I Can't Keep Dating Like This
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About this ebook
This book offers relational insight for those seeking to connect with lifelong partners. Many mistakes that singles make can be avoided through application of wisdom and recognizing common mistakes while dating.
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I Can't Keep Dating Like This - Roderick Richardson
Thought
Introduction
Everyone longs to be a part of something great. Whether it’s a successful company or a meaningful relationship, people are constantly searching for a connection. This quest for something or someone meaningful can be a lifelong journey. With any journey, the trip is filled with unexpected stops, wrong turns, breakdowns, weariness, and other stressors. Depending on their depth, these experiences can bleed into future relationships, thwarting one’s chances for new and healthy relationships.
I have been married for fifteen years. Many would argue that my perspectives are somewhat skewed because I am not single, and I cannot relate to the plight of a single person in the twenty-first century. I beg to differ. For close to thirteen years, singles have come through my office with problems in relationships. I have conducted thousands of hours of counseling with male and female singles. I have listened to story after story, and the majority of singles suffer from many of the same mistakes. This book is a collection of those mistakes, aimed to enlighten those who do not want to venture into the same lane where others have wrecked.
Many of those who are reading this book right now want someone to cuddle on cold days, take long walks with to nowhere, and receive midnight whispers saying I love you.
If that’s not you, then you are not the norm. We were created to be relational beings. Trees cannot even exist without the cross-pollination of other trees. Plants and shrubs could not reproduce without pollen carriers such as bees and wasps. We all need someone to make us feel loved. In the American penal system, the government punish hardened criminals by isolating them from the general population. The lack of social interaction and communication can lead someone to his or her breaking point. As a result of our need to cross-pollinate with other humans, sometimes we land on the cactus plants and ultimately leave with pain, bloodied from the experience.
This book is specifically about the mistake-filled journey to find that meaningful someone. No one is perfect. My aim is not to promote perfection but to accentuate common blunders that distract you from finding someone who is perfect for you. It is my sincere desire that this book will open the eyes of people across the world and will be used as a what-not-to-do guide to finding that Mr. or Ms. Right and avoiding Mr. or Ms. Wrong.
Chapter 1
The Person in Your Mind
The Stereotype
She walked into my office, sat down, and began to cry. I thought he was the one! I thought he would be different! I didn’t know he was like that!
How many times have I heard that! Many guys and ladies have graced my office with pain in their hearts, no money in the bank, and tears running down their cheeks. The story is always the same. A woman has fallen for the man in her mind. The man in her mind is the perfect gentleman. He has great credit. He has never been married. He is an avid exercise freak who knows how to set boundaries with his mother. He has his own house and car. He makes enough money to care for his future wife because she should not have to work. I know you’re smiling right now.
The guys are looking for a woman with a perfect complexion and lovely teeth. She has the apple bottom accompanied by perfect breasts and little to no waist. She doesn’t have any kids, and she has her own materials to bring to the table. Don’t forget that she is a freak under the sheets and a lady in the streets. She is unselfish and looking for the guy who’s perfect for her. This is the ideal woman for the perfect man. This sounds great!
The issue is that the woman or man in your mind doesn’t exist. These characteristics have been collected over a lifetime of watching movies, soap operas, and sitcoms. This is the person in the magazine who smiles relentlessly at you, and you secretly smile back, hoping no one is looking. Unknowingly, the image stays in your head and becomes compiled on your suitable mate
list, which is stored in your subconscious. You don’t realize it’s there until you meet someone, and then you compare him or her to this unrealistic list in your head. Now you’re thirty, forty, or even fifty, and no one seems to come close to this scroll of criteria because the person you are seeking in your mind doesn’t even exist on the planet!
What Do You Want?
I ask people all the time, What kind of mate do you want?
Although many say they are not sure, most of the time the stereotypical imagery surfaces. The truth is, at the age of forty, a man or woman who fits the criteria in your head is as rare as a Komodo dragon. This, in fact, is why many people are single in the world today. They are searching for someone who exists only in their heads. When they realize that the person in their head is a part of their imagination, they have to recalibrate to determine what they really want. Before you get to that point, let’s stop to examine what’s on your proverbial list.
The List
Whether we know it or not, we all have a list. The list forms long before you lay eyes on the person. The list determines how you date and whom you allow in your life, and it even dictates your behavior once you think you’re in a meaningful relationship. This list forms during the early years. It has criteria such as educational-attainment requirements, desired religious tradition, recreation compatibility, and type of affection, just to name a few. These are great characteristics to have in a mate. We all form this list based on our observations, teachings, and experiences. This hidden scroll of criteria is like a blueprint to measure each person who is a potential mate. Some people go as far as to write the list down and literally compare each person to it. Finding an individual who fits the list is about as likely as picking the winning numbers for the state lottery. Let’s take a deeper look at the list and how a person accumulates the criteria.
As a person matriculates through school, many things begin to shape his or her list of standards. The issue is that many of these criteria are pulled from unrealistic sources. Developing standards from a silly source creates unrealistic demands. Those demands, in turn, create impossible outcomes. We have all seen how perfect sitcom celebrities appear through the lenses of Hollywood cameras. Makeup covers their natural identities. Camera angles camouflage their flaws, and they are playing roles from scripts. You don’t realize that outside the studio, they go through arduous divorces, and their realities in life don’t match their personas on the screen. As I’m writing this book, the legendary Bill Cosby is experiencing the conflict of a Hollywood celebrity. His character was one of the most celebrated dads on television. Many men today have modeled their families after Dr. Huxtable’s. Reality paints a different picture. More than forty women have come forward with allegations of drugging, rape, harassment, and assault. Although these are allegations, the canvas on which The Cosby Show painted Bill is different from the one that many of the women are using.
I Want to Be like Mike
Another influential component of your list is the relationships of those who are close to you. Your sibling’s husband, mentor’s spouse, and best friend’s mate can have an underlying influence on the type of people you date. Instead of desiring the perfect person for you, you want the kind of person who was perfect for them. Because you are on the outside looking in, you don’t know the hell that your sister’s husband is taking her through. She is miserable, but the Mardi Gras mask she wears at the family reunion to avoid her mother’s I told you he wasn’t right
speech has you thinking this is the type of relationship you want. Sadly, many of your mentors and friends may be in the same boat. You have to be careful about coveting someone else’s lawn, because you don’t know the maintenance it takes to keep the weeds out.
Growing up, every athlete wanted to be like Michael