You can't live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself. Learn from the mistakes of others to become wiser and more successful. ~ Love Guru
Introduction
To find love and companionship, many of us turn to online dating and matrimonial apps. Some of us trust offline matchmaking services. Online or offline, you should know problems that can sabotage your chances of finding an ideal life partner. If you don't know what mistakes you are likely to make and how you could destroy your chances of finding an ideal life partner, most likely you will make those mistakes and run into problems.
A life partner make or break one's life, life partner can make you happy, enhance your wellbeing or he/she can ruin lives too!
There are 6 specific problems that prevent people from finding an ideal life partner. There may be other problems - these 6 are important ones. If someone is not happy in his or her relationship, most likely the reason will be one or more of these 6.
Let us dive in and see what these problems are!
1.No self-awareness
What is self-awareness?
Self-awareness is knowing your own feelings, needs, thoughts and actions and how you are seen by others.
How do you know if you have self-awareness?
Studies show that most people don’t have self-awareness. In one such study, when the participants were asked what they want their future partner to be, they came up with something ill-considered and stupid.
“He has to be at least 6 feet” –Why 6? Do you know how many centimeters that is? because it is a round number?
“She has to be slim, fair, intelligent and smart like ________(your favorite actress) – are you slim and fit yourself man?
Side note: We Indians are especially bad at saying, “I don’t know”. When someone asks what you need from your future life partner, most people feel the urge to answer the question even if we don’t have an answer to it.
Saying “I don’t know” is a great starting point to learning what you don’t know, that will lead you towards eventual self-awareness. But we rarely say, "I don't know" for the fear of being judged.
Check if you are self-aware:
Do you know what makes you angry and you try to avoid those situations? If your answer is 'yes', you may have self-awareness.
Do you know what kind of situations makes to eat more than you need and avoid those situations? you have self-awareness. If your answer is 'yes', you may have self-awareness.
Are you are the type who gets carried away in some buffet lunch and eat make 4 scoops of ice-cream and a dozen ‘gulab jamuns’ disappear and the feel guilty later? You probably don’t have self-awareness.
How not having self-awareness ruin your prospects of finding an ideal partner?
If you don’t have self-awareness, you cannot tell what you really need. You will take impulsive decisions or act based on a hunch and regret later. You will keep struggling your whole life not knowing where you are going, what you need and how to get it. You will repeat mistakes and keep struggling your whole life.
Self-awareness is a powerful tool without which you can’t have a happy and fulfilling life – not just relationships.
How to develop self-awareness?
Here’s a post where I discussed about developing self-awareness, knowing what you want by writing notes. Though the title of the blog post is “how to write a bio that’s authentic”, the exercise will help you realize who you are and what you need from your future life partner. With that exercise, there’s a chance you will realize what you really need.
There’s another problem…people who lack self-awareness want what everybody else wants (social norms) or what their family expects out of their relationship or both, that leads them into this 2nd problem.
2.Prioritizing social norms, external factors
Social norms like ‘6 feet tall’, ‘fair complexion’, ‘good earnings’, ‘well-to-do’…
There’s nothing wrong in expecting your partner to look good, to be doing well but expecting him to be rich as f*** is greed. Expecting her to be fair complexioned like your favorite actress is incredibly shallow and so is the ‘6 feet minimum’ condition – totally stupid and shallow.
These shallow preferences don’t indicate you are an idiot, they only indicate that you lack self-awareness and that you take these shallow social norms seriously, you shouldn’t. You think if everyone is doing it, it must be the right thing to do. If you are like that, you have given away the control to the social norms. You have given up on yourself.
By following social norms, you are ignoring your own needs. A relationship is supposed to satisfy your physical and emotional needs and your overall wellbeing and it is an important decision. But by taking this important decision based on stupid social norms, you will be shooting yourself in your foot. I understand that we can't completely go against the social norms. But don't give in completely to these norms. Be a little selfish, think a little, do your own thing without going too far away from the beaten path if that's what you like.
Talking about shooting your own foot, you can also shoot yourself in your foot by…
3.Prioritizing family expectations
Don't get me wrong, I am not asking you to go against your family. In our society (in India) the family plays a direct role, has major impact on our lives, at least for most of us. I am talking about the ability of our family members to influence (or take or hijack) our decisions. Influencing is putting it mildly – most people expressly relegate the decision to one’s mama, papa, sister, brother, sister-in-law or all of them.
For the same reason why prioritizing social norms is bad, letting your family members decide everything is bad too, wait, worse!
Why is it worse? Your family members are humans too, just like you. They are likely to make the same types of mistakes as you do. A family member who made the decision for you is likely to be invested in that decision, trapping you in their bad decisions. You can’t question their decision or undo their mistakes without hurting their ego – it may be too late for that anyway.
Your family members may have your best interests at heart but they are as likely to make bad decisions (not intentional) as anybody else. And what do they do to protect yourself? They…
5. Relying on luck/fate/astrology
Your family member who is deciding for you (or you yourself) is likely to do this as a means of supporting their decision out of the fear of making bad decisions.
If you believe in these, go ahead consult your astrologer but don't take a decision purely based on astrology or tarot cards or whatever. Out of random chance, these decisions may turn out to be right decisions and equally randomly they turn out to be crappy decisions.
“Am I going to let fate, luck or astrology decide what’s good for me?” that’s the question you need to ask yourself. Would you rather not take control, empower yourself with right information and make important life decisions?
If you are empowered in taking this life decision, you are very likely to be empowered in all other aspects of your life as well and consequently you are very likely to have fewer regrets and living a happier life.
Marriages are not made in heaven, not all of them. Bad marriages are not predetermined in your fate, kismet or kundali. Bad or broken relationships are outcomes of bad decisions.
Is there a way of not ignoring these beliefs entirely?
Yes, there is. We are not questioning all beliefs; we are talking about respecting them yet doing your own checks and due diligence.
When you feel empowered and responsible for important decisions in your life you won’t be…
5.Deciding without due diligence or ignoring ‘Red Flags’
Most people take more time analyzing, comparing and deciding which TV or car to buy than they do when deciding about their relationships.
If you bought a TV or a car or any other gadget without thinking much about it, just because the sales person said it is good or your neighbor bought it too…good luck to you and good luck to you if that’s your approach to finding a life partner as well!
People rely on spoken words, their own observations, signals, vibes, perceptions, pre conceived notions, everything except facts before making decisions.
Facts
What are facts? Verified information.
Not just information, not verifiable information, verified information.
If it is verifiable but not verified, it is not a fact.
Only facts can guide you in the right direction, everything else will lead you astray.
Deciding to dive into a relationship without cross checking the information about your future partner is the most frequent reason for broken relationships.
Lies
Most people don’t lie about everything, only things they feel insecure about. Most people lie when they are seeking a relationship. You are better off assuming the worst and be proven wrong, rather than trusting everyone and being cheated, don’t you think?
People lie not because they are bad people, people lie because they are eager to get into a relationship and they are eager to look good in the eyes of others. People lie about those aspects of their life which they are not proud of - things they feel insecure about.
Different people lie about different things because everyone has unique insecurities. Starting from simple facts that can be easily verified like their height, age to those things which are not as obvious – their income, wealth, background, education, character.
That’s why cross-checking information shared with you is important. If you don’t verify and it turns out that your partner lied about something really important for you, something you really care about – you will be seriously disappointed and the relationship won’t succeed.
No Lies
These are somethings which people don’t lie about – traits like lack of initiative, greed, jealousy, being unreliable etc. While no one is perfect (including yourself and I), these traits when they are out of control can become issues. What’s acceptable and what’s not is based on what you can put up with and what you can’t. Seek guidance (not decision) from others, seek second, third opinion but decide for yourself.
Red Flags
You are not looking for a perfect partner, I get it. But there are somethings which are a no go for you, those are YOUR red flags.
Red flags include lies, manipulations, deception, misinformation, partial truths, misleading, pretending, hiding etc. Some are visible are visible and obvious and others are not, some are harmful, others are not. A detailed guide about relationship red flags is coming soon. Watch out this space!
A word of caution! Trust, but verify!!
Being cautious is one thing, being careless, rude and disbelieving and showing that you don’t want to trust till you verify is another. If you are not careful, you will come out as suspicious person and that will push away otherwise good people. You definitely don’t want that. Be very discreet and cautious about anything you say about trust or verifying the facts, take your time, don’t rush it and also don’t commit anything before you verify.
Don’t start asking questions and behaving as if you are starting a murder investigation or a fault finding mission. Please don’t. Fact checking must be done later in the relationship before making any commitments not during the initial interactions or you will scare away well-intentioned people – you don’t want that.
During the initial few interactions, you listen, learn, observe, notice and collect information that can be verified later. Don’t start jasoosi as soon as someone sends you a like.
Okay! You got a thorough background check done? Do you think you are all done? Not yet, because your own fears, desires and insecurities can be your own worst enemy.
6.Fear or Desire Driven Decisions
In Other Words, thinking with your ****
An itch, an urge to get laid, is not a good reason to get married or start dating. Learn to scratch, there’s no need get married to the next available sapiens every time you feel an itch. That’d be the fastest way to your doom!
Finding an ideal life partner has to be a more thoughtful exercise – a deliberate activity, like deciding to buy a house. You check out different options, compare, contrast, cross check, consult others and take your time to decide.
A friend of you just got married and you fear being alone for the rest of your life…no, don’t do that!
Save yourself from your fears and insecurities, don’t be your own worst enemy. Even if you find a great partner who can do good to your relationship, you can ruin it by being impulsive, mindless and stupid.
By developing self-awareness, you can protect yourself from these maladies. Slow down, learn to breathe, learn meditation, yoga, anything that makes you calm and thoughtful.
Dating offers you a chance to test your own preferences
Yes, if you do it right. Get on dating apps and you will learn a lot about yourself and others. You can test your theories about what you want, learn from mistakes and course correct. If you treat it like a journey to find a right partner you have good chances of succeeding.
Dating is not immoral unless you make it to be!
Dating is a way of finding what is right for you, it is not a means for getting laid. It gives you an opportunity to evaluate potential matches, understand your own needs and preferences before you take the leap.
To an extent, modern matrimonial platforms (apps) give you this opportunity as well.
Whether it is dating app or matchmaking app, you are very likely to be happy if you watch out for these potential issues, keep an open mind and keep learning and course correcting.
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