Be Yourself

The only advice I can give to people when they are dating that I think is universal is to just be yourself.  Every other piece of advice I could give may work for you, or it may not.  Everyone is different and we all have to find our own way in life.  We each make our own mistakes and hopefully we learn from them.  That takes longer than it should for some of us, and in some cases we never learn - that's all part of life.  However, the advice to be yourself I think is universal, and it is often something we feel reluctant to accept, because we think we're not normal. 

"That works for other people but it wouldn't work for me" - we repeat this to ourselves until we believe it is true.  We convince ourselves that there's something wrong with us for the little things we do.  We think if anyone saw us uninhibited that they would instantly lose interest.  As a result we try to present the best version of ourselves that we can, only showing the positives, only showing people what we think they'd like, in essence we go as a polished version of ourselves.  The trouble with this mentality is that sooner or later they're going to see the real you and if they fell for a lie, or an idealized version of you, then that is likely to cause a comedown from the sugar high.

There's a belief that when you're in love you will do anything for the one you love.  That if you have fallen for someone, you'll overlook all of their flaws because your love is what matters most.  There are those that try and use this to their advantage, by dating, showing only the polished image of themselves, in the hope that the other person falls in love with them, and then whilst they are love drunk they bare their soul.

Fantasy eventually gives way to reality.  The infatuation and the period of obsession eventually wears off, and when it does, whether you love someone or not you will see them, all of them.  When the novelty of a new relationship wears off, that is when most that break up do so.  For the others that break up it takes time until an outside force exposes your behaviour to each other in a way that bares all.    That can be another person, an event of great stress and pressure, a time of year that isn't easy for you to get through, or a plethora of possible scenarios.  It is rare for relationships to end out of boredom. 

If you want a relationship that will stand the test of time, you need to be honest with each other, communicate, and trust in each other.  A relationship that was built on a foundation of deceit won't last long.  It can be hard to accept your actions as being deceitful but the definition of deceit is "the action or practice of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth" - that last caveat is what applies here, misrepresenting the truth.  You have to be honest from the start, be yourself, find someone that loves you for who you are, not the idea of you, and your relationship will last.

In my younger years I feigned interest in things I had no interest in, just to have something to talk about with guys I liked.  I studied things to become more knowledgeable on them so that I could hold a conversation with guys who I knew had zero interest in anything I liked.  I tried to be someone I was not and it never ended well.  Above all else you don't realise how exhausting that actually is and how much of your energy is being drained.  When the connection is superficial, as soon as something material comes along to test it, everything falls to pieces.

It's unrealistic to think that someone else will share all of your interests.  Look at the friends you have and the ones you have had, look at whoever was the closest and think about all of the things you differed on.  No two people are ever identical, even identical twins don't share all of their interests.  One of the biggest barriers to dating you will find is the ability to have a conversation with someone who doesn't share any interests with you, if you can learn how to do that, then you'll be alright.