Dating is a journey. The sooner you realize and accept this, the better off you will be. When you see a couple that appears to be happily married, you really don’t know the story behind how they ended up together. You see the end result…the holding hands and the smiles. You didn’t see the incompatible people they dealt with along the way. You didn’t see the dates that lead nowhere, the disappointments, the laughs, the TEARS, the frustration…the growth. You weren’t there to see them get honest about their own faults…and work on them. You did not see them take accountability for their end results…instead of shoving the necessary work off to someone else and leaving the life they said they wanted to chance. Did you see them learn how to compromise with another person while still maintaining healthy boundaries? Did you see them get to the point where they created a life they loved even if they didn’t have someone by their side? Did you see them get to the point where dating became another fun activity integrated into the rest of their already full life? Did you see them get to the point where they did not put so much pressure on a first date…where they could go have a good time and not be so tied to an end result because they understood there are no guarantees? Did you see them get to the point where they were in control of their time, who they allowed into their life, and they controlled how much access people had to them? Did you see their confidence grow?
I’m not talking about the people who married right out of high school and had no dating experience (no disrespect). I’m talking about happy couples where both adults dated individuals, understood enough about themselves and what they wanted and made a mutually beneficial decision to marry. Even though when you ask a couple how they met, many (usually wives) will quickly tell you some variation of “God brought us together”, it wasn’t that simple (but if you’re reading this, I think you already know that). They left out the entire story a few details. Perhaps they’ll tell you “the work” part over dinner.
For those of you who have dated and haven’t seemed to find that suitable mate yet…that’s ok. It’s normal to not end up with the first person you’ve ever dated. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you or the person you were seeing found out some data during the pre-dating OR dating stage and decided not to move any further at this time…and that’s ok. If you received any constructive feedback, that’s ok, too. Don’t stay stuck! Think about what you learned from the situation while continuing to meet more people. Move forward with your goal. The road to success with any goal is filled with “failures” which are really just lessons learned along the way. Rejection is simply redirection and just a part of the process.
