Dating Advice: How to Find The One by Being The One
- Lisa Shouldice
- Mar 12
- 7 min read
The dating world is so focused on finding The One, Our Person, Soulmate etc. I notice it when I watch pop culture dating shows, such as Queer Love or Love is Blind. The way people speak about love is all about what they need and want from another person.
What about what you bring to a relationship, offer another person?
What about working on what you offer while you also date?
Focusing on your work can prepare you, so you recognize that person when they do show up. Can that be just as important?
How can you Be The One for another person? Your person?
Dating Advice: The Power of Doing Your Inner Work
It can really help shape a healthy connection when we take the time to do our healing and build self-insight.
There are many ways to do this, from therapy to reading books, taking courses. We can join a mental health support group and even talk to friends on the same path to self-insight and wellness.
Reflect on and explore what was modeled to you growing up.
Were your parents together?
Were they together and fought continuously?
Did one parent yell and the other withdraw, disappearing?
Did they seem happy and you simply did not view conflict, did they maybe avoid conflict altogether?
These reflections and gained self-insight can help you formulate what you need from a partner, Ex. I need a peaceful home with healthy conflict. Otherwise you may find you shutdown and/or feel unsafe, spiraling into repeating the very patterns you want to avoid for both yourself and your potential partner.
What is your pitfall when under stress?
Do you withdraw in times of stress?
Do you get irritable and pick fights to release tension? Trying to connect in all of the seemingly wrong ways?
Do you get defensive and feel attacked by a partner?
Doing your healing work and gaining personal insight can help you identify a particular point of sensitivity or a “breaker” that you know is just too triggering for you. Ex. A person who uses alcohol to relax as you had an alcoholic parent that got angry and mean when intoxicated. You may find you have extreme fear about a partner being unfaithful so a social, flirtatious partner results in constant triggering for you.
Doing this work can also result in having some awareness of a personal insecurity that can surface for you. You may find you feel really insecure if your partner makes more money than you do, feeling you should take care of your family in this way. You may feel a lot of body consciousness issues and struggle to feel wanted and desired.
Having this self-insight can guide you to the right person for you. It can also support communication with them as you learn each other and connect, such a vulnerable time.
Additionally, it can support noting that when you choose a dating partner they are triggering in the exact way you tell yourself you need to avoid to be healthy. Sometimes it can feel that this just happens, creating a depressing inevitability.
Check out my 2 minute video on Compulsion to Repeat.
Dating Advice: Emotional Intelligence
Do you feel you are emotionally intelligent?
Do you know how to respond to a struggling, grieving or hurt person?
Are you able to put your own feelings and stressors aside to do so?
Or do you sacrifice your own feelings and needs too often, then resent a partner as you get little emotional space?
Emotional Intelligence or EQ is more than self-insight. It is also feeling healed and whole so there is flexibility in how you see others and show up for them, intuiting their needs.
Take the EQ quiz.
Read the Book
Reflect on how you view your role in a romantic relationship. What is it you feel it is your job to bring to them?
What is the purpose of partnering?
This will influence your motivations throughout your relationship.
Do you identify as an Empath? Do you feel intensely the feelings of others as they tell you a difficult story of theirs? Does it seem impossible to not feel it with them and carry it, affecting you for awhile? Do you feel you have any control over this empathic mirroring? Do you have internal boundaries, the ability to avoid taking on another’s feelings? Or do you simply distance yourself from a lot of people that seem to emotionally need you?
These are all things we need to learn skills to manage in order to be an emotionally responsive partner.
Dating Advice: Attachment Styles
Have you heard of the idea of Attachment Styles? This was introduced by John Bowlby but has been popularized and made more accessible to the general population in recent years.
Determining what your Attachment Style is can help understand both yourself and your motivations in romantic relationships, as well be a communication tool in emerging/new relationships.
There are 4 identified and researched Attachment styles:
Anxious-fearful or Preoccupied-feeling vulnerable in connection and afraid of losing the other. Parent may been consistently hard to be close to, felt unsafe.
Anxious-avoidant or Ambivalent/Disorganized-feeling preoccupied about the relationship, craving closeness and finding this so uncomfortable you then detach emotionally or physically, resulting in a push-pull dynamic where sometimes you show up optimally and sometimes completely disconnect. This often happens when your parent vacillated between being unsafe/scary and then comforting, so inconsistent. Ex. My mother was an addict, but also my best friend.
Dismissive-Avoidant-often really connect in the beginning and then get scared and disconnect as being close to people feels triggering and unsafe. You have been taught being close to others is unsafe.
Healthy/Secure-trust people are there for you, loving and have high vulnerability tolerance in closeness. Your parents were likely consistently loving and met your needs.
Do you recognize yourself here?
Do you find yourself attracted to a particular Attachment Style in others? Always seem to date people who are emotionally unavailable to you when you need them the most?
This can also be related to how we were loved in our formative years. This can be problematic if we were not parented in a healthy way.
It begins with awareness to make new choices and communicate but can also be healed, learning healthier ways to connect and trust others.
Dating Advice: Love Languages
Have you heard of Love Languages?
This refers to how you love as well as how you want to be loved by another person. They may be the same or different.
The 5 Languages are:
Gifts-thinking of your partner while up and about, seeing a fav pastry and getting it for them to show you are thinking of them, to make them smile. Do you love when your partner brings you a thoughtful gift, remembering something you mentioned wanting?
Physical Touch- feeling connected to another person through sex and affection, hand-holding. Does it give you a warm feeling when your partner rubs your shoulder after picking up that you are stressed? Or is it natural for you to hug and cuddle your partner after a hard day?
Words of Affirmation- using words to express appreciation and love. Or, conversely wanting to hear thank you, I love you, etc. Do long talks with you partner connect you?
Quality Time- spending time with your person leads to feeling soothed and optimally connected. A fav date night to relax together feels perfect.
Acts of Service- going out of your way to do things to make your partner’s life easier Ex. Fix the car, do yard work, make a great meal. Do you wish your partner did more of this to support you, so you could feel more loved and connected? Help load the dishwasher, etc.
Do you see yourself here? Your new dating partner? Take the quiz together, for fun and to facilitate getting to know each other and learn how to communicate about needs.
Dating Advice: Sexual compatibility
Are sexual compatibility needs important for you? Is chemistry a necessity or just a “nice to have”? Are you afraid of ending up in a relationship in which sex stops happening?
In Queer relationships there can be very concrete pieces that feel important Ex. You are a gay man and identify as a “Bottom” and only partner successfully with “ Tops” as a result.
If you identify as lesbian, how do you define sex? What do you see as the most intimate act(s)?
Are you into kinky sex and have needs here that you want to bring up and make a part of a satisfying sex life?
Are you polyamorous and need a partner open to this in your lives together?
You may have health issues that impact sex and what you can do and offer another. This may include a sexual abuse history, Vaginismus, a contraction of the Herpes virus, etc. These are hard things, but if you have chronic pain, this will impact your sex life. It is likely on your mind as you date and search for a more permanent partnership.
Dating Advice: Communication
You may find it helpful to reflect on how you communicate naturally and/or when under stress. You can also decide you wish to take a course or read a book on healthy conflict resolution.
Do you withdraw when a partner brings up hard things?
Do you feel criticized and “shrink”?
Do you feel you emotionally shut down when called out on your behaviour?
When you feel scared do you yell at your partner? Tell them how they did not show up, struggle with letting things go?
Do you simply avoid conflict? Tell yourself it is fine, practice denial and go out with a friend?
What do you need in partnership to have hard conversations, feel safe and make healthier choices?
Is there an emotion that shuts you down? Is anger seemingly impossible to be in the in same
room with?
Dating Advice: Values
Are there beliefs/values absolutely paramount as you date and open yourself up to the potential for long-term connection?
You may feel you need a person of the same religion in order to raise your children in line with your values.
Do you want children and this is super important? Are you not open to bringing children into the world? Is it important to adopt?
You may think of you and your partner as “us against the world” and feel friends and extended family are an intrusion.
How do you view marriage? Are you a traditionalist? Do you want to break misogynistic patterns and do things differently? Does marriage feel entrapping or unnecessary?
Knowing these things about yourself and related needs can be an important first step in searching for and communicating in the world of dating.
Conclusion:
I hope you have found this provocative, maybe even helpful. Feel free to check out our clinic blog page. There are many blogs there that expand on some of the ideas here.
Lisa S.
