I have been married for over a month and that qualifies me as a relationship expert. I made some sucker take the bait- hook, line, and sinker. Why would a woman waste her time fishing when she can marry a fisherman do it for her? This is dripping with sarcasm, FYI if you’re not the quick learner type.
Now I’m gonna teach you how to fish, for one of the many fishes in the sea. I promise, I’m done with the fishing jokes. Reely though, don’t raise some cane over my crappie puns. (I really wanna go ice fishing, dammit).
First, do you have a tendency of just dating the ‘crazies’? Do you know why this is?
I do. It’s because you’re fat, stupid, and anatomically strange.
I kid. It’s because you THINK you’re all those things, plus you just let your life happen to you. You almost never make the first move, and you don’t present yourself as someone who either wants a person, or someone who needs a person. If you don’t seek out conversations, encounters or relationships, most people will assume you don’t want one, and will leave you alone. Normal people assess situations where they are unneeded, and they don’t exert themselves into those situations. Which ultimately, leaves you only with people who are bold, self indulged, and pushy. They aren’t afraid to invite themselves to a party. Unfortunately for you, I mean they aren’t afraid to introduce themselves to you, and push a relationship with you. They take advantage of your insecurities, passive disposition, and your uncertainties in what you want. They tell you what YOU want, and because you’re passive, you love that they do the talking and thinking for you.
By being this passive and/or insecure person, you also have the probability to have a tendency of suppressing your feelings. This means the crazies people who are bold, self indulged, and pushy that you attract, are going to be emotionally unstable, which is attracted to your seemingly very stable emotions. They will take you for the emotional rollercoaster of your life, and you’ll let them because it’s a rollercoaster you cannot or will not create yourself.
If the above applies to you, you need to flip your brain off and back on again for a reboot. Think about relationships differently. You credit your failed relationships to your weight problem, your lack of success, your lack of intelligence, or your lack of ‘relationship knowledge’. From now, on start thinking about your future person in that light instead. “Will he be fit enough for me?”, “Will he have a billionaire’s (or at least, a stable) mindset?” “Will he have the right type of education I’m looking for in a man?”, “Will he know to buy me Moe’s Southwest when I have a really crappy day?”. It’s not about being a superficial hag, it’s about having some standards and recognizing your own worth. Demanding a reasonable amount of personality, integrity and respect is not wrong, nor is it being ‘too much’.
I highly recommend having some sort of boundaries to go with having your own standards.
I know many will disagree with what I’m about to say, and if you do, go get your own blog let’s agree to disagree. Do not sleep with him on the first date. Do not drop everything to accommodate him. You need some mystery about you. Personally, mine was my withheld sexuality. I didn’t give that out, even to long term boyfriends. It doesn’t make me a better person, but it did make me a more interesting one. I thought I was too fat at times, I stumbled over my feet and my words, I was dense and stubborn. But they overlooked that, because they wanted to know ‘my secret’. No, I’m not calling my sexuality a secret (that’s just weird, honestly). I’m referring to the mindset that I fooled them into thinking I had.
Despite my (many!) flaws, I put off the image that I saw myself as a respectable, worthwhile, and poised person. The activity that had held together their past relationships, was something I acted like I wouldn’t be interested in for quite some time. I don’t have an outstanding body or personality, but that mystery made them hold interest longer than it should have.
Bonus: the men who pretended to care about me but only wanted sex, quickly removed themselves from my life. Let the trash take itself out.
Next, let’s assume you have a line of suitors at your front door, and you need to weed some of them out.
First, identify if you’re passive or assertive. If you’re passive, you need a man who is vulnerable and sincere. If you’re an assertive type, you need a man who is very straightforward and/or borderline obnoxious. Not “a seven year old on Mountain Dew with megaphone” obnoxious, but like “you just told me some of your life story, let me top it with mine because I’m competitive and this is how I flirt” kind of obnoxious. Mixing the wrong types of people can lead to relationships that are unbalanced, manipulative, or just crappy in general.
Now, lets identify what caliber of ‘messed up’ that you are.
You need someone who is equally and similarly screwed up. Not equally and exactly screwed up perfectly alike. There is a difference, let me explain it with a personal example.
My husband and I got married in October (of 2016). We basically gave our families a two week notice because we love to live dangerously. Neither of our dads showed up. Why? Because mine was murdered in 2006, and his was your average run of the mill dirt bag who wasn’t involved (or beneficial) in Devin’s life. My response to my dad’s death was numbness and a quiet “eh, well this is my new life- I won’t even hold a grudge against his killer”. Devin’s response to his dad’s absence was “Fuck you anyways, pal!”. We both suffered a little bit of some abandonment issues I suppose. My response was neutral passive, his was neutral aggressive. That is how we are similar in our ‘screwed up’ but opposite in our ‘this is how I deal with it’. You need someone who is similar and equal to you in your problems- but not exactly alike. Otherwise you’ll both be sitting around together, whining, trying to one up each other in the ‘my life is hard department’ (or you’ll both be rocking in the fetal position, wondering how you both drew the same wrong straw).
Now, let’s assume you’ve found someone who passes all these tests, you’re both relatively mentally sane, AND you have a mutual draw to one another. Here are the last things you need to realize to have a successful, lasting love.
You’re an average polished turd, and so is he. You’re ecstatic he is your person, and he is enthralled that you are his. Do us all a favor and realize that neither of you are the most awesome or unique people. It’s okay to let the world know you are official and you love one another, but after that, shut up. Keep your excessive lovey bragging posts off facebook, and don’t air out your couple’s dirty laundry in public. People don’t need to know if you had amazing sex last night. People don’t need to know he took a pay cut and now you’re the strong woman breadwinner. People don’t need to know all the details of your relationship. It’s simple. Keep the nitty gritty to yourselves.
Now that you know you’re not everyone’s #RelationshipGoals are you still attracted to one another? Or did you just like the idea of people thinking you had your crap together by landing the perfect guy? If the answer is yes, either grow up- or let that man go and seek out someone who is equally superficial. If you can’t be satisfied with simple, you won’t be satisfied with complex and unique aka, what you call #RelationshipGoals.
My final piece of my vast knowledge I will bestow on you is this (eye roll). Some people are very secure in themselves, and others are not. If you are not secure, it will not work. After you learn how to have confidence and complete trust with your person, make sure your person, without a doubt, feels the same way. You both need to equally and fully commit. That reason alone is why people who get married within days to weeks of meeting one another, last. They found a compatible, imperfect person who complements their own imperfections, and they both agreed to be stubborn regardless of how their life turns out together.
What are your thoughts on the dating process? Should it be more like old fashioned courting? Is there a real secret to it? Please share your thoughts with me in the comments section. As always, thank you for reading!
