First of all, don’t get me wrong. I am a dating coach who prides myself in letting women know that they should NEVER settle for a boyfriend.
Yes, it’s better to be single and a little lonely than in a bad relationship – trust me. That long list of criteria that you have for your significant other is a good thing, don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.
However a lot of the time, women forget to include the important standards in their list and prioritize those.
If you want to find a boyfriend who actually loves you, you need to pay attention to specific personailty traits that will keep you happy forever and stop doing what you’re doing now.
Don’t Focus On The Wrong Things
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My current boyfriend and I met on Tinder and when we went on our first date I knew it wasn’t going to work. There was no way that I (a 5’0 woman) was going to date a guy that is 6’3!
These were my actual thoughts on our first date. I literally didn’t want to go through with it because of our height difference.
I knew it was a ridiculous to not date someone because they were too tall but I just thought, I barely even know him, might as well be picky with guys up front so if our personalities do click, all the other boxes are checked off.
This kind of thinking is so wrong for so many reasons.
The first big reason is that finding someone you click with and want to spend your life with is actually really difficult.
It’s true!
It’s not easy to find someone you connect with so when you disregard great guys because of petty, insignificant reasons, you’re just making it harder on yourself to find someone.
You’re just adding onto the time it will take you to find “the one”.
It’s in your best interest to take a step back and analyze whether his long hair or his ugly car are really going to affect your life when you’re in your 50s.
That’s the goal here, we’re thinking long-term.
You actually don’t need to have that many things in common
So many dating sites and meet-ups revolve around finding someone who is interested in the same things you are. This is also the general thought most of us have when we’re out looking for a potential partner as the Huffington Post noted:
The Washington Post Sunday Magazine runs a popular weekly feature called Date Lab. Applicants are matched by age and stated interests. More often than not, the match begins and ends on the debut evening. When Date Lab daters express disappointment it is almost always because “we didn’t have enough in common.” – Huffington Post
Those people could have passed up on the love of their lives and didn’t even notice!
I’ll admit that it helps to have a few things in common, but really just a few or just one big one is all you need. You both like hiking? Done. That’s enough things to have in common.
Having more things in common is good but these are just icing on the cake. The cake (ie. the really important things) is what really matters. The “cake” includes things that you’ll face on a day to day basis (ie. is he nice? is he giving? does he listen?) and things you will face on a bigger scale (does he want kids? does he want to live in the city?)
If you have a “type” you’re doing it wrong
This tip from Gurl.com brings up an interesting point:
So, I think it’s great to have standards – it’s very important to know what you want out of a relationship in order to have a fulfilling one. But at the same time, I think it’s also really important to be open to dating people who aren’t your usual “type.” – Gurl.com
This is good advice but I’ll go a step further and say that if you’re dating standards are so high that you actually have a “type”, you’re doing it wrong.
What is a “type” anyway? Is it a collection of stereotypes all combined into one fictional person?
“He needs to have a high paying job, an out-going personality and wants to have 2 kids.”
You actually just invented a person.
Is there a guy like that out there? I mean yeah probably but maybe that guy also has chronic depression- because of the high paying job, always wants to be the centre of attention – hence the out-going personality, and only wants 2 kids because he knows he can’t balance more than that because he values his job and social life more than family.
Ouch!
I know it’s harsh but if we’re inventing people, why stop at the positive traits?
We are all different. Nobody fits into a category or type and we shouldn’t, it’s more fun when we’re all different – that’s just part of being human.
We should focus on getting to know people as individuals rather than trying to lump them into a stereotype.
LOOK FOR A LONG BURNING FIRE RATHER THAN A “spark”
He was great but we just didn’t have that “spark”. He was nice and friendly but he’s not attractive enough to “excite me”.
The very definition of a spark is something that starts quickly and ends quickly. It’s a small trace of a fire that is gone as soon as it arrived. That’s not what you really want if you’re look for something long-term.
You want a fire.
Something that burns bright for a long time and something that you can build and maintain forever.
So what does a “relationship fire” feel like? It feels comfortable.
When I first starting dating all of my long-term boyfriends, they all had something in common. It felt comfortable right away.
Jerry Seinfeld described this feeling really well when he was on Oprah and talking about how he knew his wife was the one for him.
“‘It’s not the conversation or the attraction that you feel,’ Jerry said. ‘It’s just this comfort level when someone is in your house.’” – Jerry Seinfeld, taken from the Daily Mail
If you feel like you can act completely like yourself and you’re not being judged, this is a good foundation for a strong long-lasting relationship. It’s about comfort, easy conversation and feeling like he’s really into you for you.
As soon as you can strip away some of these high dating standards, you really open up the doors of possibility. The chances of finding that awesome person just got exponentially higher so get out there and start dating in a healthier, more effective way.
Source link: millennialships.com