The other night, a friend of mine who was dating a new woman, called me up and said,
“David. She called me out.”
I said to him, “What do you mean, she called you out?”
“Oh, you know, we’ve only been dating a couple of weeks. We really like each other, and I kind of wasn’t present for her. She called me out.“
I told him this girl is a keeper.
He looked at me and said she was kind of mean, frustrated at one point. I said so? That’s a real emotion. She expressed her emotions. She showed you her emotions. She called you out. You had a discussion and what happened next?
He said it was the strangest thing: she apologized for over-reacting.
I said, “Well, what so strange about that?”
He said to me, “In all the years I was with my ex-wife, she never apologized for anything at all. It was really heartwarming to me.”
And I thought to myself, that’s it. That’s going to be a great relationship, because in that conversation are the two keys to really succeeding in a relationship.
1. Communication is everything.
He who communicates is always going to have a great relationship. And communications starts the second you start dating.
The minute you start knowing that you like each other, which can happen after date one or date two or date three or whatever, and you know that you have a potential relationship that can blossom…
The communication needs to start immediately. Behaviors, patterns, and everything start forming in a relationship right from the get go.
So, ignoring something or just kind of pushing it away or saying, “well that’s just the way they are” is going to get you into a lot of trouble in the future.
You see, in life, if you don’t manage your relationship well from the beginning, the relationship will get out of control. Don’t be afraid to speak up to tell somebody they did something that hurt your feelings. We’re also afraid of being vulnerable, which leads us to number two,
2. Embrace the vulnerability.
Are you playing for keeps or are you just looking to just date?
If you’re playing for keeps in a relationship, then I strongly suggest you act in a way that embraces your vulnerability.
One of the things I know in all my years on this planet Earth is that if I meet somebody that fascinates me, I know it’s something that doesn’t come along often.
It’s rare. It’s like meeting a fellow unicorn.
So why am I going to beat around the bush? I prefer to put it out there like an adult. We like to pretend we’re in a relationship or we like to just not talk about it. We like to play it cool and just casually date.
We like to do all those things because we’re so afraid of being real and open and vulnerable.
But in reality, vulnerabilities all we have. You see, if we actually communicated with somebody that we like and acknowledge the fact that we’re into them, we can actually get down to the basics. Meaning we can start communicating, talking about what’s important to both of us and see whether or not we’re a good fit for the future, instead of pushing things off like so many people do.
See, to me, I want an adult relationship, one where we’re able to communicate and talk about anything.
I’m not perfect.
Neither is she, but if we communicate, we actually have a shot at having a relationship.
