Women - Dating Red Flag #4

Dating and relationship advice is what keeps many a women's magazine on the shelf month after month. Some of it is pretty good, some of it nothing more than fluff, and some of it is downright awful.

Before many of us can successfully date or have a fulfilling love relationship, we have some surface garbage to rid ourselves of. We aren't thinking the right way. All too often we ignore our instincts, and oddly enough, we try to look for 'loop holes' to make a relationship work. We avoid reality, or treat it like a wad of play doh that we think we can re-finagle to fit our needs in a romantic situation.

Well, reality is reality, though, and we usually realize that at the end of a bad relationship, and swear we'll go into the next situation with open eyes. Well, we do need to open our eyes. Here is a typical situation in which we don't see a problem clearly, and we are tying to reshape our situation to fit.

Have you recently been spending some time getting to know a man with whom you easily launched into conversation...but what he wants to talk about the most are his residual scars from whom he dated last? Does he tell you what a relief it is to be able to talk to you, and how you've made him feel so much better? Are you feeling flattered?

Well, those feelings of flattery will soon fizzle. They'll be replaced by your overly-conscious efforts to restrain from, or at least avoid being seen, eye-rolling.

You don't believe that said man is going to realize how strong, supportive, and different from that horrible witch you are, and thus fall madly in love with you, do you? And then all will be happy and your days will be bliss-filled...at some time or another we all seem to subject ourselves to this. The crucial part, however, is to see what is really going on and to be realistic; and of course, not to be repeating a pattern of your own.