Dating to DTR's

As a teenager in High School I was often quite confused at the culture of relationships. It seemed that boy liked girl, girl liked boy back, within a few days an exclusive relationship was formed and wouldn't give a single thought to dating anyone else. Admittedly, I had a few of these relationships myself. So called "dating" was known as "hanging out", rarely did these relationships go on formal dates, even today I'm finding it hard to break the habit of "hanging out" especially when you form a relationship most couples treat going on dates as a waste of time and money.

We need a fresh generation who takes dating seriously and puts off forming exclusive relationships until you've had the opportunity to go on multiple dates to figure out what you like and what you don't like. I hate saying this, but it's intelligent to dissect qualities and traits of those you formally date. No, this is not considered "judging" this allows you to understand yourself and your needs in a future companion.

Something that was brought up a lot in my last relationship was the importance of understanding each other's love languages, both recognizing what you tend to give and what you appreciate receiving. The five love languages include receiving gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service (devotion), and physical touch.

Take a good minute to pause and think about the top two love languages that you appreciate receiving, and then take another minute to think about the top two love languages that you tend to give in a relationship. Our expectations in a relationship normally comes by the fulfillment of our love language needs.

I'm not gonna lie, I recognize that I can be hard to date as I realize that I tend to exert all 5 love languages pretty equally. This can make the person that I'm in a relationship feel either inadequate or put a self persona that I'm "high maintenance" when in reality there's a little truth to that although I hate the thought of putting expectations on another person. I believe you should accept them all for who they are and love them with all you've got.

Going on multiple dates gives you the opportunity to recognize which love languages a person may distribute and if they fulfill your inner needs and vise versa.

Another extremely important part of a relationship is your physical attraction. You may be warned that it's also important to recognize if your attraction could potentially be something called Misattribution of Arousal which means that your physical attraction could potentially be the only source of connection. Be smart and evaluate the reasonings you are attracted to an individual. Sadly, i've been involved in relationships where the other person just purely liked me off of my physical attraction and disregarded my personality. In the end, the feeling of only being physically attractive to a persona almost in a way made me feel worthless as if I had nothing else to offer but my good looks.

On the other hand, if you're not physically attracted to the person you're dating that can be troublesome concerning your physical affection in the long-run. As my uncle put it, "Look, all I can say is does he curl your toes. Everything else can be great but if you don't want to jump on top of him and pump till you scream, then maybe they're not the one. That's important because if you have to force yourself to be affectionate then in time it will die and your marriage will slowly become sexless." So point is, is your relationship only attraction or not enough? There's got to be a balance to personality attraction and physical attraction.

In conclusion, I'm a firm believer with all my heart that communication is key in a relationship. How does your partner communicate through his/her love languages? How does your significant other communicate his/her attraction? I believe every girl wants to feel like the most beautiful woman her partner has ever seen. If you're not in a current relationship, please do society a favor and press the notion and importance of going on planned dates. You can tell a lot about a person who takes time and thought in considering what activities to do for a date. Not every date needs to be formal but if you want to make someone feel worth-wild I personally found the dates that made me feel on top of the world was when you could tell a lot of thought went into making me feel special and unique on our date.

Ladies, get out there and don't be afraid to take the initiative to ask a guy/girl on the date. That will give the indication of your confidence and nothing is more attractive than a women who is confident in herself.

Lastly, you can't love another until you learn to love yourself and be comfortable with who you are. If you struggle with your self worth, please remember that YOU are beautiful and worth of love. It's not about finding self love through someone else, but about creating your own self love.