Foundations Episode 8

Recap:
No two people are at the same level of maturity upon first meeting, and no two people want the same things from a relationship. You have to build into those things.

Hurt People, Hurt People

This article has been rewritten in several podcasts (with summaries) on my other blog:



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Hope for those waiting for someone

If you ever find yourself in the situation where you feel as though you have pursued all of the avenues in your life and they just aren’t cutting it for you, then the following advice can help you. People are always changing. So are you. The level of maturity that these people are on when you first meet them might be too low or too high for you. That’s okay, over time, people grow up--yourself included. The things that you think you are looking for in a spouse right now might change later down the road as you learn a few more things about yourself and other people.
Perhaps you have been on the other end of this situation though? You see yourself being passed up by potential dates because of what in your mind must be that “you aren’t good enough”. Don’t worry! If you’re reading my blog then you’re probably doing just fine. If you are really attached to a specific person, but they aren’t attached to you right now, that doesn’t mean that as time passes and both of you change, that he or she won’t be attracted to you in the future.

But, I want to point something out, so that you don’t get confused by what I say: It isn’t good to wait around for someone to suddenly feel an attraction to you. As you wait, you pass up other people (who are just like you, waiting for YOU to feel attracted to THEM) and it would be a shame if they suddenly gave up hope because you never took an interest in them because you too were waiting on someone else.

Instead of waiting around for something to happen with that one special person, you should carry on with your life. Find OTHER people who you can date or make friends with, at the same time you can be friends with the person you really want to be with and continue building up a trusting relationship with them. Time has a way of working things out on its own after all.






Another important point that I want you to remember is that you are having a relationship whether you are dating or just friends—in other words, friendship is a special kind of relationship in itself. Relationships change just as people do; if you haven’t already, you will eventually realize that the boundaries of what defines a courting relationship and a friendship or even a casual date all blend together. They are the same, just at different levels of commitment.

Finally, don’t burn bridges. If for whatever reason your relationship heads south, or when you realize that the other person isn’t interested in you romantically, fight against your first reaction to get upset. When you get upset and you become antagonistic with them, you risk ruining ANY chance with that person. Like I mentioned in the beginning: people change. That means that there is always a slight hope that things can work out in the way that you want as long as you don't burn bridges with them. But you also have to realize that people have their own agency. They can choose to fall in love with you, or they can choose not to. If they never choose to love you, then as long as you didn’t burn bridges with them, you can always say that you put your best foot forward.

As you gain experience in the dating world, things tend to get better and better, but it also has a funny effect on a person to where they realize that a relationship can work with anyone. Any two people, well experienced with dating skills, can fall in love and maintain a superb relationship. In fact, most of those I have come across who have developed good relationship skills are less attracted to those who haven’t developed and refined their own relationship skills. In other words, people who want a good relationship, and know how to get it, realize that they don’t want to spend their time in poor relationships that they don’t have to. YOU can reach that same level. All it takes is to develop your relationship skills (--and you sure came to the right website to do that!)

Even if the person you are waiting around for doesn't turn out, you can gain the skills necessary to find (and woo) someone who really will give you the relationship that you ultimately want. Practice makes perfect; just be patient, things will work out.

Why you can't change anyone

I realize that a lot of my articles have been about changing yourself in order to fit the needs and wants of your future spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, or friends. But today I need to correct what might be a misconception about this topic: The only person that YOU can change, is you.
We all have equal potential to change our lives for the better, some are further in their progression than others, but each of us has the ability to become as benevolent and rich physically, mentally and emotionally as we desire. Why do people fail to obtain the things that they talk so much about wanting? Because, even with the ability to do anything and become anything, there are many who do not tap into their full potential.

Change requires work; it is a very challenging, and progression isn’t easy. The reason why so many people fail to achieve success in this life is because they:

1. Do not work hard enough-- Real growth and progression comes not from the end result, but the process of making a transformation. Eggs do not instantly become chicks, children are not instantly made into adults, and dreams do not fall right into our laps. There are a lot of things that happen “behind the scenes” before the end is reached. Success requires a gradual process, and work is a necessary component in achieving the things we desire most. No one can put in the work for you; no one cares enough about your success to do it for you, you need to do all of the hard work by yourself.
   Once you decide that you want to have an amazing relationship for the rest of your life, you still need to put in the work and make an effort to obtain that relationship.
2. Do not make the right sacrifices-- Sacrifices are only sacrifices when something is put on the line or given up. Ideally, sacrifices are designed so that when you give up one thing, you receive a better thing in its place, but not all sacrifices work out that way. When you sacrifice the wrong thing, you don’t get any closer to the thing you ultimately want to have. True too, when you give up something that isn’t really of worth to you, then you really aren’t sacrificing and won’t make any progress either.
   Selfishness is a natural part of every one of us, and it is often this character trait that we must sacrifice in order to reach our goals and dreams--particularly when those dreams involve relationships with other people.
3. Aren’t working towards anything--To reach success, you need to have a well-defined idea of what success is. What is it that you are working towards? What do you want to accomplish? If you can’t answer that question, then you are left at a standstill--you are left like the sailor who has no heading and with no heading, it doesn’t matter which direction you go, you still won’t get any closer.
   With relationships, you need to understand what it is that you want out of a relationship. What needs do you have to fulfill? At what point in the relationship will you feel you have reached success?

Just like no one can do the work for you, you can’t do the work for someone else. Any sacrifices that others make are sacrifices for themselves and not for you. And even if other people share your goals and dreams, until YOU reach those goals and dreams, you haven’t obtained success--they may have, but you haven’t.

Now, let me throw in some additional insights that were hidden in what I just told you:

1. relationships are work. They are never-ending, because the moment that you stop working on improving your relationship is the moment it becomes stagnant and falls apart.
2. It requires work on both sides. If one of you doesn’t put forth an effort then it will fall apart, no matter how hard the other person works to save it.
3. You can’t expect people to make sacrifices for you. –This goes two ways: you can’t expect them to sacrifice in your behalf, because as I already explained, that doesn’t work. You also can’t expect them to make sacrifices to have you without you making equal sacrifices for them. Purely one-sided relationships don’t work…there is no such thing as 100/0 relationship.—that isn’t a relationship, it’s one person pushing things on the other person.
4. Your goals are YOUR goals. When you get into a relationship with someone, there might come a point where you have gone above and beyond their expectations—you fulfilled their goals and dreams. But at that moment, they may not have quite fulfilled your goals and dreams yet. You can look at this in two ways: A) It would be easier for you to find someone who has equal expectations and goals and dreams, because then you will both feel you have achieved success and fulfillment at the same time. Or B) you could look at that and say: just because he or she is satisfied doesn’t mean that I am, and -I- need to put in more work and sacrifice more in order to get there. If #2 is the case, then you need to be upfront with the other person the moment that you realize that they are “over-satisfied”. You need to talk to them about where you would still like the relationship to go and see what trade-offs can be made in order to reach that point. This sounds contrary to what I mentioned previously, but they may need to sacrifice a little more in order to continue having you—to balance your relationship out.
   
5. Relationships must clearly take time to build. Anything that requires work, sacrifice, and goals/dreams/or plans will take a lot of time in order to come true. “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” it took a lot of work, sacrifice, and planning to become what it ultimately became, and when that pattern of work, planning and sacrifice became corrupted, it fell.

You don't have to play "The Game"

I have received a few questions about this recently, so I feel like for this fifth Sunday post, I will address this topic. Typically people will ask me something about how they are performing when playing “the game” and why they aren’t “winning” the game, why they don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend when they are so skilled at having fun times with other people. Let me first make a statement that I think you will grow to appreciate: “Playing games is for kids” and when you’re an adult, you don’t play the same games as you did when you were younger.

What most people refer to when they talk about “the game” is that they are approaching dating as if it were a win-lose match. They flirt with a guy or girl to the point where that guy or girl takes an interest in them(score!), then they try to “win” them over enough that they can begin to date them(score!!), and then if they are lucky and make a few wins here and there they can get married(double score! YES!). Some of those people, who approach dating this way, are also afraid to talk to the person they like about serious things. [They may fully like someone, but not want to tell them that they like them, or they may not want to bring up the topic of marriage or exclusive dating because they are scared that doing so will prevent them from “winning”.] Most people who try to apply the “game” concept realize that it brings more hurt and loneliness than they care for; the rest live their life in a fantasy world where they are magically pampered and don’t realize that they are hurting other people by their actions and ultimately they end up miserable when the whole game falls apart and no one wants to play games with them.

If you have been approaching dating as if it were a game, then the rest of this article is specifically for you. If not, then read it anyway because you might not know that how you are approaching dating is what has been hindering your dating success.

“Dating” is the process of finding someone to marry. As I mentioned in a previous article, there are various steps that lead up to marriage, including mingling, dating, courting and marriage. Mingling is what you do to find people to date: you go to parties, events, the store, the mall, etc. and you find people who you might be interested in (typically this is just based off of physical attraction). Then you get their contact information and you ask them on a date. You go on a few dates with them and you realize that he or she is the person you would like to marry, so you start to court them, or in other words you date them, and only them. You go on more dates with them and things seem to work out, so you ask him or her to marry you (typically this is done by the guy, but there are occasions where the woman asks the man, and I think we might start seeing more of this as society heads in new directions). This is the basic process of getting married; you have to do all of these things or you will not advance to mariage.

With that in mind, you also need to realize how to advance through the four phases. In other words, you need to learn how to go from meeting someone to dating them, and from dating them to courting them, and from courting them to marrying them. This is not a game; if you try to build a relationship this way (as a game), you will be building a make-believe, pretend, relationship that is dependent on playing games to survive. When you take the games away, you don’t have anything real to stand on, and so the relationship will crumble.
When you are creating a real relationship, you are building the proper foundation so that when things in your relationship become questionable (i.e. you wonder if you can trust the other person, whether he or she really likes you, or if you can really see yourself marrying him or her), then you will have things to fall back on. If you are serious about finding and marrying the perfect person for you, then you will approach dating seriously.

So what’s the difference and how do you know what that difference is?
Most of the problems that people have in relationships are fixable and preventable: this is because most of the problems that people have with their relationships are really problems they have with themselves. You cannot expect other people compromise with you all of the time; and you definitely can't expect people to change just for you. You too will have to compromise in order to have a happy and healthy relationship. With that in mind, I have created a small list of important things that YOU can do to have real relationships. The focus should be on changing you and not having them change and compromise for you.

1. Real Relationships are Honest –You can’t lie about yourself, your talents, or your situation or when he or she starts to question you, these things will be brought up, and he or she won’t trust you, will re-decide and will probably determine that they don’t like you, and he or she may not want to marry you. If you’re poor, don’t say you’re rich. If you’re not good at something, don’t say that you are. If you don’t like pets, and he or she does, don’t tell him or her that you like them, and don’t do the same with kids. How could you ever expect to plan your lives together if he or she doesn’t know what your life is really like?
   Also, when you can be honest, you can tell the other person that you like them and have no worries about them trusting you. A pattern of honesty is worth more than an action of statement—you can show someone you love them better by being honest with them and telling them that you love them, rather than buying them flowers or gifts and being dishonest on occasion.
2. Real Relationships Balance Flirting. –When you flirt too much and don’t have ‘serious time’, your relationship can’t progress. You need to have serious moments now and again where you have the time to talk about making life plans together. Relationships are not fun and “games”. They have exciting times, sure, but they are primarily serious. Don’t think of relationships as hobbies or things you do for entertainment, going out to meet people, although fun, still needs to lead to a serious relationship. This is precisely why I have always discouraged short-term relationships: they do not teach you how to have lasting, serious relationships.
3. Real Relationships are Prepared to Advance -- When you get married, what are your plans? When you begin to court someone, where would you like it to lead? When you date someone, do you plan on eventually having a long-term relationship with them, or a short-term relationship? When you go out looking for guys or girls to hit on, are you doing it for fun, or are you doing it because you want a relationship? Before you take any interest in dating someone, you should be comfortable with what comes next: a relationship. And when you enter into a relationship, you should be comfortable with what comes next: an exclusive relationship/courting. These things lead up to each other, and if you have no intentions of advancing into the next area or you are incapable of doing so (maybe you aren’t ready for commitment, or you have other things you need to work out), then you will not be able to progress, and you shouldn’t attempt to until you are ready. That is called "leading people on".
   If you are in a relationship, it will reach a standstill, if you are dating people, none of them will develop into courtships, or if you hit on someone it won’t ever reach the next stage: a date. Start by preparing yourself and everything else will fall into place.
4. Real relationships are not political-—I could not think of a better way to put this. There aren’t any politics behind real relationships. You don’t need to make the other person feel like you are their best chance in life because you are in high demand and all the boys or girls want you (reread #2). You don’t need to prove anything to him or her that you are the perfect match (reread #1). You don’t need to use spite against them when they decide not to advance with you; if your relationship ends, or you stop dating, or you don’t even get a first date, who cares? Trying to get back at them will not help you, in fact it will only hurt them and…“what goes around comes around”—You will get hurt more than anything you could do to them. You do not need to one-up them, or score on them to get more points than they do. Dating is not a game!
   
   It is when two mature individuals decide to work out their differences that they decide to get married. If marriage is your goal, then you should stop acting like dating is just a fun thing you do for entertainment and hoping that one day you will marry a husband or wife who will keep you entertained every day for the rest of your life. Instead, you should start acting like dating is part of a larger goal that you are working towards, and that you want it to be the best it can be.

50/50 Relationships

I stumbled across this question last week, and since I posted a regular article last week (it was the 3rd post of the month) I have decided to post a question for this week’s article, which is something I typically reserve for 5th Sundays.

To paraphrase the question:
A man, in his mid twenties, explained that he was in a relationship with his girlfriend(26) for 6 months. This was a woman he had known for 2 years and been casual friends up until they began dating. During that six month period, he found himself always catching all of the checks at restaurants, making all of the phone calls to her and never receiving any in return, and he even pointed out how he made her birthday into something special yet when his birthday came along, she didn’t even bother to call him.

He broke up with her a short while later and told her about some of the things that were bothering him about their relationship. At first she argued with him that she didn’t forget his birthday and she made up an excuse about how she was waiting for him to call her because she expected that he was very busy on his birthday. Of course she cried over the break-up and she told him she was sorry and that she wanted him back.
After relating this story, he asked the question: Should I or should I not forgive her and take her back?

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I rarely tell people what to do; that is not how you get them to do things that will really help them and change their life for the better. Though, I always offer my suggestion this time around my suggestion was to move on (I avoid telling people that unless I have a good reason because many relationships are fixable).

Perhaps you have heard of this term before: “The 50/50 relationship”. It refers to the amount of effort each partner puts into the relationship in order to keep it going. In some relationships one person contributes 70% and the other person 30%, in other relationships the balance is closer to the center. I do not think there is such a thing as a 50/50 relationship, but I think there are a few relationships that are close to it, maybe even 49/51, yet one side is always giving just a little more than the other.

I explained to this man that even though some relationships are 70/30, there is nothing wrong with this type of relationship—or in other words, this type of balance really can work out. However, in order for this to work out, both sides need to understand that a relationship is a trade-off. One side provides the other with certain benefits and the other makes up the difference.

This guy’s question had very little to do with forgiving her and taking her back. The real question he needed to ask was whether or not he was willing to put up with having a relationship where he gives much more than he receives. His relationship is probably closer to an 80/20 than a 50/50 and he needed to decide whether or not he was comfortable with that.




Now, to explain my reasoning for suggesting he move on:
His Ex is 26 years old. By that age she should be old enough to know that having a relationship expects her to make some sort of effort. She should know by then that she can’t just have a relationship because she wants the benefits of one and yet doesn’t want to work at it. I would maybe expect that type of behavior from an 18, 19, or 20 year old, but not someone 8 years older.
That said, looking from an outside point of view, he appeared to be unhappy with the relationship; although he kept giving and giving and mentioned that he was comfortable with it at first, usually people who point it out and who remember those sorts of things are deep down uncomfortable about it. There is no reason to do anything that you are unhappy and uncomfortable about, so I suggested that he move on and find someone else who can make him happy and give him the type of relationship he really wants.

Why Relationships Matter So Much

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As you read from the many articles on this website, you might reach a point where you ask yourself this question: “Why is having such an in-depth understanding of dating, relationships, and marriage so important?” But, when you understand the importance of these functions, you will recognize your true potential, see the big picture, and you will have a desire to achieve success in this area of your life. It will make your life much better, you will be happier and you will enjoy your life much more.
Having an understanding of how this complex system called “relationships” works and how you can take the most advantage of this social system will help you make educated, conscious choices. It will empower you and help you to refine your character. It will make you into a better person and can help you gain the skills to change other people’s lives for the better.

I have divided this article into three segments: Marriage, Relationships, and Dating. It is my hope that these segments will provide you with an in-depth understanding of the significance of their functions. You need them, and you should approach them seriously.

Marriage
Aside from any obvious reasons why you would want to get married, there are several reasons why you need to get married, and the sooner you do so the better your life will be. You are incomplete without the opposite sex; without a husband or wife, you will reach a point where your progression halts; and without the opposite sex it would be impossible to fulfill ALL of your physical, mental, and emotional needs.
Progression is good, and you have a natural tendency to desire progression because you are a child of God and naturally want to become like him. When you choose to postpone marriage, or even to put it off entirely, you hinder your own progression throughmissed opportunities and failing to have certain experiences. Hard experiences build character, and having a spouse can by very trying on your patience; but God wants you to have those trying experiences because it will help you progress and become like him.
You cannot do everything in life on your own. There are many things that you simply cannot do at all but need the vicarious help of others in order to accomplish them. Particularly, you cannot have and raise children properly if you do not get married. Children benefit immensely from having both a father and a mother who love each other, worship God, and love them (the children). If you do not get married, you will remain incomplete and incapable of doing many things in the best way.








In order to fulfill all of your physical, mental and emotional needs, you will need the help of the opposite sex. Physical (particularly sexual) desires are a sacred, necessary, and beneficial aspect of life. They lead you to use heavenly powers to procreate and help bring God’s spirit children into this world. Mental desires work in the same manner: you have the desire to be among equals intellectually and to be working with others towards common goals; having these desires help you to progress and, as anyone who has experienced the addictive feeling of learning something new will understand, the more you learn the more you will want to learn. Emotionally, you have the desire to build trusting relationships with other people. Without a close group of people who you could trust, you would suffer from loneliness, depression, and other emotional problems.
You have an innate need to fulfill these desires and without the opposite sex you will be left unsatisfied. Any attempts to fulfill your physical desires on your own will leave you forever wanting and can lead you to severe problems. The same is true with people who advance intellectually but are unequalled in their intelligence: they recognize that knowledge serves no purpose when it is not applied and it is kept to their selves; and you would have a challenging and conflicting life if there was no one you could trust. Regardless of the specific outcome of failing to fulfill your needs, the general result is sadness; you will be unhappy whenever you fail to fulfill those desires at the time they come knocking.
There is no need for you to postpone marriage; in fact, it should be something you work out quickly. You will find, after marriage, that not everything about your wife or husband is what you expected. Part of your progression is learning to look past your wife’s or husband’s faults and support them when they struggle. No two people are really “perfect” for each other when they start out; it takes several years for two people to truly “fit” (the common estimate is 7 years).
When you look at your life on the eternal spectrum, this life is a very small speck, barely noticeable compared to the billions of years before and after. Your soul is eternal and the hundred years that your life on earth contains are very minor. You will spend many more years of your existence married than you spend single. If you really want to be married for eternity to someone, it would be better for you to enter that stage of life sooner than to post-pone the inevitable. Imagine the ‘married stage’ as your final state, just like a frog starts as a pollywog and morphs into a creature with traits of half-pollywog-half-frog before turning into a frog, you have no need to teeter in both worlds when you could as easily reach your true state. Again, you are incomplete without the opposite sex; it is expected for you to one day marry for eternity to reach your “completed” state. (This is often why people who are newly married claim their spouse “completes them”)
In a good marriage, you can fulfill ALL of your desires, you will not be limited in your progression, and therefore you will not be “incomplete”. Your physical needs will not have to be completely bridled. You will be able to learn from one another and help fulfill each other’s mental needs. Also, you will always have someone who you can trust and turn to for emotional support.
Marriage is a specific type of relationship in which the ultimate level of trust is agreed upon by both parties; that means that when you agree to marry someone, you agree to the highest level of trust. Complete fidelity helps maintain your emotional, physical, and mental needs by ensuring that you will have a reliable source capable of fulfilling those needs. When you remain single, you hold things back from those you date because you lack that high level of trust, even if only on a subconscious level. You also spread yourself thin when you continue to date multiple people because you cannot fully commit to any of them and so none of them are given the chance to see all of you.

Relationships
“Relationships” is a loose term that includes acquaintances, friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, fiancés, and husbands and wives, among other things. Forming relationships is a good thing. Humans are social animals; they require the help of others in order to survive. The type of relationship that you have with another person is based on your interaction with that individual and the type of “compacts” you have formed with them. You subconsciously make generic connections to people that reference the type of relationship that you have with them. With this subconscious understanding, you are able to respond to their actions in an “acceptable” manner. For example, you do not passionately kiss your friends the way you would with your spouse.

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How to Act After Your Relationship Ends

Not all relationships end the way they should. Sometimes, people say or do hurtful things and it’s easy to be bitter or upset over whatever happened in your relationship. Some relationships leave you feeling awkward and unsure of how to interact with that individual once they are over. Do not be discouraged when this happens.
There is a mature and respectable way for you to behave after your relationship has ended. The following are suggestions on how you should behave. If you do these things, you can limit the awkwardness and get over the negative feelings that burden your mind.

Be optimistic - Reflect on the positive parts of your relationship, don’t be critical of the other person. Particularly, Do Not Gossip about them. There are three areas you should be optimistic about: 1) Be optimistic about yourself. Whether the relationship ended because of mistakes you made or not, try not to reflect on the problems too harshly. If you made a few mistakes, being optimistic means working to fix your problems. In most break ups, the blame can’t be easily pinned on one side or the other, so don’t be too harsh on yourself. 2) Be happy for the good things you experienced while in your relationship with the other person. Try not to blame the other person for everything. Again, in most break ups, the blame can’t be pinned on just one side. There are probably things that both of you can work on. When you talk to your friends about what transpired, try to paint the situation in a positive light and avoid sharing the faults of the other person. 3) Don’t blame society or the opposite sex in general for causing your relationship to end. Your ex is not an accurate representation of every man or woman in society. You need to look at people on an individual basis rather than grouping them all together. For more information about this read my last article.

Be forgiving - Don’t hold a grudge, even if something terrible happened to you. Grudges rarely hurt the other person more than they hurt yourself. The damage that you take from holding a grudge is often unseen to you but manifested to others. This can be psychological damage or even spiritual damage. Often times other people can recognize that you have not fully forgiven your ex; it puts off a bad aura or leaves them with a negative subconscious impression of you. Forgive everyone.

Redefine the Relationship - Just because that type of relationship didn’t work doesn’t mean that you can’t have another type of relationship with that person. Sometimes, depending on the situation, you can continue to have a relationship with the individual, just not in the same way as before. Redefine what type of relationship you would like to have with them and talk to them about it. By setting the right boundaries, you can continue to remain in contact with that individual and enjoy meaningful experiences with them.





Don’t hang on - If the relationship ended on no part of your own, or if you have regrets about ending the relationship, the worst thing for you to do is cling to the other person expecting them to suddenly change their mind and return again to you. When the relationship is ended, settle with that fact. Don’t try to force your way into their life. You can’t always redefine your relationship merely because you can’t control the other person. Sometimes the best thing for you to do is to back off, leave them alone, and give them some space. Time apart has a funny effect on people; if there really is a chance for your relationship, the other person will recognize such after spending time on their own. Walk away, but leave the door open should they choose to return.

Don’t seek revenge - Breaking up brings out the worst emotions in people. Many people’s lives have been ruined when their ex intervened and did some terrible act of retaliation against them. There have been numerous extremes where the result of a breakup ended in murder, all because one side of the relationship lost control of their emotions. A big part of any break up is being able to forgive the other person; but if you are having a hard time forgiving them, at least try to catch yourself whenever you feel your emotions are running away with you. Do not do anything physically to get back at them; do not play games with them; and don’t meddle in their life. Also, make sure that your friends are under the same stance with your ex as you are so as to prevent them from doing things that are wrong, and to prevent them from encouraging you to do wrong.

Move on - Now that your relationship has ended, you are no longer tied down! Go find someone new. Although it is easy to say that you are just not interested in a relationship for the time being, you need to think about the long-term goals and plans that you set before entering into your previous relationship. If you were looking for someone to make you feel good about yourself and help you not feel lonely, then stick to your plan! If you wanted to get married back then and you started on an (1) attempt to do so, then what has really changed?—failure. You failed at this attempt and your failure has led you to fear. Failure, fear, and crushed dreams, can bring you down and prevent you from reaching your full potential. You need to look at what your life plans are and what you are trying to work towards and simply go do it. Don’t give up just because of one failed attempt, make the appropriate changes and try again.

Cease Contact - In some situations, the reason why you have negative feelings and can’t let go of the other person is because you remain in contact with them. Although it isn’t encouraged to go out of your way to avoid people, if it is your last resort, and it means the difference between losing control of yourself or having a serious breakdown, then do not remain in contact with the other person. When you find that redefining your relationship hasn’t worked and you still get in arguments, or when you allow the other person to remain in contact with you but feel as though they are merely leeching off of your life, you need to consider severing all ties with that individual. This can be tough and could cause you a lot of temporary emotional pain, but in some situations it is necessary. Use caution when you do this however, since it is hard to go back after you have done this.

The Problems of Hanging Out and Other Dating Habits

I’m posting this article out of the normal cycle because it’s actually a revision of an article I wrote many months ago (I’ve removed it from the blog). I will still be posting a new article on schedule for the first Sunday of the month.
Not much has changed in this article compared to the previous one, but I felt like I needed to clarify the points and explain them in a better way.

The Problems of Hanging Out and Other Dating Habits
This article is based largely off of the comments by Elder Oaks in the June 2006 Ensign “Dating versus Hanging Out”
Essentially, the prophets have expressed to young single adults that they need to devote more attention to the proper dating methods and to cease relying on poor dating habits that are developments of modern society.
A few prominent modern habits include:

Hanging out

Spending time with a group of people, male and female, merely to be entertained, have fun, or relax. This could simply be partying together, or an unexpected, casual invitation to spend time together.

Group Dating

When four or more individuals go on a date together.

Emphasizing “Friends First”

When your primary strategy for finding an eternal companion consists of making friends first and after a lengthy period of time as friends deciding if you want to date them or not; or, in other words, not making the decision that you want to date an individual early on.

Prioritizing Career over Family

Choosing to postpone dating or starting a family in order to pursue a challenging career

Relying on Others for Marriage

Counting on your bishop, stake president, family, or friends to line you up with someone to marry.

Waiting to be Loved

Choosing to postpone dating because you are expecting to find someone who will love you right off the bad, or someone who you instantly connect with.

Although there are a few pros to engaging in the above behavior, there are also a lot more cons, which is why the prophets have discouraged them in the past. Below are some explanations of the problems with having these habits:
Hanging Out - One big problem with hanging out is that it gets you into a subconscious habit of assuming that the people you are hanging out with are merely there to entertain you. Your mind makes a connection with those individuals that there is an expectation for them to make life fun for you. Later down the road they stop being entertaining and you lose interest in them. The real issue occurs when you rely on hanging out to build a long-term relationship. –it is nearly impossible to get to know someone when you have only seen the side of them that is entertaining. How do you discuss life goals or express your feelings while you are “having fun”?
Group Dating - When you are in a group of people, you tend to act differently than you do when you are spending one-on-one time with someone. The same is true with your date. If the only dates you go on are with a group of people, you are failing to truly get to know the people you date. The reason this is a bad habit is that it is better to have a habit of simply asking people on single dates. Single dating is highly encouraged.
Emphasizing “Friends First” - Having a policy of being friends first then deciding if you want to date them has the same effect as hanging out. You get in a subconscious habit of associating that individual with being a friend and you lose interest in them as anything more. Later on, when it comes time to start dating your friends, things are “awkward” (because of your established psychological associations). You are better off separating friends from love interests.
Prioritizing Career Over Family - Claiming that you want to get started on your career or finish your schooling is a false excuse. You will always be able to find an excuse for why now isn’t a good time to date or to get married and start a family; and just like any other excuse, it is merely a poor reason for why you are not taking risks or doing the things you know you should.—You will always have financial problems or be “too busy”—excuses never fly when it comes to important things.







Relying on Others for Marriage - No one knows your likes and dislikes better than yourself and no one is as invested in you as you are. It is your responsibility to get married and no one else’s. Therefore, you are not only the best person, but you should be the only person making an effort at getting yourself married.
Waiting to be Loved: - Very few people are easy to fall in love with. Chances are that you are not one of them. Love is a two-way street, so if you want to be loved you need to love as well. You will need to woo someone into loving you as much as they will need to woo you. You can’t expect things to happen for you if you don’t put forth an effort.
Dating requires taking risks; imagine it as being an investment. You put various things on the line (emotions, time, finances, etc.) and hope that they will give you a beneficial return. If you burry your investment or spend it on other things, you will never have any kind of return.
Life is hard, don’t get discouraged.
You will need to set goals and make plans in order to see the desired outcomes you would like.
You need to be the right person for the right person if you are going to get married.
You can change, and if things aren’t working out for you the way that they are now, then you need to change.
Sometimes it merely comes down to having the motivation and the courage to make things happen for yourself.

And if you need a little help, Dating Zion is now offering Dating Coaching to people living in Logan, UT. Check it out!
And if you’d like more information, be sure to request a pamphlet by emailing consultdz@live.com.