A Few Months

“A Few Months”


The interesting thing about dating is that you spend the first few months – if the coexistence even lasts that long – trying to portray yourself as a person that your prospective mate will desire. The phrase “be yourself” doesn’t apply in dating because even though we like to think we’re confident, more often than not we aren’t. People try their hardest to hide all of the flaws and all of the disgusting traits that they think their mate will find repulsive. Because deep down you think, or better yet hope, that the person will fall for you and when they gradually start to see all of the baggage you’ve been working so hard to hide, they won’t care because they’ve already fallen for you.
That’s the way that dating has to be though. If everyone were totally honest from day one – if everyone laid it all out on the table and was naked to the world – no one would make it past the first date. After you’ve been with someone for a while you realize that the things that would have sent you searching for your car keys before you had an appetizer aren’t really that bad. You realize that the person you care about has the same insecurities and fears that you do. You realize that the person sitting across the table from you knows all of your flaws, and still wants to be with you. That’s something special.
But be wary ,my friend, of the mate that says, “I don’t care about all of your bad traits.” The comment that is meant to be one of selflessness is a good sign that they in fact are hiding something themselves. The most treacherous date is one that involves someone who doesn’t care about any of your misgivings. It shouldn’t go unsaid that there is a huge difference between not caring, and being open to overlooking some minor issues. The person who says they don’t care about your shortcomings is either very insecure themselves – enough to sacrifice happiness in order to be with someone – or they don’t care about you enough. Show me a person that doesn’t try to mold some gradual changes in a mate, and I’ll show you someone who is either afraid or just apathetic.
Too often, this battlefield we call dating pounds on and grinds down the unsuspecting dater until their will is broken. You hear people say, “It’s time for me to settle down. I’m tired of the dating scene.” When does one decide this? How many bad marriages were sparked by comments like this? The dating scene wears on people until they decide they don’t want to participate anymore. Then what? Possibly, we take that person that never stops talking long enough to hear anything, or the person that treats us like dirt, and we decide that they will be our excuse to “settle down.” They’ll suit. It seems that many people would rather be unhappy and involved, than relationship deprived.
The most overly used and overly ignored statement in the world has to be, “You find love when you’re not looking for it!” If that is the truth, then people need to quit looking! But that will never happen. Barnes and Noble would have to clear its shelves of all the self-help dating books, and Match.com would shut down its web site.
Regardless of all else, it’s the excitement of sitting across from your date at TGIF on a weekend and hoping that they won’t see through the shield that hides all of your nasty, little secrets, and the hope that you won’t see through theirs…at least for a few months.