Ah, well, a 6-hour trip justifies the delay in meeting somewhat. If you lived a 5-minute walk from each other, then I’d say it’s over before it started. I’ve been in that situation more times than I care to remember.
Oh hell no. No, you’re totally right there. Same town and they still don’t want to meet you within a couple days of meeting online? It’s not at all worth it to keep going.
I don’t care how wonderful you think someone is, if your friends and/or family have misgivings about them, listen.
If anyone tries to keep you from your friends and family, don’t walk…RUN!
Her: Sharon is coming over tonight.
Him: WhAT? I thought we could go out alone.
Her: But I haven’t seen Sharon in over a month.
Him: But I told you I really really want to see that new movie.
Her: But the movie will be there tomorrow.
Him: I want to see it tonight. We never do what I want to do.
My husband is nurturing, friendly, socially capable and mostly outgoing while I happen to be logical, cold, aloof and socially awkward – we work just fine (most of the time). We like to tell people we are opposites sides of the same coin – our birthdays are 12 days apart, and we couldn’t be much more opposite.
- You don’t have a relationship until you’ve had an argument. At the beginning everything can be all lovey-dovey, but it’s critical to see how you interact when things are not going well.
Some like to call names. Some like to scream and have a tantrum. Some give the cold shoulder. Some give an ultimatum. I like the ones who can be calm, rational, not say things they can’t take back, and so on. That’s how I try to conduct myself.
This is where I have a real disconnect with long-distance relationships. You meet someone over the net and when you manage to get together, that’s golden time. “Let’s not spoil this by fighting” is, I imagine, the order of the day.
- You can’t reasonably ask for anything you can’t (or are unwilling to) give. If you lie to your SO, you can’t expect honesty. If you want time for your friends, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Seals and Crofts sang it well:
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Sooner or later the burning bush romance cools, reaching a point where you have to get real. Lust is great but if you don’t have things in common, it will fizzle. Nature wants babies, not LTRs. Wait two years before doing anything permanent.
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Success or failure probably depends mostly on compatibility. People aren’t “perfect,” but someone is perfect for you and vice-versa.
Be flexible when it comes to your checklist for Mr/Ms Right - it’s okay to have a few must-haves (in fact, it’s necessary), but if you have more must-haves than nice-to-haves on your list, it might be time to rework your expectations.
That said, you can’t fix people. If there’s something about Mr/Ms Maybe that rubs you the wrong way, don’t stick around in the hopes that you can train them out of it. You might, but then again, the Leafs might win the Stanley Cup someday too (in other words, good fucking luck).
Good sex does not a relationship make. You’re going to have to have a conversation eventually, so having at least one thing that both of you like to talk about is essential.
Bingo. And I’ll add “and I’m not a bad guy for not cooperating with their attempts to change me in ways that I don’t like.”
Also, as often posted by me on this board; If you walk through a forest of red flags for love, you’ll be beaten with every last one of those red flags on the way out of the relationship.
The indecision one I don’t get, but perhaps that’s because I’m both assertive enough and impatient enough to say “Either I’m allowed to choose or I’m not. If I am, then we’re eating (such-and-such).” Also ornery enough that if my mate refused to go, I’d either go alone or go home.
If I wanted to play a game, I’d be playing D&D or Monopoly. If you want to mess with my head, play games with me or test me, then you don’t trust me or love me enough to be The One. Goodbye.
(ex-post facto via the ex-wife) If you can’t be trusted to keep your promises, then you can’t be trusted period. Nothing you say has any value, including any claims to love me.
If you denigrate my dreams and ambitions, you denigrate me.
My ex did that too, but not in the way you describe. She’d just pretend that our conversation about the plans had never taken place, or that she’d forgotten, and deliberately make other plans that she refused to change. Or she’d refuse to see them because they had allegedly been mean to her or to me at some point in the past. I’m quite certain that well more than half the stories she told me to get me to not see people were utter bullshit created from wholecloth, and usually designed to undermine my relationship with those people and bring me closer to her in the twisted “you and me against the world” kind of fashion.
If someone doesn’t like you, it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It may just mean they want something totally different from you–even though you’re awesome.
If a bunch of someones don’t like you, then something is wrong. Maybe you’re going after the wrong type. Or maybe you need to figure out what it is that’s turning people off.
Have a life outside of dating. Find something you’re interested in that makes you happy. That way, you’re a much more interesting person and you’re not desparate (which is SO hard to hide).
You don’t HAVE to like someone just because they have everything you thought you were looking for. Sometimes, it’s just not there. That’s okay.
Don’t wait for the “right time” to break up. There is no good time. It’s going to suck whenever it happens.
Go ahead and ask someone out. The worst they can say is No. If you don’t ask, you’re probably not going out with them anyway.
Always have an exit strategy for those dates from hell!
If someone asks you out but they’re not your “type,” go ahead and go out with them if you think they’d be fun. You’re not committing to anything. And, who knows, you may change your mind.
The last person I tried this on didn’t think I did it hard enough. Then again, she bit me. It didn’t last very long 
The one who cares less about the relationship holds all the power.
Be decisive. Have a place already picked out where you want to take her to eat. (If she recommends some place else, by all means, go there.)
Same thing goes for after diner activities.
My hardest lesson learned:
If a girl can’t please herself; how the fuck am I supposed to?
(answer: I’m not)
Yeah. I’ve been settled down so long now that I forgot about this one. It sucks, but so it goes unless there’s some serious guilty codependency going on.
You rang?
Okay, maybe I’m just not the sharpest knife in the drawer or I am really bad at relationships…
…but what does this mean? 
Aw hell sweetie, don’t worry about it. I’ve got a few scorch marks myself. Here, scope this one, right across the ego. Don’t think that didn’t sting. And the trust circuits; completely fused.
Okay, suppose you and I are dating.* You are my dream come true, you find the relationship… fine. Not great. Not bad. Just… fine.
I am going to bend over backwards 
to please you. I will make sacrifices, become emotionally vulnerable, seek time with you, etc. You are not going to go as far, as you care about the relationship less.
If you don’t care about the relationship, you don’t care about it ending. If the other person does care they will try to make it work, even if you don’t. Thus, power.
Or something like that.
*Judging by the Uncle Brother part of your username, you are probably not my type. Also, the Walker part means it would be incest 
Pretty much what Allwalker said.
An easier way to look at it is: If you don’t give a shit about the relationship, you can pretty much take the attitude of: “My way or the highway.”
God help you if you don’t have a full grasp of what a healthy relationship is supposed to be and you’re the poor sap on the other end of that situation.
At least you’re not working your way through the DSM-II. That whole homosexual disorder could be tricky to work through.
Are you sure kisses wasn’t a typo there?
Just letting you know that I’m printing this in big letters and sticking it somewhere I will see it every day. Thank you for your small input into my current life renovation. Man, talk about a looooong term project.
I can finally appreciate just how essential good communication with your BF/SO is in the grand scheme of things. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to date different sorts of guys, good and bad. My last serious relationship was pretty awesome, we could talk about almost anything but when it came to communication in the bedroom we both had things to learn. Luckily, in my current relationship, my bf is just incredibly adept at making me be even more open about myself… it makes all the difference.
Well, it’s false because it fools uyou into thinking you know more about the person than you do. It makes you feel like you know them really well, and that you’ve achieved a deep deep connection with them.
You have, and yet… no, you haven’t.
We’re probably just talking about the same thing in different words tho.