Intimate Relationship General Advice Cooperative | INFJ Forum

Intimate Relationship General Advice Cooperative

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Sep 30, 2009
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i thought it might helpful to start a thread where members could share any general intimate relationship advice they have learned that they have been grateful for or wish someone had given them. such as dating etiquette, compatibility ideas, fling rules, happy marriage guidelines, communication ideas, and so on.

my advice: floss your teeth.
 
I posted this on another forum about a month ago about "finding that perfect someone", and why some people seem to "get it" while others seem to not understand those who do:

Well it goes without saying that if all you do is stay inside playing video games all day, that you aren’t likely at all to meet a potential romantic partner. The reason is, is you simply are not around people in a social setting very much. When people say “you find someone when you aren’t looking” means that you aren’t going out looking for someone solely for the purpose of dating them and nothing more. I can say this is true from personal experience.

Of the few people I have dated, it seems that when I am not trying overtly hard to find someone, someone else will find me. It was not until recently that I got up the nerve to ask someone for his number. Even then though, I was not out that night with the expectation in my head that I am going to meet someone.

I believe part of the reason that people say this sort of stuff falls in your lap is largely due to preconceived notions, and focus narrowing. When you go into a setting, environment, dating website, bar, etc. looking for someone to date, you already tunneled your focus onto one thing. You won’t be able to meet a person without this idea in your head. You will begin probing the person to see if they meet the lists of criterion that you have for someone you wish to date, weighing out the positive and negatives. This imparts a strong bias, and creates a very subtle form of masking on the individual casting the judgements. It’s very hard for people to see but it walls up your true self inside. This can happen when you meet someone out of the blue, but it is much much smaller. For the reason that if you go into this beforehand knowing what might occur, you have mentally primed yourself for it.

Further, preconceived notions are a major road block. Because you are eying people up under specefic contexts, you are already promoting or docking them points, not allowing clear judgement or understanding. It overforamalizes the subtle nuances of relationships, and the very tricky task of forging them in the first place. Something this fluid can’t be set to a grid pattern on what exactly to do without making it feel clinical, and thus forming weak bonds, if at all.

This isn’t to say you need to do this without trying or thinking of it. It’s more that you need to roll with the punches and simply go with things without overdoing all the planning and ideas. You still do need to put in effort when meeting someone. Be present, be open and friendly, just don’t expect anything. In addition, when you don’t expect something, responses to good things that happen become much more “real”. Not only will you feel this form of excitement in it’s most pure form, others will see it. Pure real emotions form relationships bonds more efficently then anything else that can possibly be done.

Just be yourself. It’s very cheesy, but what I said above completely highlights this.
 
Relationships are not a crutch.
You need to be able to stand on your own if you want to have a relationship work out.
 
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Choose your friends, don't let them choose you.

I love this idea for a thread,
 
I believe part of the reason that people say this sort of stuff falls in your lap is largely due to preconceived notions, and focus narrowing. When you go into a setting, environment, dating website, bar, etc. looking for someone to date, you already tunneled your focus onto one thing. You won