subject: Establishing Momentum In New Relationships [print this page] It can sometimes be challenging to establish momentum when meeting new people or at the early stages of new relationships. This area can be challenging because young relationships and social interactions are fairly fragile and there is a lot of room for error. By minimizing any mistakes or miscommunications, you can improve your momentum driving an end result of more success in finding and establishing relationships.
One of the ways to decrease the complexity and confusion around what to do and what not to do is to use an analogy or a model to simplify things. In this case, we will look at relationships as being a vehicle that two people travel in to get from point A to point B. The distance you travel together could be as short as one date or as long as fifty years of marriage. Below are some factors to consider that could influence how far and how fast the vehicle or relationship will travel.
Fun: In the vehicle, the gas pedal is equal to the level of fun in the relationship. The more fun that occurs, the more the gas pedal will be pressed and the faster and farther the vehicle will go. It is important to point out that fun can be many different things and it is typically different things to different people.
Stress: Stress and pressure in a relationship are the vehicle's brake pedal. The more stress and pressure, the more that the brake pedal will be pressed. This will slow the relationship down and at some point could bring it to a complete stop. It is true that stress is part of life and in many cases cannot be avoided or decreased. But in many cases, we can decrease the level of stress and pressure that we bring to new relationships.
Rapport: The ability to build rapport is equal to level of comfort of the vehicle. The more comfortable the vehicle, and the stronger the level of rapport, the more likely the passengers will chose to travel together on a long trip.
Driver: Just like every car needs a driver, every relationship needs a driver. This is someone who takes the lead and makes decisions. Ideally, two people in a relationship will take turns being the driver in different areas. Knowing when it is your turn to drive can help keep the vehicle going. For example, in new relationships, some women like a man to drive initially. If a man does not realize this and drive when the woman wants him to, she may just get out of the vehicle and get into another one with someone who is ready to be the driver.
Maintenance: Just like how a vehicle needs scheduled and routine maintenance, so do relationships. Many of the routine stuff you need to do on a vehicle could be ignored and you would not see an immediate impact. But problems would start to occur down the road and this would impact how far the vehicle travel. Relationships are the same as there are issues and differences that can be ignored, but somewhere down the road if those were ignored they can present problems that can bring an end to new relationships.
