Hollywood movies teach us that the point of dating is to find your soulmate. If you do it right, it’s amazing and romantic and you fall in love and live happily ever after.

No.

Most of the dating relationships you have aren’t going to last very long, and that is a good thing. The point of dating, especially when you’re young, is not to find the person you’re going to marry. The point of dating is to identify the qualities that you do want, and that you don’t want, in the person who you will eventually marry.

Pretty much anyone you choose to date is going to seem great at the beginning. But as you get to know them better, you find out things about them that don’t work for being in a relationship with you. This is a good thing. How else can you expect to eventually have a healthy, long-lasting relationship if you don’t learn what matters to you from the short relationships?

So, the next time you need to break up with someone, or someone breaks up with you, think about what you can learn from that experience. Think about what you can learn about yourself, and what you can learn about what you do want, and don’t want, from future relationships.

Every dating relationship is a great learning experience, if you let it be.

You have some standards in relationships.  You have things that you prefer, and you have deal-breakers.  So what happens when the other person’s standards are in conflict with yours?

Let’s say you can’t stand Suzy.  She talks about people behind their backs, she’s negative all the time, she’s critical of everyone.  You and Suzy have a mutual friend who really likes Suzy and wants to hang out with her all the time.  You tell your friend that if Suzy is part of the package, you’re not interested.  She tells you that if Suzy can’t be part of the package, then she’s not interested.

Who’s right?  Who’s wrong?  You’re right.  So is your friend.  You are allowed to set the rules for the relationships in your life.  So is everyone else.  Sometimes those rules will run up against each other.  That doesn’t make either of you wrong, but it does mean that you probably won’t be friends any more.  That’s why I wrote the post about how all relationships change, and most of them end.

Although our society might tell you otherwise, it is actually possible for two people to have completely different ideas, and both of them are right.  You can choose to respect your friend’s rules for the relationship, even if that means the end of it.  No one has to conform to your rules, but you are allowed to stick by them for yourself.

Sometimes you hear someone say something wrong, and you are tempted to correct them.  Do you correct them, or do you let it go?

People make mistakes all the time.  We state facts wrong.  We mispronounce words.  We remember something differently than someone else does.

Before you correct someone else, ask yourself whether or not the mistake matters.  Chances are, it’s so trivial that it doesn’t matter at all.  So, what exactly is the point of correcting them?  For a moment, it makes you feel better about yourself because you were right and they were wrong.  Is that brief moment of superiority worth it?

The next time someone says something wrong, before you correct them, stop and think about whether or not it matters.  Chances are, it doesn’t matter at all.  Just smile and let it go.

Sometimes you’re working on being emotionally healthy, and having healthy relationships, but it just won’t work out.  It might be time to evaluate whether the person you’re dealing with is healthy.

Why?  Because you can’t have a healthy relationship with an unhealthy person.  No matter how hard you try, you can’t overcome another person’s issues.  Either you meet them where they are, or you end the relationship.  What you don’t want to do is hope the other person will change, and start being emotionally healthy.  They are who they are.

It’s very easy to put a label on someone, but is it the right thing to do?  The problem with labeling is that by reducing someone to a single word or phrase, you are overlooking everything else about them as a person.

Is there any single word that can really be used to describe you?  Man, woman, gay, straight, outgoing, shy, athletic, intellectual, thin, fat.  Any of those might apply, but what about everything else?  How can any of us be reduced to a single description?  We’re all far too complex for that kind of simplification.

And it’s even worse than that, because so many descriptions of a person are subjective.  Fat or thin compared to what?  Outgoing or shy compared to whom?  Now you’re not only over-simplifying someone, you’re doing in based on your own opinions of what defines a person’s qualities.

The next time you feel tempted to assign a label to a person, stop and think about who they really are as a person, and whether that label can actually define them.  What are you missing?  Would you want that person to try to define you with a label?

We are all complex, and we should respect that about each other.