How You Know If It's Really Love - True Love Is Easy To Spot

I believe that in relationships, there is true love if, and only if, over the course of the relationship, there is progression on the part of both people. Something should come out of partnership, and a relationship is not any different.

Why Do I Like The One I KNOW I Shouldn't??

I had a conversation with a good friend the other day, and we were both trying to decide what it is that makes us attracted to those situations we know logically we’re better off being out of. Like, Why we love that ex-boyfriend we know just aint no good… Or why we tend to get more excited about the “bad guys” over the good, respectful, “safe” ones. It seems like we get bored with guys who treat us right, call consistently, don’t break our trust, tell us the truth about everything – all the things the “safe” guys do without any hard work, sweat, and tears on our part. But then, we fuss and fight with the bad guys for not doing those EXACT things! 

What makes us stick around and try to fix something, when we could just move on and find something that comes already established. We even had examples of our friends who got into something good and still looked back at a past, broken relationship and felt a twinge of nostalgia.

I brought up some reasons that were both funny and actually seemed to make some sense [these things apply to guys, girls, heterosexual relationships, and homosexual too. I’ve talked to plenty guys involved with girls they know aren’t good for them, and they can’t seem to figure out why. And my gay friends too, just can’t figure out why they keep being drawn to someone who can’t give them what they deserve]:

The Party Life - Threatening a Good Relationship

I have a friend from back in school who recently came to me about a very serious matter. Because it’s such a sensitive issue and my friend is a very private person, I’m going to give very little detail about the situation – leaving out any specifics that may be identifying. But I will say exactly what I told him because his situation and the conversation we had around it really touched me. I thought it would be perfect to share here because it may help someone else and I’d be able to get feedback from other people.

He came to me because he was having some issues with infidelity. He’s generally a quiet guy, but because of the industry he’s in (whether it be entertainment, athlete, etc), he’s being put in more and more situations where he’s having to put on this façade for the outside world and be this “party guy.” He said he’s not used to all the attention he’s been getting, and he’s starting to feel the pressure of having to juggle everything. With all this newfound popularity and living this party lifestyle comes GIRLS. And that’s where the biggest problem lies. Before he wasn’t in the public eye as much, him & his girlfriend only had regular/everyday issues – now they’re dealing with the cheating stuff over and over.

Even to this day, from the outside looking in my friend & his girlfriend have a really great relationship. They’ve been together since before all the popularity, etc, and he’s a great boyfriend to her. If his professional goals call for him to go out, he takes her with him. Everyone who knows him, knows his girlfriend, and envy the closeness they have. There is no doubt he loves her & she loves him. Everything is great at home, so why does he keep messing up? How does he get a handle on things and stop before he really loses a great girl?

A debate on putting yourself out there when you're not sure if they have feelings, too

I spent my lunch hour the other day at work on the phone with 2 of my friends talking about a problem one of them was having - and debating with the other over what she should do.
My friend has been on again-off again talking (dating, but with no real commitment) to this guy for about a year now. She has recently come to the conclusion that she has feelings for him, but isn't quite sure what to do. For the most part - from what I can tell, and what she has told me - they are mostly involved physically. Anytime any serious conversations come up - like trying to define their situation (what are we to each other?) - he is not responsive, and they usually take a break from talking to each other for a while.
My stance is a great big HELL NO. My other friend (who was the other party on this three-way call) thought she should lay her feelings out & see what happens. We wound up debating back & forth for a while - and I thought it would be interesting to see what other people thought of it. What should my friend do, what would other people do in her place, and if possible, what do GUYS think is the way to go?
I'll present our arguments here (we literally went back and forth like a prosecution-defense, trying to get her to pick our sides lol) & you guys can tell me what you think she will do.

Messing with someone you know you shouldn’t be involved with…Part 1 of 1,000,000

[Ok, I couldn’t possibly do 1,000,000 posts on this topic, but it is something that probably deserves 1,000,000 discussions]

Deep down inside, you know you shouldn’t be texting that person. You shouldn’t be on your way to their house tonight – or even entertaining their foolishness. But, you are. [We’ll tackle getting OUT of it in a future post, but for now let’s take it from where some people may be at with their situation]

Until you get to a place where you are able to stop, at least do yourself a few favors in the meantime:

- Realize when you are being disrespected

- Stop yourself when you notice you’re doing things that aren’t even “you”

- MOST IMPORTANTLY, be Honest with yourself

Don’t kid yourself. Yes, he just walked straight by you in the club without even a side glance. No, he didn’t get into a car accident this morning and suffer a bizarre head injury that caused him to forget you guys slept together the night before. Watched a movie, too. And ate breakfast off each other’s plate this morning and everything.

JUMPING THE GUN – Torturing yourself emotionally, when you probably didn’t even need to

*as always, this stuff is universal! This applies to guys AND girls, as well as same-sex relationships*

Jumping the gun is an idiom; its literal definition is: to start before the starting signal, to do something too soon, especially without thinking carefully about it. It comes from track races, and refers to people who take off before the gun shot signifies the actual start of the race. 

This comes up a lot in my conversations with people, and I’ll explain what I mean by Jumping the Gun in the relationship/dating world – You get involved with somebody (usually sexually) and then all of a sudden you like them….a whole lot. You’re getting your feelings hurt over unanswered phone calls, unresponded texts, Tweets, facebook chats, whatever – and it’s only been a few weeks. And for the most part, all you guys have done is surface-level things: you’ve hung out, partied, had sex (although sex isn’t exactly surface-level, for the sake of this argument, I’ll say casual sex with someone you barely know isn’t deep at all).

A GREAT example of what I’m talking about comes from my best friend :) She’s gonna physically harm me for putting this one, but it just fits TOO perfectly! I’ll apologize later. Plus, we have a long distance friendship right now, so she poses no real threat at the moment lol.

 Okay, so my BFF has sex with a guy, who before was just an acquaintance/somewhat friend to her. I tried to stop her because she has virtually NO EXPERIENCE with guys/relationships (nothing big anyway), and I knew her crazy ass would go nutty trying to handle sex with no strings attached or prior commitment. BUT, she said it wasn’t that big of a deal & she understood what she was getting herself into.

Fast forward a few weeks & OF COURSE now she swears she likes him. Now she’s all upset and doesn’t understand why he didn’t catch feelings (or develop the same emotional attachment that she had).