You're Single Until You're Engaged: Dating and Life Lessons I Wish I Had Known Earlier

Speaker A: 00:00:04

Do you prefer meeting partners online or in real life? Welcome to the third episode of All About Being Single. I'm Wioleta, your host and I'm very happy that you're here.

So last episode I shared that romantic relationships are really the only way to learn how to be in a romantic relationship. Like we don't get to learn the deal breakers that we have.

Like no amount of self reflection really or content that you know, you listen to or you read can really teach you how to be in a romantic relationship and the stuff that you really need to do in a romantic relationship because those relationships are different than the other relationships in our lives.

So today I'm going to be sharing more things that I've learned about myself, the world, about relationships, about dating, about men, about women through dating and relationships.

Okay, so the first thing, just because somebody tells you that they want something like a boyfriend or a girlfriend, kids to get married, doesn't mean that they actually do or that they want it with you, right? So we really got to pay attention to like their actions and their patterns, not their words only.

Sure, you obviously should take them for their word in the very beginning.

But then see over time if those actions that they have the way that they're acting, if that's actually matching up those words and know your timelines too, know your deal breakers so that if they're not providing that to you, you can just walk away because you know what you deserve. You know, I keep saying that I want to marry for money because love has hurt me so much.

But at the end of the day, there's no way I'm touching some old dude just for money. Unless I become an alcoholic drink all the time. So I mean, I guess a girl can dream.

But seriously, a lot of times the words people use and their actual actions don't align. Sometimes people prefer to be a better version of themselves, honestly.

Like they want to make it look like they want to get married or they want to make it look like they are great in relationships. But again, until they show you that that's what they really want, that's all just words.

So many people are emotionally unavailable and will honestly run at the first sign of commitment. You know, they have so much trauma they haven't healed.

Many don't even know that, that they have all this trauma because they're so self unaware, honestly. So there's no way they're going to work on that.

There's no way they're going to be able to actually give you what you want if they're Non committal, honestly. A lot of times they will even blame you for their shortcomings and for the fact that they haven't healed that.

The fact that they are unable to commit, the fact that they are unable to give people what they say they're going to give people. So be careful out there. So many men waste so many women's times.

Like there's been so many women that I know of, and I've been there too myself, where the guy literally just keeps dating them and never proposes and just keeps dangling care in front of them. And again, we have to have our own timelines. We have to have our deal breakers.

We have to know when to walk away from something that's not serving us anymore. Okay, Another one is it doesn't matter if someone is hurting you because they've been through trauma. We've all been through some trauma as adults.

A lot of us in childhood, a lot of people don't even know that they've actually gone through trauma and they don't realize it till it's, you know, I don't want to say too late, but a lot of times when they're older and maybe too set in their ways or they just don't want to even deal with it at that point. But basically what I'm trying to say is don't have so much compassion for somebody else.

And the stories that they've told you, the stuff that's happened to them, that you have so much compassion for them that you don't have enough compassion for yourself to leave them because you're just feeling bad for them and you feel guilty for leaving them. The only people that can change ourselves is ourselves.

When we're too tired of our own bullshit, basically too tired of living a certain way ourselves. And it's never served anybody to stay in a toxic or abusive relationship just because they tell, you know, a sad story.

If they work out their issues, yeah, you can think about getting back with them or being with them.

But don't think that just because somebody has a sad story that they tell you that that gives them a reason to abuse you or to be toxic to you or to not be a good person to you, they still need to look at their actions and they're still in control of only their actions. That's the only thing we're ever in control of, is our own thoughts and in our own actions. Okay?

Another one is do not negotiate on your deal breakers. Figure out what those are and write them down, you know, just because they're a nice guy.

In a bunch of other ways doesn't mean that if they don't align with your deal breakers, you can stay with them. And it will be, and it will be a happy ever ending. It won't be again. Deal breakers are deal breakers for a reason.

You know, something could be a deal breaker if it erodes your piece, you know, so if it causes stress, confusion, self doubt, honestly, a lot of times for some of us, a deal breaker could be something that's, that might just be annoying to some other people. But you know, you cannot live with it day in, day out.

A deal breaker could be a deal breaker if you've compromised on something before and you've regretted it. You know, so maybe so basically something that leads to burnout or resentment for you or heartbreak in a relationship.

Could be finances, maybe it could be commitment timelines. A deal breaker is when something clashes with your values or your needs or your vision for life.

So it could be a lifestyle that somebody leads, it could be their ambition, could be family and gender roles that they believe in and they abide by. Could be religion, could be finances. Another deal breaker could be something that keeps you from showing up as your best self.

So something that makes you shrink and silence yourself or abandon your boundaries. Anytime we abandon our own needs, that's definitely a huge red flag.

Okay, my next one is always have your own hobbies, your own source of income and spend some time alone.

And what I mean by this too is if all your hobbies involve just hanging out with other people and doing stuff with other people, I mean, that's great. Their hobbies, if it's something you enjoy, that's amazing.

But also try to have at least one thing that's just you, just so that you are able to reflect on your life. Because that's very important for us to constantly be checking in with ourselves.

But so what I mean by that is when you're in a relationship, keep doing the things that make you happy. Don't just only start doing couple stuff.

Don't abandon your own time and don't abandon your hobbies just because now you have somebody there with you. Same with financial issues. A lot of times people can abuse you financially if you don't have money. So always also have a job.

Always have some kind of at least a source of income for yourself. It doesn't have to be a full time job, it can be a part time job.

But always know that you always want to be in a position where you can leave somebody if they're mistreating you.

And Having your own money, continuing on, living some sort of your individual life by having your own hobbies that allows you to leave if they're not treating you right. You want to stay with somebody because you choose to stay with them, not because you have to ever. Not because you can't afford your own life.

And this is coming from somebody who hates the fact that all of my bills fall on me, the fact that I have to have a job even though I really enjoy my 9 to 5. I love my job, honestly, but sometimes it'd be nice not to have a job and just do the things that I want to do all the time.

But I would still never not have my own source of income, even if I get married. Okay, the next one is, you are single till you are engaged. Yes. I repeat, single till you're engaged.

I never believed people when I was in my twenties who were constantly like, oh, you're single till you're married.

And I just never really understood that until that was bullshit because I believed in being monogamous and making sure that I only talked to one guy, always at a time. I would never do that shit again.

What I'm trying to say is until somebody actually proves that they are committed to you by putting a ring on it, and they're not committed, yeah, you can say, oh, that's my boyfriend, that's my girlfriend. You can even live with somebody, but they're. They're not fully there till they have committed to you.

And committing to you means putting a ring on it. And this might not apply to you if you're in your early 20s, but anything past 25, when your brain really is maturing a lot more after that.

If you're dating somebody who's also 25 and up, as at that point you should be, if they're not putting a ring on it, they're not that serious about you, so you should not be that serious about them. Also, your dating period should not extend past a year, year and a half tops.

Once you're 25 and over at that point, again, people are playing with you. People know when you're their person. A man especially will always know, hey, this is my person. I want to put a ring on it.

And they will if they're serious about you and you don't have to get married right away.

But until there's a ring on your finger, until there's an actual promise of true commitment, again, just being boyfriend girlfriend doesn't mean shit. You're single. Date as many people as you want to. I'm not saying.

I'm not advocating that you should be sleeping with as many people as you want to, but until they have proven to you and they're not just writing out, and they're not just dating you for five years and never putting a ring on it, they're just messing with you. Okay, Number seven, being the cool girlfriend, low maintenance will only give you more trauma that you're gonna have to deal with later on.

You won't be respected by your partner. You will keep abandoning your wants and your needs, and you're gonna get into a loop with that.

So the more you abandon your wants and your needs, the more you're going against your own body, your own intuition, the less you trust yourself. And I know we talked about the last episod. The only way to have a healthy relationship is by upholding your boundaries.

Which also means that you need to know your boundaries are. So definitely take a look within yourself, figure out what your boundaries are as time goes on. Because obviously our boundaries change all the time.

We get nuance. But definitely leave people when they disrespect your boundaries.

Sure, you can talk about some of it, and it depends on what exactly they did, but definitely keep upholding your boundaries. Definitely keep communicating.

And if people keep stomping all over you and your needs and they don't care about you, that means they're not your person. And that leads me to the next one. Number eight. Number eight is one of my favorite.

Numbers two and eight don't stay with someone because of their potential. We all have potential. We all have potential to get a better job. We all have potential to get more fit.

We all have potential to basically be better than we are today all of the time. We all have potential. I have the potential to read more books, and I would love to read more books. I enjoy reading books.

Does that mean I'm gonna do it? Sometimes some of the times in my life, I do.

When I really put myself to it, when I really am enjoying the books that I'm reading, when I am constantly looking for newer books to read, when I set the time aside to read. But honestly, the last few years, I have not read as much as I have been wanting to. It just shows you we all have potential to improve.

You need to put so much effort into improving, even the things that you enjoy doing. A lot of times we need to put forth the effort into doing.

And so unless somebody wants to improve by themselves for their own reasons, that it's just potential. And again, we all have potential. Doesn't Mean, we're going to act on it.

Don't stay with people because of their potential, because you're seeing how they could be better. All of us can always be better at something, at everything. We're a constant piece of art and work.

And I used to fall in love with people's potential all the time. I dated people who I didn't fully, truly see for who they were, and I just dated their potential.

And I constantly kept being, oh, they're gonna get better at, you know, not hanging out with their friends as much and wanting to spend more time with me. Oh, they're not working towards us getting a place of our own. They're gonna get there at some point. And it was just a constant.

Every single one of my relationships, I dated people who I saw who they were, but I constantly kept believing that they were gonna keep improving because they had potential, because I believed in them. I believed that they could do better, and so I thought that they would do better at some point.

I was so focused on trying to, in a way, fix them and believe in their potential and believe that they were going to be better, that I spent all the time and energy believing that, thinking that and wanting that, versus not realizing that I wasn't living up to my potential, that there were so many things that I could be improving on that I wasn't because I was so focused on them instead of improving on myself and therefore also not leaving those people because I. It wasn't working on myself. That's really what it was.

Okay, Men need to be the ones, at least in a heterosexual relationship, that are moving the dating process along. In the beginning, the way that a relationship starts is the way that the relationship is going to keep going.

By the way my stomach is rumbling, it's like, okay, the way you started this podcast is the way it's going to keep going, meaning hungry. But, yeah, men need to be the pursuers in the beginning because that does set the stage for how the relationship will keep going.

Women are the gatekeepers of sex. Women are the ones who kind of set the stage and the timing of when hap.

At least sex happens in the beginning, but men are the gatekeepers of actual commitment. Most women want to be in a committed relationship. It's very rare that a woman doesn't want to be in a committed relationship.

So if a man isn't wanting commitment, he won't commit to you. And yes, women, you know, at the very beginning can, like, drop the handkerchief, right? So women can smile at a guy a couple of times.

Women can even start the conversation. I'm not saying that's necessarily wrong. You know, a woman can just, you know, drop a hint here or there.

A woman can be like, hey, what are you drinking? Or, you know, whatever way you want to start a conversation at the bar, at a restaurant, or, you know, even just being out and about to, that's fine.

But then during that conversation, the man needs to be the one to ask you out so that you know that he's actually interested. He's not just bored or lonely. And a lot of times men will just date women because they're bored or lonely, and that's not a man you want to be with.

Because if you do keep propelling the relationship forward all the time, you won't know if they want to be with you or if they're just enjoying you for the time being. Okay, my next one is. Some parts of dating can be fun, but dating in today's world is, for the most part, unfortunately not fun.

Dating is very difficult and expends a lot of energy to text, to make plans, to get ready, to put makeup on, to get a new outfit, to get ghosted, to hope that the next date will be better than the last one, to stay emotionally open, to process what happened on the date, to get disappointed after dates, especially if you know none of the people are really sparking your interest.

Also, if you're dating multiple people, which you should be, since you're single till you're engaged, at least you'll get less disappointed if you're dating multiple people. If some of them keep falling off or they ghost you or they start being a jerk because you've always got other options. Okay, the next one.

And this is actually also a hill I'll die on. There's no such thing as bad communication in the right relationship. Bad communication means it's just the wrong relationship for you.

I believe that the right person for you will communicate with you because they will truly want to be with you, and they will not be able to imagine life without you. And they will want to communicate because they will want to keep you.

Just like you will also want to communicate with them because you will want to keep them and keep being with them, and you will feel safe with them. So you'll also want to communicate because they will feel like a safe space where you can communicate about any fears you have about any.

Anything you want to communicate with that person.

If you have any lessons that you have learned while being in relationships or dating that you would like to mention, please send them over to me, go to allaboutbeingsingle.com and I'll drop that link. Wherever you're listening to this as well, so you can just click on it in the show notes.

Leave me a voicemail so I can include it in the next episode. Also, if you are enjoying this episode, please go and rate and review and follow me wherever you're listening.

I know Spotify doesn't allow for actual reviews, but you can still rate the show, which I would appreciate.

Okay, so our note to sell for today is since we talked about deal breakers earlier in today's episode, what I'd like for you guys to think about and just take a minute or two, just items that are deal breakers for you and maybe just come up with one today.

And know somebody not being, you know, six feet, unless you're six feet and above yourself or, you know, she has to have big boobs, that's not an actual relationship ending, non negotiable thing.

So think about things you've learned, you know, probably the hard way that you cannot live with or cannot live without and really wouldn't feel safe and secure and loved in a relationship without, you know, no matter how hot, desired or charming somebody is. And we've all been there where somebody's hotness has made us keep dating them.

And I'm gonna go ahead and dance with trouble if I can find him, I don't know where he's at in the house right now, and then we'll come back. That's our little break.

Or if you want to, if you don't want to think about that deal breaker, you want to do that later, maybe get up and dance with us. I do truly believe that everybody should dance every day. It Sam. Okay, we're back.

So my deal breaker is somebody who does not want to get married at all.

And I know we talked about how sometimes people can tell you they do or they don't, but again, their actions will prove to you if they do or they don't. So on top of that, I do have a timeline.

I know exactly by what point if they haven't proposed, and obviously this is something we have discussed before. But if they haven't proposed by that timeline that I have, then I also know that they're just talking. They're not even.

It's not actually something they want. They were just saying that to keep dating me, to keep getting access to me. If you feel brave, please send me your deal breakers.

Go to allaboutbeingsingle.com and you can Just click the voice memoir button there and you can leave me your deal breakers there. Or if you feel like, if you'd rather just, you know, write it to me, you can email to me at all about being single gmail dot com.

I would love to feature you guys on the next episode just because we can all learn from each other's deal breakers.

Sometimes there's stuff that we don't think should be a deal breaker that we realize, hey, that's actually something that I don't think I could live without or live with in a relationship. And to answer today's question, I personally prefer meeting men in person.

I did go on three dates this year with people from dating apps because I told myself this is going to be the last year of me being on the dating apps. And I got like a bunch of different dating apps, which probably we'll talk about a different episode.

But I went on three dates and for each one of them, the vibe was just so off. Like, it's so hard to tell what somebody's personality is going to be like just by chatting with them on a dating app.

Like, you don't know what their mannerisms are going to be like, you don't know how they're going to act in person. You don't know their voice, obviously. You know what they smell like. A lot of times people lie.

There's just too many unknowns if you meet somebody online. So I do not believe that the dating apps are a great way to meet people. And I know some people have met via the dating apps and that's great.

But I just think there's something special about meeting somebody in person and really getting that feeling and just getting excited about somebody and just, there's just something about seeing somebody out and about and seeing how they carry themselves and you can, you know, kind of tell even their confidence levels and their voice.

There's something about, there's something hot about, you know, hearing somebody's voice that you think is hot and it makes you excited about seeing them again and makes you excited about actually going on a date. Whereas it almost feels like so transactional and so unexciting to meet somebody in a dating app.

Yeah, it's just, there's, I don't know, I think you can just tell more if you're going to be attracted to somebody or not. Because again, when you meet in person, you're already attracted to them in some kind of a way. You're already allured by them in some kind of a way.

And so I think a Lot of times when I've met men from the dating apps, I was just so let down. Even if, or actually especially if the conversations were great online.

So next episode we will talk more about the dating, the current dating climate and I'm definitely excited about that episode. Okay. The no like to stand on when coupled up friends romanticize deep dating. It is wild.

Like when they say they miss dating and it's like, no, you just miss being in your 20s.

Honestly, you miss somebody thinking that you're hot cuz you were in your 20s or somebody giving you attention because they wanted to get laid and you don't remember the fact that that's all they wanted and you went on a couple of dates or not even on an actual date and nothing else came of it. But a lot of times these coupled up people, they like almost they have amnesia about what happens when you're single.

And a lot of them, especially if they've been coupled up for a long time, they truly just don't remember at all what it's like. They only remember the good.

For some reason it's wild like how they just remember the good parts about it and not the fact that they cried every time somebody wouldn't text them back for hours, but you just miss the fact that somebody thought you were hot just to get in your pants. Like you miss the idea of the novelty of a relationship probably, but a relationship that actually went someplace, not the relationships that didn't.

And that's what a lot of us perpetually single people are going through. Or people just in general who have been dating for a long time.

Even if people are getting in and out of relationships, it's like, yeah, we, we actually remember all the bad stuff about it, all the ghosting, all the people that we're not interested in that are interested in us, all the people that we're interested in that aren't interested in us. Like we know what dating is actually like. And we have more of a rounded 360 view of it.

Because let's face it, most of dating is just going on dates that go nowhere and people just ghosting you and not being attracted to somebody and them not being attracted to you or them just wanting to sleep with you and pretending they want a relationship. That's what dating is like. It's not actually being in a good, healthy relationship. It's all the stuff that happens before getting into one.

So especially if you're past 25 years old, dating is not just going out and meeting people. It's managing your hope and Your self esteem when people constantly don't aren't interested in you.

It's managing your time and your boundaries and giving up time with friends to be able to go out and date and find the time, or giving up dating time to see your friends. It's just draining.

Meeting strangers and you know, the safety concerns that people have to worry about especially, well, more so women, you know, getting excited to go on a date but then getting let down once you're on the date. You know when a dude who said he's 59 so you're like, okay, he's just a little bit taller than me, perfect.

And then you get there and he's wearing heels that are taller than yours and he's still shorter than you. That's what dating is like. Okay, now onto the very favorite part of this episode or any episode is the weekly glow up.

Because I do believe that us singles, we go through so much bad stuff and it's so hard being single sometimes that at least we deserve to glow up and keep getting better. So what I recommend for this week so you can start tomorrow is during your morning routine, train your brain to just notice beauty.

There's so much beauty in this world.

So while you're on your walk or you're sipping coffee or just even just brushing your teeth, pause to intentionally notice and name one thing that's beautiful that you can find. And it could just be the way the light hits the floor or the smell of the coffee or the smell of your toast.

And I just think that enhances your mindfulness. It's easy to do, you know, it doesn't take much time or energy and I think that it grounds you in that moment.

So again, it helps you to be more grounded, especially in the morning when I think it sets the tone for the day and it can rewire your brain for more gratitude, really, for more awe, for shifting away from judgment. And I am so bad with judging so many things.

Like I tend to do more judging and spotting flaws in myself, others, you know, other people and even the surroundings. So I'm also just trying to really see more beauty and be more positive in my life. It's not like I do this all the time.

These are some things that I also need to work on myself that I think that I know I've tried before that have made my life better, that I am working to just improving the mood and setting the mood for the day and just again, looking for the beauty in everyday life. I think it's worth it. I think it's worth it. And I think you're worth it. And I'm worth it.

To find the beauty and just to get more daily joy in our lives. And before I let you go, I just want you to know that even if you're late, you're right on time. This is your space, your era, your community.

Thanks for listening. And you'll hear from me next Tuesday, Sam.