From our earliest memories, we are taught about love from our parents – we are hugged and kissed and loved on from our earliest moments.
We are taught how to love, our beliefs in love, and what love looks like…. From sacrifice, selflessness, loyalty, and togetherness.
When I think of guys and the things I should pay attention to:
-The way a guy treats his mother – it is a glimpse of how he will treat the girl
-My dad taught me dependence and my mom taught me independence – my mom taught me to love myself first
-Love is a process of growth
-It’s about investing every single day in a relationship and when someone just takes…eventually everything dries up
– The way a guy treats people around him: work, restaurants, when frustrated…it provides a piece of the puzzle.
When messages like this come to my Facebook, my instagram – it’s a hard no
Like what part of this is something that makes me want to waste my time responding. You may be thinking…. How many of these messages to you actually get…. A lot….
As mentioned before, you can’t expect greatness from a process deemed to fail. The ability to swipe, the ability to ghost, the ability to absolve yourself for responsibility in dating has been made easy through every single dating app.
Once you go through the difficult parts of weeding through people to find a person that somewhat fits criteria or fits the expectation you have – and you go on a few dates- you decide to be exclusive and now at some point you become girlfriend and boyfriend…
After months, you expect words like “I love you” or words of affirmation, expression and hopefully the meaning of a true relationship.
When you get to the point in a relationship where you feel secure, you laugh, you smile, and you are wayyyy past the car he drives or the wrinkled t-shirt … or the fact that he leaves dishes in the sink …
Eventually when enough confidence in a situation arrives and you feel like – this could be the beginning of something amazing or you are in the midst of it – yet you brooch the subject of love.
Most often the guy will say it to me first .. only a time or so, have I said it first. In this particular case, I had known this person a long time- years before we dated. I watched “so I married an axe murderer” with this person on our first date – these are red flags 🚩 friends… major red flags but as a young and dumb girl – I dismissed it…
Eventually after 4 months, I get the courage to say “I love you” and his complete response “thank you”
I literally was like horrified, embarrassed and ready to hide myself from the world until further notice.
So what exactly happened …,
This guy we will call Joe – was older; I know for me that everyone says things in their own time. Actions speak louder than words and in this case – it should have really sounded a neon sign in my head – walk away.
Why do girls dismiss the signs that they should pay attention to? Not all girls do, but we are easy to ignore the signs in the hope or in the excuse of a boy who exhibits little intent, feelings or investment.
So back to Joe, he is someone I have known a long time – isn’t someone who is early to anything and in fact will probably be late to his own funeral. Behaviors and patterns over time are telling …
So after months of dating and spending time together, I burst out with the words “I love you” and legit says – matter of fact- Thank you.
Like let me repeat that again… Thank you. I guess when you say this a few things the person is thinking.
1. I am really not that into you
2. I need to say something so Thank you.
3. I am not there yet
4. I am never ever gonna get there
And there you have it… after a bit of time, I came to realize some people are not capable of lasting relationships and some just cannot commit. In this situation, this happened in my 20s; this individual still has never had a relationship longer than two years, has never gotten engaged and hasn’t married…it’s been 20+ years so cutting the tie with him a long time ago for me was the right thing…
When someone doesn’t respond how you expect; you have choices… remember that if your needs aren’t being met; don’t forget to cut the cord and move on… you don’t want to wake up and realize that you have now spent 5 years of your life in a situation that you thought would get better… if it looks like a sunk cost – it probably is.
Walking away is never easy – love yourself enough to let go.
Next Episode: Catch Flights Not Feelings
