Dating Advice

I've been doing a little gmail inbox cleaning, and I came across this nugget of gold sent from Barbie Ryan a few years ago. Dating is tricky business, and it is serious business because hearts are involved. For years and years, my mom knew how confused and unsure I so often was while dating. I thought that I would never find the right guy because I had never felt that "release" of love, so to speak. The guys that I dated were all really wonderful, so I thought something was wrong with me because I could only get to a certain emotional point of "extreme like," but not love. Something would always hold me back. Mom gave me this advice:

"Love is a bundle of contradictions and only in the rarest of circumstances will one find, in one's mate, all of the desirable qualities one is looking for...

Having said that, I do think that you need to think in terms of gracious acceptance of the man you are dating, AS HE IS, not as you wish him to be...barring natural maturation and inevitable adjustments that will be worked out between you in marriage (who cooks, who shops, who cleans, who pays the bills, etc).

Never enter marriage with the idea that your partner will change for you. Rather, enter marriage knowing what you adore about your partner and enjoying that...overlooking/accepting the engrained personality traits (such as essential quietness) and making the most of the things you adore."

She is so right. And the things you adore should totally outweigh the thing you don't. I had this incredible cascade of falling in love when I met Michael.

This was the first weekend together after we were offish = officially BF/GF.

And Michael is not perfect! No one is. But it was a far cry from my crazy unsteadiness of heart that I had felt with every guy before I met him. And reading these words from my mom after almost a year of marriage is such a refreshment -- when in the thick of a disagreement, sometimes I forget the amazing qualities that I love so much in my husband.

So, single ladies, no one is perfect, but there is a great guy for you out there. Married ladies, keep loving your man for all the wonderfulness that he is!