For those that know me, know that I’ve been in a very happy relationship with the love of my life. We’ll be celebrating our two year anniversary soon, and that me motivated to write about dating and relationship communication. Now I’ve been a dating coach for almost three years now, and have been helping out different men and women with their dating life with Ronald Lee from Man Meets Woman.. And I believe that people mush dating and relationships as inclusive categories, but in my opinion they’re exclusive. And here’s why:
Do you both agree that You’re Dating or in a Relationship?
Dating is not the same as a relationship. I’ve met some women who will assume that the man is in a committed relationship with her, and when I talk to the man, he tells me they’re just seeing each other casually.(And vice versa)
I’ve met men who tell me they can’t seem to go anywhere with a woman they’ve met at a networking event. They’ll go out but then the chemistry stops or there doesn’t seem to be that romantic flair. They’ll tell me it’s a date they went on, and then I ask the simple question, “Does she know it’s a date you went on?”
They’ll go, “I think so.”
“You think so? So technically she could have mistaken that meeting as a networking opportunity or a potential friendship.”
“Yes, but we…”
“Unless she clearly knows it’s a date…it’s not a date.”
Or sadly enough this is reality that I see with women. They’ll have had sex with a man, and then assume because they were physically intimate that that automatically makes him her boyfriend. And when I ask the man, he goes, “I never agreed to be her boyfriend, we’re just seeing each other. I don’t know why she refers to me that way.”
Until both parties have actually mutually agreed that they are in a relationship or on a date, they are neither one. How many couples do you meet where one person goes, “we’re married” and the other goes “We’re actually in a relationship.” Unless both parties agree it’s a marriage, it’s no marriage.
Dating is part of the Interview Process, the Relationship is Building your Career.
Dating is just about being able to find out if you and the other person have chemistry together. It’s about going out there and having fun and enjoy the short spurt of real happiness that only dating brings. Do you have fun when chatting? Do you feel that there’s enough in common to want to hang out? Do you feel that there is sexual chemistry between the two of you? Your conversations should evolve around that. Dating is the fun interview of getting to know someone to see if they may be a right candidate to be in relationship with you.
But here’s the thing, you may be well qualified for a job, but if your interview sucks….NO JOB. If you can’t learn to be good at dating, chances are you’re probably not going to be in a relationship. I remember hearing how other men and women have the perfect qualities to be in a relationship, and people would be nice and supportive and keep telling them how great they are. So why do their results say otherwise, because they forgot that dating comes before the relationships.
That being said dating should be just that-dating and discovery. Your conversations on your dates should be used to find out if this person is a potentially good match for you, and to see if you share some aspects of your life in common, some activities that you both enjoy, and seeing if you do have similar values.
A relationship is like building a career at your job, you’re going have moments of true satisfaction that you won’t be able to get in dating. You’ll have a deep understanding of the person and feel at certain points in your relationship as if you’ve just got a big promotion at work.
But then there are the days when shit hits the fan, and you’re having a terrible day, or you’re going to have to change some aspects of yourself to be a better person at your job or else you’re not going to be in that job. A relationship requires recognition that the conversations you have won’t always be fun, and they will be serious at times, and they will require a deeper and more loving commitment to each other.
This means knowing how to deal with conflicts among both of you, how to continue loving conversations so that the honey moon phase isn’t dying, and how to deal with each other’s vulnerabilities without making the other person feel bad. It is these conversations that will show your values as a person. So be prepared for more serious conversations because if certain topics aren’t addressed….keeping that relationship alive is not going to happen.
In Dating You Show your Best Parts, in Relationships You Show Your Worst.
If you’re goal is just to date, then you can easily go on a lot of dates by flirting, telling stories that make you attractive, or using your humour. Here’s the ironic part about dating, a person can be attracted to you by barely knowing who you really are. Some people love a mysterious person. And because you’re out there having fun you’re caught up in the moment, you love that lifestyle but then you may get to the point where you realize you can’t seem to get into a relationship with any of the people you date.
The trouble is that at some point you have to have some realness when communicating with others. That means just because the fun is over you can’t run away and hide and not address the issues that are being brought up. Real commitment in a relationship means having the tough conversations that will allow you both to feel comfortable moving the relationship forward based on mutual agreement. And in dating it’s easy to ignore at first, but it’s going to catch up to you later.
“He used to spend more time with me when we were dating why doesn’t he do that anymore?”
“She used to always go to watch hockey with me before, how come she doesn’t now?”
“He’s always so messy, I really thought I could deal with it, but I don’t think I can.”
Relationships require real vulnerability. In dating you try to show off some of the best parts of who you are in your conversations. In relationships you have to gradually show off the worst parts and be able to talk about them so that you know your dating partner fully accepts you for who you are. (Don’t tell all the bad stuff at once though.)
What do you all think, is there a difference between dating and relationship? If so, how?
In my next blog post, I’ll discuss how you can change ensure that your dating conversations are moving towards a relationship.
For more details on how to have wonderful conversations visit http://www.conversationarts.com
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Do you need help with Conversations, Making Friends or Your Dating Life?
