How to find true love

Stephanie and I are rockstars at giving dating advice. Sadly, most people don't really want to hear our advice so we mostly just talk about things we would tell people if anyone listened to us (that makes it sound like we gossip about specific people, which is not the case. What I mean is that we discuss the philosophy of dating and what works and doesn't work, etc). I wish she were here to help me write this post that will tell all of you everything you need to know in order to find true love. Since she isn't here, it will probably just tell you most of what you need to know.

Since the day of love aka Valentine's Day has now passed, I was thinking about all the dating advice I have heard over the years. When it comes right down to it, no one is really qualified to give such advice to others. There are a few reasons for this:

(1) Assuming you are dating with the goal of getting married, who do you listen to? Married people obviously were "successful", but especially if they got married rather quickly (I know a few people that married the first person they seriously dated), how much experience do they really have to draw on? Maybe they just got lucky. Unfortunately, married people generally LOVE to tell us single people what we should be doing in order to join the ranks of happily married couples like themselves.

(2) Unmarried people that have had many relationships clearly have a lot of experience, however if marriage is their goal, they are obviously doing something "wrong", so why would you want to listen to them if you're looking to get hitched?

(3) As Hitch would say, "There are no rules." I have heard SO MANY ridiculous dating "rules." Once in a while one of them sound like very sage advice, and then I see a person that completely disregards that rule and ends up happily engaged. Listen to me and listen good: There. Are. No. Rules. Well, possibly a few very very basic ones like decent personal hygiene and not killing your dates, but I won't get into those.

Back to the "rules". I mostly hear the advice given to girls on how to deal with guys, since I am a girl. I also have a sneaking suspicion that guys don't get quite as much advice on how to deal with girls. I could be wrong. I have been told things like "You can only text him once for every 3 times he texts you" (presumably so you won't come across as desperate or something), "If he calls and want to do something at the last minute, say you're not available and try to make plans for an evening a few days in the future" (presumably so you don't turn into a booty call, and so you force him to be more committal), and "Don't walk across the room to talk to a guy, make him come to you" (presumably so... you can be the prey instead of the predator? I don't know...). There are so many more, but I won't bore you too much. I think you get the idea, and I'm sure you have heard plenty as well.

I have a few issues with all of these rules. First, it feels so much like rules of combat. Don't let him know how much you like him because if he thinks you like him more than he likes you, he will have the upper hand. Make him work for it. Pretend you are more busy than you really are. Act disinterested when you're really interested. You are being pitted against your possible future romantic partner in some crazy game where no one quite understands the rules or the goal. What should be a relationship of love, trust, friendship, and affection, becomes this competition where you are always trying to second-guess and outplay the other person. I fail to see how anything good can come of this. Do you really want to build a relationship on a foundation of playing games with each other? (If you do then fine, have at it, but I don't.) Unfortunately, there are times I find myself playing the games as well, out of sheer habit or societal pressure or perhaps something else.

Second, I don't like feeling insecure. More than that, I don't like making other people feel insecure. And by that I mean insecure about how I really feel about them. Life is hard enough. Dating is hard enough. Relationships are hard to figure out, hard to get into, hard to get out of. We're all in this together--can't we realize that everyone else struggles just as much as we do, and help each other out. Do we really need to add one more thing on top of work, school (for some people), family, paying bills, getting enough sleep, exercise, and eating right, and everything else that is a potential cause of stress in our lives? I, for one, would like to pretend I'm on the same team as whatever guy I'm seeing.

One of my friends once said "Yeah, but feelings get involved, and then things get messy." He has a point. It's hard when you love someone that only likes you as a friend. It's hard when someone loves you and you don't/can't reciprocate. I've been on both sides of the equation, so at least I have the benefit of knowing to some degree what it's like to be in the other person's shoes. I would hope that makes me a little bit more empathetic, and/or a little less annoying, as the case may be.

The problem with dating, especially if your ultimate goal is marriage, is that in a way it's the most selfish endeavor one engages in. You can't be "nice" to someone and marry them even if you don't really like them all that much, just to make them happy. You have to think about you. If you are considering spending the rest of your life with a person, it has to be THE person. Unfortunately, this means you will likely have to break hearts (unless you are my brother and your first girlfriend happens to be the perfect girl for you and you marry her and live happily ever after). You will likely get your heart broken. There's no way around it. (Just try not to be a jerk about it, okay? No matter what side of the heart-breaking equation you are on.)

As the famous Sunscreen song reminds us, "Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours." I have a harder time with the second part, I think. I like to see the good in people. Especially people that I care about. I give people the benefit of a doubt--when their behavior could be interpreted in different ways, I tend to pick the interpretation that puts them in the most positive light. e.g. He said he would call me at 6pm and he didn't. His phone probably died. ... We planned to go out on Friday night and he never showed up. Maybe he was taking his sister to the hospital. [[Interestingly enough, I once stood up a guy I was supposed to watch a movie with because I had to take my roommate to the hospital. It happens, people!]] Unfortunately this can sometimes escalate to Hmmm...it looked like I saw him kissing another girl. Maybe she got something in her eye and he was trying to help get it out...? ._. There is a fine line, I suppose.

I don't like to think that someone would deliberately want to hurt me or use me. For most people, this is true. For a few, not so much. While I realize this positive, happy, perhaps slightly naive, puppies-and-rainbows approach to life and dating might not be the most effective, and might set me up for being hurt sometimes, it's the approach I want. I want people to be honest and sincere. I want them to dislike playing games as much as I do. I want them to be happy when they feel happy, confused when they feel confused, insecure when they feel insecure, and not try to hide everything under layers upon onion layers of fronts and pretenses and acting. So, maybe my approach doesn't always work. But when it works, it works. :) And it's so much nicer when I'm not having to stress out all the time about whether or not I sent more than my weekly allotment of text messages, or if I acted too interested, or if I was a bit too sincere about something. So much less drama.

The only piece of dating advice I have heard that I felt like was remotely useful was from a self-proclaimed "dating coach" (who I'm sure made tons of money off of other people's loneliness and discontent with life), that shared the phrase:

I do not give the best of me to those who don't invest in me.

Cute, it rhymes. It's more about self-respect than anything else. It's the one piece of advice I have actually tried to live by. If it is obvious that a person is not investing anything in the relationship, even if you like them, you can't invest back. He/she does not deserve the "best of" you, if he/she is not willing to put any work into it. It's not playing games. It's about demanding the respect you deserve. This applies to everyone.

So, in summary:

There are no rules.

No one can tell you how to achieve success in dating.

People play too many games.

I don't like it.

Sometimes I do it anyway out of habit.

I still don't like it.

Have some self-respect and you won't let people use you (as much).

I'm sorry that I didn't actually tell you how to find true love. The title of this post was deceptive. Or maybe it wasn't. Because when it comes right down to it, nobody can tell you how. There is no hard-and-fast way, or secret set of rules that works for everyone. (If someone tries to tell you otherwise, they are lying to you, and most likely want your money.) But the good news is, you will probably manage to find it anyway, by just stumbling through life like the rest of us. So in a way, I did tell you. Just be yourself, don't be a jerk, and keep your priorities in order. You won't find love. Love will find you. And if not, there is always cats. Lots and lots of cats...

My mom emailed me this a while back... hmm...