I have gone on my fair share of first dates and beyond, and they have reaffirmed and expanded what I look for in pursuing a partner. Here, I have compiled these lessons I have acquired from my first-date experiences.
Dates serve the purpose of exploration into others to locate those that reflect you, those that align and match your partner’s needs. Using dates as an examination of others means you should focus more on if you like them than if they like you. You don’t need to work to impress the right person. Authenticity will guide you to those who adore you for you as you are, those who find great beauty in your existence and the way you wade through and impress upon the world.
Dates are an active way to test your self-prioritization and the internal work you’ve done. On a date, how much do you prioritize your needs and wants over theirs? Do you feel you have to suppress yourself and form yourself into who they like? In that, what do you have left of yourself?
When reading the person you are pursuing, there are many questions you can ask yourself to decipher if they meet your needs and wants.
- How do they understand and provide you safety (i.e. an emotionally validating support system)?
- How do they express interest? It should be easily accessible. Do they tell you how you make them feel? How lovely do they make you feel? Do they adorn you with genuine compliments beyond praising your physical appearance?
- How accessible are they time-wise? Do they express when they are busy to calm your worries?
- What is their relation to self-respect, and do they set healthy boundaries that you find admirable and can copy?
- Do they validate your experience of life? Do they yearn to learn about how you have lived and find pleasure and beauty in the world? Do they find joy in your joy and want to exist in that with you? They should wish for you to bring them into how you see beauty and be fascinated by how you see the world. What is their inclination to learn about and celebrate you?
- Do they want to keep you on the same page? Or are you left questioning, stranded in the dark between confusion and chaos? Do you have similar intentions in dating and have they made their intentions transparent? In clarity, your love is yours. You should not feel confused or limited by the one who wants to continue pursuing you. You will know what they want and how they want you. It should feel honest and clear.
- Do they care or wish to care for you in a readable form to you? Do they make a continuous effort to communicate your love language to you?
- Is there both chemistry and compatibility?
In considering such questions, you center yourself. Don’t be lenient on your non-negotiables. If you ignore them, you will quickly be reminded why they are requirements. You will find those who meet those standards. And when it comes to finding compatibility, finding someone who also has the same things as non-negotiables shows that you reflect in each other similar priorities.
In the pursuance of another, you must listen to yourself. First dates reinforce the existence of self-love already persisting within. Finding gaps and absence in others’ capabilities to support and love you deepens your understanding of your needs — clarifying what the necessities are and how essential they are to building a healthy relationship. It also reassures and strengthens your capabilities to provide for yourself in that way. If someone else doesn’t provide enough meaning that you find greater peace in self-solitude and self-pleasure, you further learn that you are able to provide that need for yourself. Your recognition of the need shows that you possess that in yourself and are simply looking for someone who has it as well. The right one is detected as right by the peace you feel in their presence — a lack of worry whilst existing in each other’s calm as well as the trust and reassurance that you are more than ever enough. To date intentionally for love is to force yourself to uphold your needs. It is to ensure you only choose to continue pursuing those who bring you peace and adoration, for you are worth the world, the sand, and the stars, eyes oceanically devoted and doted on you.