People become interested in romantic relationships by their early teens. At that age no one has acquired much self-understanding. Such youngsters do not know themselves well. They don’t know how to make romantic choices that are good for them. And, when they do make choices they have no idea why they chose the person they did for boyfriends or girlfriends.
Yet self-understanding is important in dating and in negotiating romantic relationships. Why is this so? For starters, a person should know enough about himself or herself to know what type person he is attracted to. Then a person should understand if his attraction is to people who are good for him or bad for him. Next, a person needs to learn to identify what types of people are good for him and how to be attracted to them and not to the jerks of the world. Lastly, each person should know himself well enough to know how to negotiate balance and reasonableness with the other person. By this I mean each person must know how to behave reasonably toward himself and the other person depending on the circumstance existing in the relationship at any given time.
Most people lack all self-understanding in their choice of romantic partners until they have experienced several poor relationships that have failed. Then they get curious and begin asking questions of themselves about why their failure rate is high. Many people discern malappropriate patterns in their mate choices. Some people seek therapy or counselling. This is helpful to do as therapy enhances self-understanding and may prevent future poor romantic choices.
What has been your experience in dating? Have you made choices that have been good or bad for you?
