The little things...

The little things…

Learning how to navigate the world of romantic relationships has truly come down to trial an error for me. If the males in your life don’t have specific conversations with you about what is acceptable dating behavior and what is not, as women, we sometimes find it hard to differentiate between a guy with potential and a straight up dud.

FYI: I may be one of those people who are honest to a fault, but I generally don’t provide relationship advice since it is not an area where I have found success. Although, I do know how to NOT submit to a bad one, so I guess that’s half the battle.

I experience my life in narration, stories and words. When something occurs to me, it first shows up in the form of short phrases, then sporadic dialogue and then a full story. This literally happens in my brain all day. I am in constant observation mode. So when this topic occurred to me today, I couldn’t wait to spill these words onto the paper. It’s not real until I write it down.

Getting back to this post.

My most recent dating adventures have been just that, adventures. I put myself out there and connected with people I wouldn’t normally consider. Not because there was anything wrong with them but human beings tend to be creatures of habit who become attracted to the same types of people over and over again.

If you date, you may realize that many people out there just want you to play a role in their dysfunction. Their addiction to their dysfunction is their priority and any person they find is simply a stand in to help them get their fix. I want no part of this.

Even though their income brackets, assets and age ranges had increased, I was sure to hold the new men I dated to the standards I had established through years of getting it wrong. I never read “Think Like A Man” but I’m sure that I would agree with most of what Steve Harvey proclaims, simply because the entire premise of the book relates to how women should hold themselves to a higher standard to attract the right men. This I do believe.

I knew how to sprint into the other direction when the big things were wrong with a guy, such as married, jealous on the first date (who are you talking to on your phone? Dude, we just met!), no phone calls only texting, player attitude (I know it when I see it), addictions, etc. My young dating life had been filled with the big stuff. These days I’ve become a pro at avoiding the big stuff. But what I have come to realize is that it’s the little things that speak volumes about character that can’t be ignored because eventually they blossom into full-blown weeds.

This is not about expecting perfection, but instead about understanding how to walk away early on from the people who are not meant for me. One guy I dated was pretty perfect on paper. He had aspirations of owning his own business, he loved to travel, he was mostly confident and an easy-going people person, which compliments my introversion nicely.

He opened doors, planned dates, introduced me to his friends and inquired about my hopes and dreams regularly. We had great chemistry and full, deep conversations. He had no signs of having any of the big problems I mentioned earlier but there were several little things that raised red flags for me.

One was that he had a negative relationship with his mom and barely discussed her, only in short spurts of venting about something he didn’t like about her. He referred to her by her first name. (interesting) I have always had poor experiences with men who don’t like their moms.

Another was him having a negative relationship with money and paying for things, he would never come right out and say he didn’t want to pay for something but he would gripe about all of the other responsibilities he had to take care of at least once a date. My thought on this is, don’t ask women out if you’re having financial difficulties. Date the kind that’s okay with “Netflix and chill” dates. Saves the women who expect more lots of time and saves the man who is tight on cash lots of money. Just saying.

Another little thing was that one time I left my phone in his car at a restaurant and didn’t realize until we sat. Once I discovered it was missing and wanted to retrieve it, instead of getting it for me, he handed me his keys. Now, I’m no prima donna but why would a man be okay with his date leaving the restaurant to walk down the street, in the dark, alone, to get her phone?

Now the old me would have shrugged these small occurrences off with a “lets not judge so soon” or a “maybe he wasn’t thinking” or a “maybe over time he’ll improve once we get to know each other”.

I know all of these statements to be the opposite of true so I no longer feed them to my brain. Sometimes the devil is in the detail, a saying I picked up in journalism school. It means that in our effort to avoid large scale calamities, we sometimes forget to pay close enough attention to the small conflicting behaviors that go unnoticed. In our desire to find “the one” we might develop a scarcity mindset and began to rationalize why our preferences are not that important. We may sweep it under the rug until that pile of trash is so large that we can barely step over it without nearly falling onto our faces.

I think people are destined to repeat the same mistakes until we get it, until we get that people don’t change because we’re so great and that if our desire is to date a provider and a protector, or whatever our preferences are, we shouldn’t pretend that it’s not important. Only to later find ourselves in the same position we have been in on so many other occasions; feeling exhausted, conflicted and ready to move on.

Love, Jameelah