Many clients throughout the years have asked me this question. The answer is complex, so let’s break it down. When you meet someone for the first time at Katy Trail Ice House or Savor at Klyde Warren Park and things work out, they work out because you’re being yourself. Most of the time, you’re not expecting to meet someone, so you stay chill and calm.
And then phone calls, texts, and more dates start happening. Things are going smoothly, but suddenly you begin to wonder if it’s going to work out. Does this person like you for you? More importantly, what does this person want from you? Why is this person taking so long to respond to your text message? (More on this next week.) So we go into detective mode dusting for clues and evidence concerning their whereabouts, hidden agendas, and closet intentions. It’s wild how something that begins so simply turns into something overwhelmingly difficult and stressful.
The thing that turns this easy breezy relationship into stress and weirdness is our desire to put labels on everyone and everything. Are we dating or just seeing each other? Is this a waste of time, or are we more? When we expect people to do one thing or another we usually get disillusioned because they often let us down. Not because they want to, but because we had expectations they didn’t know about and couldn’t live up to. We actually begin to give our personal power away and we begin to lose joy in life.
Here’s an example: The day before the third date, you start daydreaming about date-night at Proof and Pantry: the atmostphere, how attentive your date will be, etc. Instead, be excited about the time ahead, but try to arrive with no expectations. They take the joy out of everything and as we brand things as being either good or bad, we tend to devalue experiences and people.
To put a stop to this, we have to step back and think about the labels we’ve given to ourselves. What labels have you been walking around with and are you ready to let them go? The same goes for expectations. Do you have unrealistic expectations of yourself? And why do you think that is?
Ashley Berges is a Dallas-based life coach, family therapist, and syndicated radio talk show host of Perspectives with Ashley Berges, which can be heard on 570 AM KLIF and 660AM KKSY.
