Month: January 2020

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Our first date

How it should be:

I want to remember our first date as something special, a story that can be told to our children and grandchildren.

I want the story of our first date to make people say “aww how romantic, it must have been nice for someone to have made that kind of effort” and for me to smile back with pride knowing that it was special.

Our first date should be something that will stick in my mind, even if we don’t work out. I want our first date to be the one that I compare all the next first dates I go on too, despite the fact that I’ll secretly hope I’ll never have to go on a first date again.

I want you to put in effort to get to know me on our first date, I don’t want the plan to be something rubbish and boring, something anyone could suggest. I won’t remember going for dinner ten years from now, that would just be something that gets pushed to the back of my mind and lost in amongst all my other throw away memories.

No, on our first date you should want to try and impress me. And this doesn’t mean you have to spend a ridiculous amount of money, it means I want you to put some thought into it. Try and find something you’ll think I’ll enjoy doing.

I want our first kiss to come with a cute story that makes up part of our first date. There won’t be many first kisses that you remember, but you’ll remember ours.

After our first date I want to spend weeks telling my friends about it and when I introduce you to my family, I want them to be impressed by how much effort you went to to impress their daughter, especially since they always go on about how ridiculously high my standards are.

We won’t have met online so our first date won’t be weird and awkward, I won’t have to scan crowds of people to find your face. We’d have already met before this, so before our first date you can spend less time worrying if I’ll look like my pictures and more time thinking how to show off how romantic you can be when you’re trying to impress the girl you fancied at the first time you saw her.

I want to be able to get butterfly’s when I tell people about our first date, because it will still get me nervous and excited even just reliving the memory of it.

But most of all, our first date should make me feel excited about how the rest of our story is going to unfold…..

How it probably will be:

After a few days of conversation after meeting on an app …. we met for a drink. I won’t remember where we went or what we drank, in fact, a year from now it will be totally lost in my mind completely.

The end.

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100% Kind of Love

 

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If someone doesn’t love 100% of you, then you need to politely tell them to f**k off.

No seriously, hear me out on this one…

If you don’t in some way love every single, quirk, annoyance and weird habit of the person you’re dating, odds are that you’ve fallen in love with the idea of them rather than the real them.

It’s easy to fall in love with ideas, but falling in love with reality, now thats a hard task.

If you’re looking at the person you’re with and thinking ‘yeah you’re great, but if you didn’t do XYZ you’d be even better’ STEP AWAY!

They’ve been working hard to make that version of themselves since the day they were born and the last thing they want or need is some temporary, mismatched (to them) individual coming along to alter them, because ultimately once you up and leave them once you’ve reshaped them into the thing you think you want, not only are you leaving them heartbroken, you’re also leaving them wondering who the hell they are.

Once you’ve redesigned the end picture of the jigsaw of their life, by removing pieces and jamming in pieces that really don’t go where you’re trying to make them fit, you’ll leave them questioning a lot of things.

And the thing is, they’ve let you alter them because they love you, no demand was too big or too small, you wanted them not to hang out with certain people? Fine, those jigsaw pieces are gone. You weren’t a fan of that weird hobby they had at the weekends? Cool, they’ll drop it to fit into your lifestyle better, another jigsaw piece gone.

Originally, before you came along, the image they were working towards on their jigsaw of life, the one they had been working on since the day they were born, was a dog. Now, since you’ve been in their life, the end image is of a bucket …. they don’t even like buckets, but you do, so it’s fine, because they want to make you happy.

NO. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FINE.

If you don’t love 100% of the person you’re dating without wanting to change them, leave them alone so they can find someone who loves 100% of them, there’s over 7 billion people in the world, so odds are they can find someone better than you and you’re not as special as you think. Sorry, not really sorry.

Maybe you’re reading this thinking, yeah I’ve done that, I’ve changed my life to please someone else. Well stop it, you don’t need to, if you love 100% of you, someone else can as well, but thats the key thing here, you need to love all your weirdness before you can expect someone else to.

We all have flaws, but few of us can actually own them and stand in front of someone and go, this is me. Yeah I’m not perfect, but neither are you so lets be perfectly imperfect together and I’ll love you anyway.

I’m not asking you to love your partners snoring when they lay on their front, or the way they can’t eat toast unless it’s basically burnt, but all those silly little things make up what is them and if you love them, you’ll get used to their weird quirks.

Don’t place yourself into someones life if you’re wanting to change it, you could just be a temporary part of their life jigsaw, all the other pieces they’ve spent years finding the right places for are the foundations they’ve created with their friends and family and if you try and change those just to fit what you want, well to be honest you’re just a crappy manipulative person.

So love someone 100% or don’t bother loving them at all.

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You’ll know she’s falling for you when….

You’ll know she’s falling for you when:

Her face lights up every time you walk through the door. You’ll notice that she spends longer looking at you but she’s just taking in her favorite parts. Her smile is bigger than it was a moment ago when you saw her laughing with her friends, as though seeing you was the best part of her day. And although she won’t admit it, it probably is.

You’ll know she’s falling for you when:

The sound of your voice captivates her. Her attention immediately grasps onto your words, and she can listen to your stories and silly jokes for hours, even if she’s heard them all before she won’t tell you, just because she enjoys watching how you come alive when talk abut things you love.

You’ll know she’s falling for you when:

She looks away and laughs slightly when you compliment her. She’s not great at accepting compliments from people and each time you call her beautiful it makes her heart skip a beat, although it may not be the first time she’s heard the word used to describe her, it just means so much more coming from you now.

You’ll know she’s falling for you when:

She laughs at things you do and say like you’re are the only ones in the room. Her insecurities fade when she’s with you, she knows you won’t judge her, you’ve got her singing out loud and going after her dreams like no one else has ever had her do before.

You’ll know she’s falling for you when:

She talks to her friends about you. They’re probably sick of hearing your name repeated so often throughout each conversation and the weekly updates of how things are going, but she can’t help but be reminded of you. She’s happy and wants those closest to her to know it, it’s been a hot minute since she’s spoken about anyone to the people closest to her the way she speaks about you.

You’ll know she’s falling for you when:

You’re the only guy that consumes her texts late at night. At the end of a long day, it’s you she can’t wait to talk about it with. You’ve become the only Instagram story worth watching and the top of her tag list on Facebook from all the ridiculous stuff she keeps sending you.

You’ll know she’s falling for you when:

Staying in on a Friday night watching Netflix with you sounds more appealing than going to a bar with friends. She doesn’t want to go out and drink until she doesn’t remember her night, she just wants to be with you.

You’ll know she’s falling for you when:

She thinks about her future and begins to factor you into her plans. Where you will live and the family you will create is what she now envisions. She’s no longer thinking only of herself and where she sees her life taking her, but she’s considering the life she will build with you and she’s there motivating you to push forward with your goals and ambitions too, she’s going to make sure you’re doing everything you want to do with her right by your side.

You’ll know she’s falling for you when:

She lets you pick the restaurant you go to for your not as often as she’d like date night, even though she isn’t crazy about Pizza, but she knows you love it. She turns up the volume when your favorite song starts playing, just to hear you sing.

You’ll know she’s falling for you when:

She’s confident in accepting the fact that she’s not perfect and neither are you. The flaws you both have aren’t going to scare her off, if anything it makes her want to stick around longer and investigate them more. But you’ll just know when she’s falling for you because you won’t feel unsure anymore, once you’ve got her she’ll give you everything.

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Dating games

Why do we do this at the start, the game playing, as if someone will make a wrong move and suddenly lose.

Two people will dance around their actual feelings and emotions because the winning prize in the game is not to get hurt, but what’s love without a bit of risk?

No one wants to love safely, falling in love is a risk I get it and maybe it won’t work, but what if it does? What if you’ve found your forever person and you’re too busy playing the game of being less emotionally vulnerable, to actually let yourself fall for them the way you should.

Why do we get so scared of telling someone what we really want and what we expect to get from spending time with them? Where’s the harm in sitting down with someone and saying “hey I like you, quite a bloody lot but you know what, I’m scared, scared that you’ll change your mind just as I fall in love” telling someone how you feel doesn’t mean you’re losing the game, it means you’ve taken control and made the power move.

The power move you’ve played means it could now only end two ways, no more tip toeing around the board, the person sat with you can now either let you win or make you lose (Let’s hope it’s the first option).

But god isn’t it easier? Easier knowing you’ve done and said all you can rather than playing emotional charades.

We’re all human beings and were built to protect ourselves, but in the world of modern dating were so busy protecting our own hearts that we won’t let ourselves be vulnerable enough to even give love a risky shot.

I can’t be the only person who wants to know how someone feels about me, you hate me? Great. You’re bored of me, cool. AT LEAST I KNOW AND IM NOT CONFUSED.

Sometimes when it comes to love, you just have to be cruel to be kind. We get scared that someone will be hurt that we don’t like them, or that we’ve gone off the idea of dating them, but I can tell you one thing for certain, it’s better to tell them than to drag them along for months until you eventually decide just to ghost them.

So my advice, love with some risk, it’s better to take a chance than to never have tried. Yeah it’s probably scary, you’re giving someone the ability to hurt you and that thought is slightly terrifying, but how do you know it won’t turn out to be the best thing you’ve ever done?

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The importance of love languages

First question, do you know your love language? If you do …. does the person you’re dating know your love language? Because this is weirdly quite important to a relationship and let me explain why.

Your love language is how you like to receive affection from another person, for example if your top love language is words of affirmation, someone telling you how proud of you they are and being there to give you verbal support will be what makes you fall for them, a love language is literally the way you communicate love.

If your love language list looks the same as the person you’re dating (which is quite rare) then thats a pretty easy ride because it means you both want to give and receive love in the same way.

However, if one of you has your top love language of words of affirmation and the other has acts of service, it isn’t necessarily an issue but more of a situation where you can make sure you show your love to them in the way that you know they’ll respond to best.

It’s easy to assume that the person you’re with wants to be loved in the same way that you do, but that’s where things can go wrong.

If you like someone doing things for you and they like someone telling them they’re proud of them once they’ve done things for themselves you can see how this has the potential to go wrong.

There are only five love languages (according to psychology and behavioural science) and of course, just as any behavioural analysis, your love language will have been influenced by your childhood and how your parents displayed love not only to you but also to each other, we grow up on learnt behaviour but influences over the years of old relationships will alps guide your love language and what’s important to you.

So for those of you who are curious and want a quick overview on what the five love languages are, allow me to get into the basics.

1: Words of Affirmation

This love language expresses love with words that build up your partner. Verbal compliments don’t have to be complicated; the shortest and simplest praises can be the most effective.

“That dress looks incredible on you!”

“You always make me laugh.”

“I love your hair today.”

Words mean a lot if your partner has this love language. Compliments and an “I love you” can go a long way. On the other hand, negative or insulting comments can hurt your partner and it could take them longer to forgive than others.

2: Acts of Service

Your partner might have this love language if their motto is “Actions speak louder than words.”

This love language expresses itself by doing things that you know your partner would like. Cooking a meal, doing the laundry, and doing a little job they might not get time to do in a busy day are all acts of service. They require some thought, time, and effort.

All of these things should be done with positivity and with your partner’s ultimate happiness in mind to be considered an expression of love. Actions out of obligation or with a negative tone are something else entirely and if you’re secretly loathing the fact that you’re having to do it …. it’s probably best not to.

3: Receiving Gifts

This love language isn’t necessarily materialistic and I want to stress this partly for my own justification (this comes second on my love language list) It just means that a meaningful or thoughtful gift makes your partner feel loved and appreciated. Something as simple as picking up something during your day that made you think of them can mean a lot, and I’m literally talking anything!

This is different than Acts of Service, where you show affection by performing actions to help your partner.

4: Quality Time

This love language is all about undivided attention. No televisions, no smartphones, or any other distractions. If this is your partner’s primary language, they don’t just want to be included during this period of time, they want to be the center of your attention. They want their partners to look at them and them only.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t curl up on the couch to watch Netflix or HBO; it just means that you need to make sure to dedicate time together without all of the distractions. That will help them feel comforted in the relationship.

Every time you cancel a date, postpone time together or aren’t present during your time together, it can be extremely hurtful to your partner as it can make them feel like you care more about other things or activities than them.

5: Physical Touch

To people with this love language, nothing is more impactful than the physical touch of their partner. They aren’t necessarily into over-the-top PDA, but they do feel more connected and safe in a relationship by holding hands, kissing, hugging, etc.

If Physical Touch is your partner’s primary love language, they will feel unloved without physical contact. All of the words and gifts in the world won’t change that. They want to feel you close by, not just emotionally, but physically.

So there you have it, a quick overview into the love languages and I’m sure you’ve read one that makes you think … “that definitely sounds like me“, but if you fancy putting both you and your partner to the test, you can both find out you love languages here.

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It’s ok to be scared

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It’s ok you know, to be scared of opening up to the possibility of someone being able to hurt you.

It’s ok to try and protect yourself in any way you know how, and actually it’s ok to sometimes take a step back and evaluate if you’re ready to give something your full attention or not. If the answer is no, then take comfort in knowing it’s ok to step away. But if the answer is yes, then you just need to get ready to ride the wave of uncertainty for a while.

Everyone will tell you how exciting those initial months are of dating someone, how the first parts are the most interesting, you’re finding out likes and dislikes, what’s ok and what’s not, things you have in common and things you’ll differ on opinion on and with that also comes the 10,000 opportunities the other person has to leave without even feeling slightly disheartened by it all, because in those early stages theres also no need to explain why you’ve done a disappearing act and theres no need to apologise for not giving someone a reason behind why you’ve decided they’re not for you anymore.

It’s ok to be scared of the moment that just as you’ve decided to give more, they’ve decided that they’re going to walk away.

It’s ok to feel nervous and worry that they’ll decide they don’t want you even though you want them.

It’s ok to get scared that they’ll be exactly like all the others and wonder off just as you want them to pull closer.

It’s ok to sometimes worry that you aren’t good enough, or that you aren’t brining enough to the table, we’re all human and sometimes we can over think things, but we shouldn’t be sacred of someone seeing us in a way that isn’t accurate, because if they do, then they aren’t the right person for you anyway.

But remember, in your initial exciting phase of dating, you have to remember you aren’t going to slot straight into priority number one on someones list, they aren’t going to know that you need a phone call at the end of each day to feel secure in your relationship or a few texts during the day from them saying they’re thinking of you and they miss you to make you feel like they’re still interested in you (they won’t know that you’re secretly needy AF), so instead of spending time fretting about it all, just embrace it and know that they’re getting to know you just as much as you’re getting to know them, it’s fine not to get everything right straight away!

One thing you shouldn’t be sacred of though, is ending up with the wrong person, because you’ll get a lot of people walk in (and sometimes out) of your life for reasons you can’t understand sometimes. So although you can be scared of getting your heart broken, don’t spend too long worrying about it. The one you’re supposed to end up with would never break your heart anyway.