If you participate in the dating world, heck, if you’re a PERSON, you can’t help but reflect on other people’s relationships. With all the technology at our fingertips today, it’s almost too easy to recount every documented experience in a relationship between two people and soak in your own envy.
You see how happy other people are and it melts your heart and disgusts you all at the same time. You think, “Why haven’t I found someone like that? I’m x,y, and z, don’t I deserve a beautiful, blossoming, growth-inducing love?” The rant could go on, comparing yourself to the people in that relationship, with lengthy ‘pros and cons’ lists of that person who has a significant other who is madly in love with him/her and how they’re somehow a vile human being and therefore don’t deserve love as much as you.
STOP. DOING. THIS.
Being jealous of other people’s relationships sabotages a chance at your own.
I’ll be the first one to say I’m jealous, but I’m also the first one to say how happy I am for someone. I’m never going to deny my feelings. I’ll admit my salt and also show the sweetness; because as much as I aspire to “relationship goals,” they’re hard to achieve, that’s why they’re goals. If they were easy, they wouldn’t matter so much. And honestly, it’s great that people find love at all, because love is rare as well as fleeting. Everything in this world has an end, and relationships are not exempt. It is very plausible a couple held on a pedestal will break up, with their idea of love forever tainted, and you can feel a little more smug knowing you called it from the get-go. But if you keep watching and scrutinizing love without participation, your removal from a situation can give you a big head. You think if they tried something else, they would be happy, but you have no clue about how someone might react. There are a lot of situations you can’t control like the ones you play out in your head, and with this growth in imagination, you begin to build wild expectations of your next beau-to-be. Wild expectations provide wild disappointments.
“He has to be 6’3″ and buff, tan skin, will bring me flowers to work, will rub my feet, buy me makeup, drive his own car, never ask me to cook for him, yadda yadda yadda.”
I have heard people say these things about who they’d like to date, and I find it unrealistic. I’m all for standards and preferences, because if you’re going to put time into someone you should want every part of them, but you gotta have a little wiggle room. Not everyone is going to be built to your classifications. People are filled with experience and fears and aspirations and just like plants, we grow so many different directions to find our slice of sunlight. Also, a relationship is a team effort. If you want someone who’s tall, dark and sexy, and all you bring to the table is a mouth that complains and hands that cannot serve themselves, you’re fishing with no bait.
Relationships are based on compatibility. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to enjoy the same things, but more of a matching in enthusiasm. There are going to be a lot of couples you meet where you can’t understand why they’re together, but for some reason it works. I wish I could tell you what the key to that is, but I haven’t found it myself .
What I do know is that focusing on other people’s relationships doesn’t help where you are; whether it be single, married, in an open relationship, what have you. You know what you want. If you see something that interests you, introduce it into your relationship, or try to obtain it by stepping outside of your comfort zone. Try to meet in the middle with your partner as well as yourself. Focus on what you want. be honest with yourself, and what you aspire for will gravitate towards you. The power of positive thinking is so strong and not enough people believe it.
Do you get jealous of other people? Are you someone who loves to harp on other people’s relationships? Are you in a relationship that’s constantly under a watchful gaze?
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