Cristina: “Be my person, Owen. Be my freakin’ person.” Owen: “Be my person.”- Grey’s Anatomy.
There are some key things that I believe about relationships. They can either be awesome or they can suck. Unfortunately, due to some awkward twist of fate,I’ve had more experience with the latter.“I didn’t fall for them, they freaking tripped me!” I would exclaim to my friends after each breakup. However, I have learned all too painfully, we are the only common denominator to our relationships, so if we have a pattern, we made it, and if we want things to be different, we must be and think differently.
Describe my ideal guy you might ask? Unfortunately not all of us can be as fortunate as Mr Khaya Dlanga who recently tweeted that his ideal woman is the one who he is with- yes heart swoon and re-tweet!
We get the relationship that we think we deserve or that we ‘expect’. You choose partners that reflect the things that you believe about yourself, love, and relationships. Ask yourself what your core 3-5 beliefs are about love, relationships, and yourself and examine how these are feeding into the relationships you’re having.
“I expect him to love me, I expect him to not ignore me, I expect him to not stand me up. I expect him to still be my friend even when sometimes it’s too hard to be my boyfriend, I expect him to tell me when something is wrong and lastly I expect him to be my person.” Said by me in another desperate bid to gain my friend’s understanding. What do you truly expect to happen when you’re in a relationship? I say truly for a reason – there’s the stuff we say we expect and then there’s the real stuff we expect, often the things we’re afraid of.
Have boundaries, values, awareness of red flags, and recognise when it is time to fold on a bad relationship investment instead of continuing to throw crazy emotional money at the relationship casino table.
If you have an idea about the type of guy that is ‘right’ for you and you’re dating him and getting dubious or even crazy or dangerous results, it is time to get real about compatibility, type, and common interests and have an honest conversation with yourself.
Dating is about getting to know someone with a view to discovering if there is enough to push ahead into a relationship. You start out (ideally) with a reasonable level of trust and as you get to know them, you either discover more reasons to trust and proceed, or less reasons to trust and withdraw. Slow down so that you can see clearly and have both of your feet in reality. Open your eyes and listen so that you get to know the person and your relationship and do not deny who or what you are involved in because you are 100% responsible for creating the illusionary relationship results.
The only person you can change around here is you. Make a change within yourself, change the relationships you are interested in, and then change the relationship you’re in. Once you’ve found your ‘person’ you’ll know.
“No I won’t settle, settle for less and I don’t want us if we ain’t the best”- Liquideep
