“When to dump” or “How and when to build”..
Hot Alpha Female wrote on “You Are Not Worth My Time!! – How To Know When To Ditch That Guy“. The focus of the post is that a girl needs to have a list of common problems with relationships, and be ready to dump the guy – no matter how infatuated she is – if he makes any of the list of blunders.
HAF begins with the premise that
You’re doing the flirting, meeting the people, and enjoying your dates. Then SMACK! …..You find a guy that you’re crazy about and your world comes crashing down, but in a kind of good way. You can’t stop thinking about him and the fairytale romance you see in the movies might just be a possibility…
Yep you’re in lust. Some people call it love. I call it – rose tinted wonderland or being on drugs….
I think this haphazard (flirting and dating until you find the one) way of selecting a mate is fraught with peril. Waiting for the fairy tale to come true instead of actively developing the bonds, the understandings, and rewarding each other seems a plan for disaster, not a guide to happiness. The wonders of meeting that special someone help build bonds that last. Celebrate this time, revel in the delight. And be aware whether your partner is as rewarded as you are.
Casual dating tends to reward those with life-skills in attracting dates, those that portray themselves as icons of ‘great’ dates – provocative dress, mannerisms, manners of speech, social habits. To find a partner suited as a long term mate and co-parent, a rewarding companion in the years ahead, look for those qualities that make for a good mate. Date as if your life depends on it. Use friends and family to ‘check out’ someone before you take that first date. Be assured of their reputation for good character, good bonds to family and friends before you court them. Then court your prospect, don’t flirt, don’t date. Build for the family life of joy that you intend.
You and your date must be ‘trainable’. You both must be able to hear problems, and respond with changes. Especially during the happy early parts of the courtship, you should be watching for ways to increase your partner’s happiness. This is the simplest key – if you aren’t pleased when you make your partner happy, consider whether your partner is right for you.
If your partner isn’t happy with the relationship, if they don’t find you ‘fun’, then your relationship has serious problems. If you don’t enjoy making your partner happy, there are problems. When this happens, you have to be able, between you, to identify what the problems are, and whether they are solvable. Expect this to happen time after time as the relationship endures. When the fun becomes sadness, reluctance, guilt, anger, learn to bring things back together – the sooner the better.
The deeper and longer lasting the relationship, the more inertia, memories of good times, respect for each other, and hope for a brighter time should carry you through the rough times. Obligations such as combined financial arrangements, joint ownership of assets, a shared home and bed, children, jobs all combine in a form of relationship inertia – making the prospect of separating more difficult to imagine, and more complicated to actually break up.
It comes together best if you start with someone you dare trust, someone that already lives in relationships with friends and family, someone you respect for integrity. Courting someone means that you strive to meet their expectations, too. And you should expect a mate prospect to continue to be trustworthy, honest, and trainable. Just as you enjoy being with them, you should be aware of their likes and dislikes, and whether they are enjoying their time with you (‘time with you’ being the weeks and years of the relationship).
HAF’s list of ‘end of the world’ signals is actually fairly short: 1) He doesn’t maintain contact; and 2) Distant and emotionally absent. The other half of her checklist is a self-check monitor: a) Remember what we deserve and how we should be treated; b) Remember our dignity and value our self worth; and c) Remember that we should not settle for anything less than the best.
I think I would add violence and frequent outbursts, and deception or other betrayals of respect to the list of dangers. And I think the ‘c’ admonition should be “someone worthwhile”, but her list makes a pretty good guide. She glosses over picking the right mate candidate, and seems to overlook the reciprocal obligations to be aware of each other’s happiness, be worthy of their time, and be attentive to their happiness as the means to increase our own joy and contentment.
So brad,
If casual dating is not the answer, then are there any other suggestions that you have?
Like are you spose to pick the first guy u see off the street and go … yup im gonna marry you and no matter how many things i hate about you .. we are going to work on a relationship together until we are both happy.
I mean there needs to be a selection process of some sort. At the end of the day you need to know what you are looking for. But at the same time i do see your point. You can’t be too quick to judge someone. You can’t be too quick to throw someone off to the sideline.
But you know what … u know what you are looking for … you can’t please everyone …
N if you are dating a lot .. its because you know what you are looking for and are prepared to do what it takes to find it.
Hot Alpha Female
http://www.hotalphafemale.blogspot.com
Hot Alpha Female, I think the danger of ‘dating’ a lot is building up life skills of ‘attracting dates’ and ‘dating’ – a way of life that tears up any following long term relationship. People just don’t lose the ‘eye’ for potential dates. Whether that means they will cheat or just be distracted from a partner, the practiced dater is a much higher risk for stumbling into trouble.
Then, too, there is the physical bonding aspect. Foster parenting training covers ‘detachment’. Kids taken into foster care tend to be moved from home to home. Too many, after some number of homes, stop developing emotional attachments to their new ‘family’. Detached kids are less likely to be well behaved, to learn ethical behavior, to live within rules and the law. How can those that spend years dating be any different? What are ‘players’ but emotionally detached people practicing rules that develop and maintain the detachment?
Much of the world (most people, 38 years ago) still practices arranged marriage, where parents or some social mechanism selects partners. Traditionally certain classes in India and other cultures might never meet until the wedding ceremony – and most such cultures don’t allow separation or divorce. We cannot do that here in the US. We don’t have the social and legal mechanisms that make arranged marriage work. Plus, our parents don’t understand, most of them, how to select a suitable partner. They ‘lucked out’ as we try to do.
But we can associate with people of good character. We can network, and let our network know we want a good partner. Those that know us might help us recognize a person of character to suggest – they we meet and decide if we actually like the person. This is doable. Plus, associating with good people, and refraining from competitive dating and casual encounters, we make ourselves more easily identifiable as ethical people – and attractive to someone looking for a mate.
One place we differ, is that I see ‘dates’ as essentially ‘prospective mate evaluation’ exercises. Before the first date, we should know that the prospect has a reputation for good character, and would be a reasonable choice for mate and co-parent (whether kids are anticipated or not), and the next thing to check is whether we like them. Dating should be very late in the selection process,. You should know a lot about their family, their past, and their character first.