subject: Dating Mistakes You Don't Want To Make [print this page] Dating Mistakes You Don't Want To Make Dating Mistakes You Don't Want To Make
People often ask me what the biggest mistakes are in dating. When they are just coming out of a long-term relationship, they want to learn how to start dating again. And some people who have been single a long time would like to date but are fearful of making the same mistakes they made in the past. All of the above would like to fall in love and stay in love, but they are afraid to make a mistake.
What do you need to know when you're out dating, so you'll have greater success? What are the mistakes that people make that are predictors of failure?
Mistake #1: Becoming a Couple Too Soon
New daters, old seasoned daters, and almost all daters make this mistake over and over. After one or two dates, they slip into a "mini-marriage" without realizing how it happened. (This danger occurs most often when the relationship has a lot of chemistry and intimacy begins before two people know each other.) A mini-marriage is an exclusive relationship with two people seeing only each other, but without a commitment or any plans for a future together. This arrangement can drift along for years. If you are in a mini-marriage, you are not available to date others but you are still single and unattached. Because you are out of the dating stream you have limited choices and more fights.
Mistake #2: Settling
If you do not widen your social circle and get out more often, few dates will come your way. Eventually, when you do go out with someone, you may try to talk yourself into liking the person because you have narrowed your choices and opportunities. You may also buy into the myth that, "There's no one out there," so you keep dating someone you are less than crazy about. You may try to change the person to make them come closer to being someone you can be with; you may try to change your thinking admonishing yourself for being too critical; you may tell yourself things like, "no one's perfect," and "you have to work at a relationship," in order to justify staying with someone who doesn't meet your requirements. This is how people fall into the trap of settling. Big mistake.
Mistake #3: Your Weak Spots
Some people not only date the wrong person, but marry the wrong person because they have not figured out how to handle their weak spots. If you are struggling in any of the following areas, you will be prone to making poor dating and relationship decisions:
Money
When you don't make enough money to help yourself feel secure; when you don't have a reserve of funds to carry you through a crisis; and when you continually live beyond your means, no matter how much money you make, you do not have your legs under you. If you're not walking through life with a sense that you can take care of yourself, you're not strong enough to walk into a relationship and hold your own.
Emotional Neediness
Some people marry the first or second person they date because they have no where to go. They don't have a family standing behind them, good friends around them, and a place of belonging in a community. They may also not have the foundational bricks under them of career, purpose, and activities that give them energy. Desperate people are looking for someone else to make them happy and fill all their emotional longings. If you recognize yourself in any of the above, start working on strengthening one particular need you have. When you do this, you find the optimism and determination to get the other needs resolved.
No Planned Future
There are many people who simply live their lives, hanging out waiting. Waiting for the right job to come along, the perfect person to show up, or for something "different" to happen. Something different does need to happen. It's called: attitude. A shift in perspective that recognizes you are in charge of your own destiny is the something you've been waiting for. Without a plan for your life, you have put yourself in dating jeopardy.
The above mistakes are understandable human errors you can make when you don't invest your life with the focus of learning and growing up. The truth is, you can avoid these pitfalls. You can definitely be a SAVVY dater.
