My Awkward Dating Life: Do You Keep Him Around?

Last week I was giddy at the idea of a new love or at the very least a new crush. The new budding relationship is always fun and exciting. That is, until it’s not.

If you’re doing great and you and your new fling are destined to be soul mates, great, good for you, blah blah blah. I’m not bitter, just mildly perturbed at your good relationship when I’m single.

If you’re not so lucky and you are questioning your compatibility on movie taste let alone what flowers you want to have for your wedding, join the club. So how long do you keep him around? How much effort and time do you put into a relationship before you give up and move on?

In my case it was about a week (not counting the two weeks he was on vacation). I knew this guy before he asked me out and when we went out and hung out a few times over these weeks and it was awesome. I thought we were going to hit it off, and even my dating article from last week exaggerated my optimism.

Alas, it was not to be.

Maybe it’s shallow, or maybe I’m just too picky but he had a major flaw that I just couldn’t get over. Now I’m not going to give away his bad trait but let me just say it was a deal breaker and while I really really liked him, I just can’t get over this deal breaker.

If you feel like you’re ready to take on a challenge (I wasn’t) then go for it. However, tread lightly, anything you might say about this deal breaker whatever it may be, could hurt and/or insult him.

Let’s look at bad kissing as a deal breaker.

If it is bad kissing you can take on the challenge or you can let it go but keep this in mind; if the kissing isn’t good how can you expect anything else to be good? It may be shallow but I find sex and physical relationship to be an important part of any relationship.

There are other deal breakers out there, most of the time it may seem like there are more possibilities for it to go wrong than right, and I’m starting to believe that’s true, even though I sound a bit pessimistic.

Smoking, messiness, lack of conversation, differing of major opinions… All are possible deal breakers that you have to decide if you’re willing to deal with or let him go over. If you decide to let it go, no major harm down.

You only hung out for a few weeks tops and you haven’t declared anything on Facebook, but how do you let him down? There are two foolproof ways to ease you out of the relationship.

The first is the avoidance technique. Don’t hang out with him, don’t initiate conversation, don’t do anything and hope he gets the hint and goes away. Unfortunately this doesn’t always work and you have to have the talk. Not the ‘sex’ talk but the ‘let’s just be friends’ talk. It’s going to be uncomfortable and awkward but it really is the more mature way to handle things. He’ll most likely be disappointed that you entered him into the friend category, which we all know no guy wants to be a part of, but he really has no choice.

In the long run don’t lead him on, if you put him in the friend category keep him there. That means no late night booty calls, no dates where he pays for everything and no changing your mind. So make sure you’re sure before you decide.