ups (seriously, just look at the way girls giggle talking about dating or the way guys get excited over a new basketball game). I think if we were mature enough to handle that array of whizzing gadgets and startling gizmos, we would step up to the plate with the perspective that we’re really only going to get what suits us best. Unfortunately, we don’t walk straight to the thing we really need. We never do. Like kids, we wander through isle after isle even though we know that there’s something specific we’re looking for. And, because most of us have an attention span of about thirty seconds surrounded by all the pretties, we lock our eyes on something that is…beautiful.

Note on the word beautiful: when I say it, I don’t mean beautiful as in “look at that hair, look at those eyes.” Obviously that’s one interpretation of the word, but for some people beautiful is defined by something else. Beautiful could mean their spirit, their heart, their sense of humor, their kindness. We all see beautiful and define beauty differently. That’s why no one is ever out of anyone else’s league, you never know how beautiful you really are.

Anyway, so we lock our eyes on our shiny, beautiful new toy and then we go for them immediately. Because we’ve lost our sights on everything else around. Basically that thing might as well be singing the hallelujah chorus while the rest of the world goes blurry. It’s a cheesy movie scene, but it works. And we’re goners! Now we’ve met the person, found this thing that is beautiful and we will do anything we can to justify having it. No, it’s not exactly what we came here for or what we really need, but look! Look how pretty!

Then we start to justify this person. We’ve already decided that they’re perfect so all things must fit into that label of perfection. They don’t really get along well with your friends, but that’s okay because you don’t even like your friends anyway. They don’t like talking about their feelings, but neither do you. Or they’re all about the sharing so now you’re all for it too!
Because our new shiny toy can’t possibly be bad! Just look at it! It’s beautiful! And we want it so bad!

But eventually the moment comes when we realize we’ve gotten in too far with our shiny new toy and we were unhappy with it all along and it’s so hard to let go. Now it’s still beautiful and we’re comfortable having it around. That’s when things get even more difficult.

The solution: don’t justify the shiny toy! Go for what you came here for!

So this week learn to recognize shiny toy syndrome! Attraction to things that are beautiful is obviously necessary for a good relationship. There should be some beauty about them, but you shouldn’t have to justify that beauty. It should justify itself.

The Funny YSA