I’m an all or nothing kinda girl. I need my relationship to be perfect in order to be happy and I’ll stop at nothing until I reach #couplegoals status. My competitive attitude may be great on a football field but it doesn’t really belong in the dating game and it leaves me single more often than not.
- I’m doing it for my family. I feel like I’m in a race against my three other sisters to get to the altar. We all just want to make our parents proud and I’ll be damned if I’m last to get married, especially considering that I’m the oldest. I’m pretty sure I only have a few more years, it’s now or never. This isn’t the type of thinking however, that attracts the good guys…
- I become an overbearing girlfriend. I’ve been competing my whole life and have no plans of stopping. The thing is, when I mix my competitive nature with being in a relationship, it results in obsessive, overbearing girlfriend behavior. Being a competitive girl, I feel like I always have to be perfect and if my partner isn’t up to par, I’ll do all I can to “fix” them and turn them into some grade-A version of themselves which undoubtedly annoys them. I can’t help it—I play the love game to win.
- I want to see how quickly I can get him to fall in love with me. If the relationship isn’t moving as quickly as I’d like it to, I get majorly anxious and start doing everything I can to get the reassurance from my partner that everything’s going well. If I don’t get the sense that we’re on the path to love then I pull out every trick I know of to sway him. I surprise him with gifts, write little notes, agree to his plans… all in the name of winning. The only thing is that it barely works and I’m exhausted by the end of it.
- I do damage control when everything is fine. Even when things are going fine, I’ll find little things that aren’t perfect. Let’s say he’s spending more time than usual with one of his female friends. I’ll instantly read that as him getting bored of me and will go crazy with damage control, scaring him away and leaving me alone with my inadequate feelings.
- I don’t notice I do this in the moment but apparently, I walk way in front of my date. This isn’t very good but I find myself constantly walking leaps and bounds ahead of my date. I’m already a fast walker but that’s not why I walk in front of them. I think it’s because I’m subconsciously trying to “beat” him at something.
- I have a hard time cutting my partner some slack. When you’re competitive like me, it’s easy to scare guys away with your crazy high standards. I expect peak performance from myself and therefore I naturally expect it from everyone else. I find that after a while, my partner gets resentful of me putting pressure on them to be better and do better. It’s just the way I’ve always been.
- Dating someone is an achievement to me. Being in a relationship is just another checkmark I can add to my life goals list. It feels like something to achieve, not something to nourish gradually and work on. This is why it stings so hard when a relationship doesn’t work out. It feels like a huge failure to me, which is why I do everything I can to keep it together.
- If I know things are going to end, I do everything I can to save it. Of course, this ends up making things worse. When things start to feel rocky, I get a little extreme with my competitive nature and will often overcompensate, giving my partner too much attention, losing myself in the relationship and single-handedly ruin whatever sort of connection we had left.
- My tendency is to be aggressive and masculine, which a lot of guys can’t handle. Most guys out there can’t handle a girl who knows what she wants and runs towards it. I’m so sure that I’ve scared away tons of guys in the past simply because of my competitive nature. I’m even guilty of trying to one-up them subconsciously in conversation. I always have to be better.
- I can’t date anyone who’s more successful or better looking than me. Being a competitive person doesn’t exactly leave you with a lot of options. My partner can’t be better looking, smarter, funnier or more successful than me. If they are, I’ll always feel like I’m missing something. I tend to go for guys who don’t really know what they’re doing in life and see me as being perfect and “having it all.” There aren’t a lot of guys out there who are better than me, so yeah, life’s tough.
- If the relationship isn’t perfect, it’s a waste of time. I’ll end some relationships prematurely if I don’t sense that it can be something long-lasting. If I don’t feel it immediately on the first date, then it’s a straight up no from me. I can’t imagine how many relationships I’ve passed up just because of my competitive, perfectionist ways.
