Early on in a relationship, before labels have been assigned
and you are “official” or “exclusive” (is there a difference?), women tend to
focus a lot on being “a twisty bobcat kind of pretzel” (Thank you Sandra
Bullock in “Two Weeks Notice” for that delightful phrasing. I’m not addressing what
she was referring to, but I like the phrasing). By that I mean you contort
yourself into what you think the other person wants. They’re laid back, so you
tone down on your type A personality. They’re super organized, so you spend
hours cleaning your space to impress them. You’re not an emoticon kind of
person, yet you slowly start incorporating more of that into your texts. You
get the idea. Your focus has shifted from what you want/need, to their
wants/needs. Granted you can’t be self-centered in a relationship, but I’m
talking about when you lose sight of the fact that you are the other half in
that relationship.
This mentality effectively relinquishes your control. I’m not
saying that any relationship should be a power struggle for control (quite the
contrary); however, you do not want to give yourself away and give the power of
deciding where the relationship is going to the other person. It’s a similar
point that I made in my post “What’s the Dealio?” when addressing having the
“talk.” You initiating that conversation is you taking charge of your future,
not leaving it in the hands of someone else. In a similar vein, in this
situation you maintaining a clear understanding of what you want/need and
ensuring that you get that is you effectively taking care of yourself.
My suggestion (and one I continually remind myself of): be aware of your actions. Once in high school I was hanging out with my friend, the guy she was seeing and his really cute friend who I was interested in. We were playing Foosball and I was acting incredibly into it/competitive. Generally speaking, at that time in my life I wasn't uber competitive or into Foosball. I was trying to impress this boy, and so exaggerated my interest. While at some level I knew what I was doing, I didn't realize the implications - it seemed harmless enough. My friend, however, did. She called me on it immediately on the drive back home.
This is a very basic example; however, it starts from there. You do little white lies to make sure they remain interested and eventually progress to bigger things. Therefore, if you can recognize when you are changing your mannerisms, there is a better chance that you will stop yourself before getting too carried away. Self awareness everyone!! That is the key!
Now completely unrelated, but amusing nonetheless, I have
decided to include some random articles about romance, women, men, etc.
Dating multiple men:
Women in movies:
Men and lies:
What his Valentine's Day gift means (personally, I think this is overanalyzing, but I included it anyway!):
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