When you’re looking for a partner, it’s important to have standards in order to protect yourself from toxic situations. However, there has to be a healthy balance because there is such a thing as expecting a little too much from the people you date. If you relate to any of the following, that may be the case for you.
- Your dates compromise for you but it’s just not enough. You might meet someone you click with right away but they just don’t do these five (or six or seven) specific things just right. Before you get the chance to dart out, they surprise you and change those things for you. It still isn’t good enough. It never is, right? If someone is truly trying for you and wants to become someone better, that should be more than enough to prove their worth. They may not be perfect but they’re trying to be for you.
- Your close friends try to warn you. To be fair, sometimes friends give terrible advice. They think they know what’s best for you but they’ve never been in your situation and can’t really know without being in your shoes. However, more often than not, they kinda do know what’s best for you. They’re always there looking out for you and wouldn’t steer you wrong if someone paid them a million bucks. If they’re telling you that your standards are too high, they just might be right.
- You have a weird feeling in the pit of your stomach. This might be something that only happens to me but I live by it. If my intuition is telling me something is off, I listen to it. Your heart sometimes knows things about you that your mind doesn’t. If you feel like maybe you’re heading down the wrong path when it comes to creating your standards and enforcing them, you just might be. The same way your gut tells you when a situation is toxic, it probably knows when you’re messing up a good thing.
- People you’ve dated have actually told you so. This one sucks for sure and isn’t something anyone should ever have to say to someone else. However, sometimes we need the cold hard truth in life, no matter who it comes from. If you can think back to a time when you dated a mature, well-mannered person you were attracted to and they told you nicely that your standards were a bit too much for them, they might just be right. (If they were an a-hole about it, they’re probably dead wrong.)
- Nowhere seems good enough to you when it comes to looking for love. I mean nowhere! People at the bar are too sleazy, the ones at the library are too nerdy. Everywhere you go, there’s something wrong with the people you’re meeting. Some stereotype always keeps you away from them. Honestly, I found my guy at a trashy bar and we’re three years strong. It can happen anywhere if you let it.
- No one ever seems good enough to date. This might just be because you’re over dating altogether but not always. If you’re truly on the search and coming up empty-handed, it might be because you believe that nobody could ever be good enough for you. I don’t imagine anyone would outright admit that, but evaluate your thinking for a little while. That thought may be lurking behind some of the more prominent ones, just waiting to be discovered and torched.
- Your ideal partner is only found on TV or in movies. This is red flag numero uno. You should never want to date someone like the people you see on the screen because they’re all fake. If it’s not reality TV, they’re completely scripted and created by a team. If it is reality T.V., it’s probably still the same deal. Don’t forget that you can never have what you see on TV, but that it’s a good thing too.
- You’ve turned down great potential partners for stupid reasons. Sadly, this is one I’ve seen way too many times. I’ve even done it myself a ton. We think we don’t deserve anyone —or worse, we think no one deserves us—so we make excuses as to why each person we meet will never be the one for us. Their nose is too big, they laugh too much, they can’t kiss. Trivial? Yes. Unfixable? No.
- You’d rather have perfection than reality. Once again, you’re gonna need to dig down deep to actually realize this is true for you. However, you’ll be able to see a pattern in your past. Did you go for people who seemed like they had no flaws and fit perfectly into the mold you’d hoped they would? Or did you go for the ones who would never fit into that mold but tried to anyway? The sooner you embrace the beauty of imperfection, the better off you’ll be in love and in life.