Skip to main content

10 Dating Tips I Wish I'd Followed While I Was Single

By
Dating advice from a married woman who hopes you don't waste as much of your single life as she did.
When I started seeing my husband, aka the first guy I wasn't embarrassed to tell my therapist about, I was gobsmacked to realize how much I hadn't known about dating before then.

In fact, I'd been going about being single all wrong. I didn't have very much fun at it, which is depressing since I didn't pair up until my 30s. Besides, so much luck was involved in my finding my match that there are probably more alternate universes where I'm still living solo than where I'm married.


I realize that my past experiences have made me who I am today, but I still wish I could go back in time and have a sisterly chat with poor, clueless, "younger me." I could've written three novels, started a business and hiked the Appalachian Trail with all the wasted time and energy. It's too late for me, but maybe you can learn from what I wish I knew then.

1. Finding a romantic partner is only one of many goals you can have at once. There's a difference between making something a priority and having an obsession. No one wants to be the Captain Ahab of the dating world.

2. When you like a guy, and your mutual friends have multiple anecdotes about him projectile vomiting after excessive drinking, you need to rethink the infatuation. You didn't like it when your godson hurled on you, and he was a toddler

3. It's not about getting someone to think you're good enough for them. It’s about finding someone you can stand to spend a ridiculous amount of time with. It's about finding the puzzle piece you fit with and the Ernie to your Bert.
4. Work on your gaydar. It'll make your life much easier.

5. Sometimes boyfriends have little annoying habits. And sometimes they have small behaviors that indicate a complete lack of respect. If you wouldn't let your friend's sweetie talk to her that way, don't put up with it yourself

6. If you're bored out of your mind at the local bar on Saturday night, you're probably not going to meet anyone there who's going to liven up your evening. Instead of downing an extra cocktail to numb the ennui, think of somewhere else to go next weekend that you might actually enjoy. If your friends don't want to join you, go anyway.

7. Stop worrying about potential paramours rejecting you for being too fat, too short, too whatever. It's entirely possible that you would've had to reject them for never having seen Star Wars (your essential piece of pop culture may vary) anyway. People who simply are "not the right fit" exist. The sooner you weed them out of your life, the happier you'll be.

8. Go to movies by yourself. The same goes for museums, parks and concerts. When you're part of a couple, you miss being free to follow your every whim. Being unattached means not having to compromise on your plans.

9. A first date is not an audition for marriage. It's just a tryout for a second date. No one ever fell in love while analyzing every detail of their momentous first meeting. 

10. If a man says that he's too damaged for you (or too neurotic, or too anything), just take his word for it. Even if it is his low self-esteem talking, you're not going to be able to fix him. And it's probably just a euphemism for "I'm just not feeling it."

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Key to Happy Relationships? It’s Not All About Communication

By
If couples were paying any attention during the past few decades, they should be able to recite the one critical ingredient for a healthy relationship — communication. But the latest study shows that other skills may be almost as important for keeping couples happy. While expressing your needs and feelings in a positive way to your significant other is a good foundation for resolving conflicts and building a healthy relationship, these skills may not be as strong a predictor of couples’ happiness as experts once thought. In an Internet-based study involving 2,201 participants referred by couples counselors, scientists decided to test, head to head, seven “relationship competencies” that previous researchers and marital therapists found to be important in promoting happiness in romantic relationships. The idea was to rank the skills in order of importance to start building data on which aspects of relationships are most important to keeping them healthy. In addition to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to lose weight

By
More than one-third of adults in the United States are obese. In fact, the furor over obesity, which some have termed an “epidemic,” has reached such proportions that one big-city mayor has gone about banning large-sized, sugary soft drinks and the First Lady has been on a crusade to control the dietary offerings in public schools. Even many adults who do not fit the clinic definition of obese are still overweight, and a large percentage are looking for the best ways to lose weight. Shedding pounds largely comes down to the two-pronged factors of diet and exercise. Not modifying the first one enough, and not getting enough of the second one, ends up giving the individual a recipe for being overweight.  Conditions related to obesity include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Counseling someone to eat less and exercise more might be the simplest advice possible, but it’s also, partiall...
Post a Comment
Read more

Can Nightmares Cause Death? Spirit Possession? Mental Illness?

By
A lot of the research on nightmares suggests these events test the strength of one’s mind. If the mind is not strong, nightmares can take hold with greater force and the torment can extend beyond one’s dreams. Dr. Patrick McNamara of the Boston University School of Medicine looks at nightmares in a modern clinical context that also takes into account the history of dream phenomena in many cultures. He connects nightmares with a world of malevolent spirits. Spirit Possession Some people who experience frequent nightmares, both today and throughout history, also show signs in waking life of mental illness and even what may be seen as spirit possession. Dr. McNamara seems unabashed in speaking about spirit possession. “Nightmares very often involve supernatural characters that attack or target the dreamer in some way. I mean monsters, creatures, demons, spirits, unusual animals, and the like,” Dr. McNamara said in an interview with Boston University’s alumni publicat...
Post a Comment
Read more