298. 7 Dating Mistakes That Make Finding a Relationship Take Longer

0:00Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers have enjoyed progressives and name your price tool for years now. With the name your price tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you are picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit progressive.com, find a rate that works for you with the name your price tool. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, price and coverage match a limited by state law. If you're tired of wasting months on the wrong people, this episode is for you. I'm breaking down seven dating mistakes that could be slowing you down, draining your energy and keeping you from the relationship you actually want, plus what to do differently so you don't waste even more time while dating. Welcome back to dating intentionally. I'm Talia. I'm sharing a known nonsense advice for navigating dating and relationships with confidence and ease, whether you've been dating for a while or you're just

1:00starting out. I believe dating can be fun and I'm here to help you enjoy the process. And I'm going into coach mode today because I want to walk you through some of the most common mistakes I see my listeners and my clients make in early dating. Of course, I've made all of these myself. And as we get into them, I just want to remind you that this show, this space right now, this is a non-judgmental space. If you've made any of these mistakes, if you're actively making them now, I invite you to have some self-compassion and just leave the self-judgment out of it. Let's just leave the shame, the blame, and guilt at the door. We can talk about these mistakes, that turning into a whole story about being dumb or bad at dating or just stuck. The point of this episode is to help you build awareness so that you can avoid some of these mistakes moving forward. Even if you've made them in the past, you have the opportunity to not in the future. We all mess up sometimes on what matters is that we keep going and try to do better next time. And speaking of a non-judgmental space, I want to say I love hearing from you and I so,

2:03so appreciate all of your comments, your messages. And when you tell me that you share dating intentionally with other single people, it just means the world to me and you're the best. If you have any quick dating questions, you are more than welcome to slide into my DMs on Instagram at dating.intentionally. And if this show is helping you in your dating life, it would be awesome if you could follow wherever you're listening right now and if you dropped a five star view. Okay, let's get into it. And I'm going to share the top seven dating mistakes to avoid if you are just so over-wasting time on connections that don't go anywhere. And I want to know in the comments which one you made most recently because again, there is just no shame here. Some of these mistakes might resonate, some might not, and you might listen, like, okay, yeah, that's me. These little adjustments over time that we can make through learning what our mistakes are will help you get out of your own way and find your person. And speaking of that, one of the best tools for catching yourself in the act is actively reflecting on dates and tracking your journeys.

3:03You can do this analog or you can check out the app I built for a dating intentionally called DateTracker. It's available on the iOS app store all over the world and it's coming soon to Android. So with this app, you can log dates and do a more structured reflection that makes you really slow down and evaluate what's going on in your connections as you get to know someone and avoid some of these common mistakes. If you want to check it out, go to the date tracker.com or head to the link in the show notes. You can start dating with more awareness and you can try the date tracker for seven days free just by hopping in the show notes. All right, here we go. The first mistake on my list is dating for potential. This one is extremely important, which is why I put it first. And what that looks like is waiting for someone to change, trying to mold them into the person you want to be hoping that they're just going to magically become a different person, essentially. Let me kind of illustrate this with an example. So I was working with a one-on-one client recently who was seeing a guy for a few months and this guy had a pattern of deprioritizing their connection

4:08and made her feel neglected. And she all but begged him to spend more time with her. This was an ongoing thing. And in her work together, she wanted to explore what she could do or say or bring up to get him to prioritize the relationship more or as much as she did. And ultimately, she realized that she was sticking around hoping that he would change and start prioritizing her more, even though in the past four-ish months that they were seeing each other, this was a repeated issue and there was hesitancy to commit on his side. If she decided to keep going, that would have been dating for potential. The mistake is leaning on the hope of a specific outcome and ignoring what's actually happening and what they're bringing to the table currently in your connection. It's so easy to get caught in thinking that if we just act a certain way or have a specific conversation, that we can get the person we're dating to change or behave differently and show up in it the way that we really need them to. But unfortunately, the reality is that you're not going to create the dynamic you want with someone who is repeatedly showing you

5:12that they're incapable or unwilling to show up that way. Dating for potential is living in the what if, not the reality. So how do we avoid making this a while? Focus on the facts and the reality. Yes, sure, it's good to bring things up. I want to encourage you to bring things up and have open discussions with the person you're dating. But when you're doing it over and over and it keeps going back to this core issue and you see no change, then you know what the reality is. So if you're in the situation right now, like you're like, okay, yes, that is me. I am dating for potential. I am seeing someone and I hope that they show up differently. You need to either walk away or accept whatever need isn't being met, assuming that you've already brought this up. But the sooner you recognize the reality and decides to move on because you know you're not asking for too much, the sooner you can find someone who can meet that need easily and naturally. So, okay, that's mistake number one. Dating for potential. Mistake number two is staying in a situation shift.

6:14And look, if you're in a situation right now where you're seeing someone hooking up, enjoying a physical connection or just some fun, but you know it's not going to go anywhere, here's a thing. Spending a lot of time with someone you know you have no future with is keeping you from finding the person who you could have a future with. I define the situation as a connection where your relationship goals and timing are not aligned, but you continue to see each other. So, someone who wrote my client, you know, I mentioned was in, you know, maybe it goes on for many months and many years sometimes. One person typically wants commitment, the other one doesn't, or it's not ready, but they keep dating and there's this tension where one person is getting their needs met while the other one who wants more is not getting your needs met. This kind of overlaps with dating for potential if you're in a situation ship hoping that they will come around and want to commit to you, but the mistake I want to focus on is staying in a situation shift, which is often just a dead end connection. Again, the longer you stay in, something with someone who isn't aligned

7:16with you, the longer it will take to find someone who is. Just to give you an example of this, I have a friend who got into a relationship with him the last year and it happened after he ended his situation ship of six months with a woman who just wasn't ready to commit and she wasn't showing off like a partner, she was kind of flaky and hard to plan with. I don't think she was over her ex and she avoided conversations about the future, but they kept hanging out and hooking up and it really tore my front apart. He was really in a place where he wanted commitment and then finally he did end the situation ship and found someone who was ready to commit like a few weeks later. They're still together, which is awesome. The thing about ending a situation ship is that the person who is not getting their needs met has to be the one to end it most of the time at least. Of course, there are always exceptions, but typically the person who wants less and is getting their needs met has little incentive to walk away, even if they know they can't fully show up for the person who wants more. If you're the person who wants more and you're staying anyway, you are showing them.

8:17You are communicating that it's okay that you're not getting your needs met in that connection because you keep showing up. The mistake here is dragging your feet with ending a situation ship. You know is not ever going to leave the relationship that you want. What we want to do instead is cut it off. I do have some episodes on this. I will link the most recent one in the show notes about how to walk away from a situation ship. This next one's a little spicier. It might be a little bit hard to hear, but maybe we can frame this one as a decision that is maybe sneakily wasting your time and holding you back and not so much as a mistake. I don't want to call this really a mistake, but I do want to call it out. I talk to hundreds of people every month that I'm so lucky I get to do this. Clients, listeners, my community on Instagram, even friends who are dating and a pattern that I'm noticing is that there are a lot of folks who take breaks often usually following something uncomfortable and painful like rejection and ghosting or just not having any luck and dates. I want to acknowledge

9:22the pain of that because it is really tough out there. It is flakiness, ghosting, people are not treating each other with respect and it's really hard to be on the receiving end of that. And I want to point out that the more you take breaks, the more you're delaying finding someone in a way. It's tricky. Obviously, yes, you want to be in a good headspace a day. It won't work if you're salty or if you're deep in the trenches of getting over someone and every little thing reminds you of them. But here's just me being super direct. You're going to find your match sooner if you build more resilience and stay in the game. Taking a break is good for a reset, but it does not help you build resilience that much in my opinion. What helps you build resilience is developing the mental and emotional tools to deal with the setbacks and dating without hitting the pause button every single time. And that could look like rewriting the beliefs around your timeline and taking the pressure off. It could look like knowing how to think about rejection and ghosting without making it all about your worth. It could be separating one bad date from how you feel about your entire desired gender.

10:28One bad date with a guy doesn't mean all men are bad. Knowing how to process your feelings properly and then moving on, instead of having to just pump the breaks completely and then not really actually process what you're going through. And finally, having the support from yourself and others to navigate, not just being rejected, but also rejecting people and making decisions that yes, might hurt other people because rejecting people sucks too. I think sometimes people delete the abs or declare, I'm taking a break, I'm done with men, I'm done with women, whatever, as a way to regain a feeling of control in their dating lives. It feels easier to just walk away and slam the door and dating than it does to face the challenges. And I want to say I have compassion for this, but I'm also just calling out that if you're taking these long breaks, you are delaying finding your person. If you're on a break right now, I'm sending compassion your way and you know your situation best, you know what you can handle. I just want to point this out because I know how many people are just impatient and frustrated with how long it takes

11:32to find someone you click with and the line with and are attracted to an analogical level, right? Just the more you take yourself out of the game, the longer it's going to take. I think it's worth your time to do the hard thing and work on your resilience. I found that by working on this skill and dating, it's transferred well into other areas of life, which is really cool to see. I just think there's a lot of growth we can experience by staying in the game. And by the way, if you are on a break or you're thinking about it or you're taking a break, I do have episodes on how to make the most of a dating break. So again, I'm not like anti-dating break. I'm just encouraging you to reflect on how much of a break you're taking, how long versus how long you're actually dating and trying to meet people. And it's just something good to check in with yourself about. But if you want to take a break or you're in one and you want to make the most of it, I have episodes below on that as well. And speaking of break, we're going to take a quick one here and we'll go back with a few more mistakes to avoid if you are tired of wasting time.

12:32We talk a lot about attachment on dating intentionally, why we say attached to people who clearly aren't working for us, why it's so hard to let go and how sometimes we need to accept that something has run its course. And apparently, I need to take my own advice because I have been emotionally attached to a pair of sunglasses for years. I bought this random pair in an airport forever ago and let's just say they're well loved. And I always told myself I didn't need to replace them because they did their job. But that all changed when Zeni came into the picture. Suddenly, I realized there was a whole world of options out there. And when stylish, I started at under 30, maybe I didn't need to keep forcing this one relationship to work. I recently ordered a super fun pair of sunglasses from Zeni that I got complimented on all the time. And I went with these rose gold polarized lenses that really pop. And I love that in the process, I could customize everything to actually create a pair that feels like me. The process is so so easy. You go to zenny.com, pick your frame, enter your prescription if you have one like me, and they ship right to your door.

13:37No store visit, no pressure. And if you're nervous about buying glasses online, they have a virtual triumph. You can actually see what a frame it looks like on your face before you order. Zenny has over 150,000 five star reviews. And they have everything from stylish prescription glasses to sunglasses to customizable lens options. And honestly, my biggest takeaway is that I have options. I have different sunglasses for different moods, outfits, personalities, all without breaking the bank. That scratch shop pair has done its job of great today with zenny go to zenny.com slash podcast and use code podcast 15 for 15% off your first order plus free shipping on all US orders over $65. The style sell out so don't sit on it. That's zenny.com slash podcast promo code podcast 15. One thing I realized about having a home with someone else is that your home kind of evolves with your relationship. When johnny and I got our first place, we cobbled our space together with whatever furniture we each already had and it kind of worked. But now we've

14:42been living together for three years. And there are definitely pieces where I'm like, okay, this was fine when we first moved in. But is this our style now that we've been together for a lot longer? It's been fun to figure out what that looks like and wayfarer has made it so much easier. They have thousands of pieces and decor options across every sale and budget. So whether you're looking for one specific piece or doing a bigger free fresh, you can actually find something that fits your home. Right now we're looking for a new copy table because we finally got a bigger couch. And let's just say I've learned a lot about johnny's taste in the process and we don't always agree. But at least we know we can trust what we're getting from wayfarer. They have more than 20 million verified five star reviews plus customer photos. So we can see how something looks in a person's real home, not just some perfectly staged product photo. They also have wayfarer verified products, which have been hand vetted by product specialists using a 10 point quality inspection. So if I'm buying

15:43something that's going to be a part of my everyday life, I feel a lot more confident that I'm choosing something that will actually hold up transform your space with pieces that hold up in real life. Join wayfarer words today and get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfarer.com or shop the wayfar app for all things home. That's w-a-y-f-a-i-r.com wayfarer every style every home. All right, welcome back. I've got a few more mistakes to avoid if you're tired of wasting your time while dating here. Number four, my list is not speaking up and staying quiet when something bothers you early on. This is a mistake because a longer you wait to speak up about something, the more you're putting yourself in a position where you're going to see another side of someone later in the game, maybe than you should have. I was just talking to someone in my DMs this morning who shared that she had her first fight with her boyfriend of five months and it's completely blowing up their

16:44relationship. I'm not saying you should be starting fights early on for no reason. No, we're not faking conflict. The mistake here is not speaking up early about small things. Come up because what can happen is five, six months down or even longer down the road, you might realize that that person you're dating handles conflict like a two-year-old. In her case, her boyfriend was yelling at her, calling her manipulative, laughing at her, for crying, just truly awful stuff that maybe could have been revealed sooner, maybe. When you avoid conflict and stay quiet because you're scared of losing them or you're scared of seeming too needy, a few things can happen. One, resentment builds. If you're something that's deeply bothering you and you're not talking about it, that is a recipe for resentment. It's going to come up eventually. It's going to come out somewhere. Two, you are tolerating behavior that you don't want to, that you're uncomfortable with, and they get the message that something they're doing is okay when deep down it does bother you. Three, when you finally have a harder conversation or some kind of conflict, you might be surprised

17:49with how they respond and not in a good way. Of course, there are exceptions and maybe they're fine in conflict and maybe you have your first conflict six months in or more, but if you're tired of wasting time, why not give yourself a chance earlier on to reveal how you handle conflict together? You'll be looking for things like, do they listen? Do they say calm or do they yell? Do they get really defensive or are they curious? Do they make you feel like you're the one who needs to apologize after you brought something to their attention? Do they shut down and dismiss the conversation or are they able to communicate in a mature way? You won't find that out until you speak up about something and to avoid this mistakes, I'm encouraging you to bring things up as they come up naturally. It reveals so much. I know I've shared this tip in other episodes because I want to see you guys having those uncomfortable conversations earlier. It helps strengthen your muscle around that and it helps build trust. The best case scenario here is that you bring something

18:49up early. Maybe there is a lack of communication between dates or you want to spend more time or maybe they made a joke that made you feel weird. You are actually giving your relationship a chance to grow by doing this because if they do respond well, that's a moment where you're vulnerable, you're strengthening intimacy, you're learning how to communicate with each other. Don't take that off a table early on. Don't be afraid because in the best case scenario, they'll show you that they actually can communicate and you'll find out earlier if they can't. All right, moving on to the fifth mistake on my list, that is dating from your back foot. If you're tired of wasting time, you've got to stop dating from your back foot. When I say that, I mean you're not stepping forward into anything you are on your back foot, waiting to see what they do first. I'm not saying that you have to initiate everything and drive everything forward all the time and arrange the dates and send all the texts. It's not all or nothing. I'm saying be aware of whether or

19:52not you're waiting to see what they do most of the time before you take action or if you're showing interest and enthusiasm to keep that momentum going. That looks like expressing interest in future dates, reaching out first some of the time, sharing potential date ideas, some of the time, and generally moving things forward. Well, of course, giving them some space to do the same. I see this a lot in my comments in D.A.Vs, especially from women dating men. In the same sentiment, someone might say, where is he and I'm not making the first move. I'm calling you out here. If you're looking to meet someone amazing soon, like before this year is over, you need to be proactive. You need to be dating from your front foot. If you are, great. This mistake doesn't apply to you. I have an episode that goes deeper into effort and balancing out initiation early dating. If you're worried that you're doing too much and not letting the other person show up, listen to that one. It's episode 286. I will link it below. This tip was key in my journey.

20:53I think it's why I met some really great guys along the way and ultimately met Johnny and got into this relationship, which by the way is the best relationship I've ever been in and the work is really paying off. The people who get into relationships, and I've seen this with my clients and listeners, are the people who can be open to meeting different people, get to the know faster and be proactive about it. At the end of the day, we need to ditch the power play of it all and recognize that getting into a healthy, secure relationship requires two people who are both enthusiastic about finding their person and put their baggage, fears, and pride aside just so they can show the fuck up. The point is getting to a great connection, not winning the contest of who can care less and be more chill. So that mistake is dating from your back foot. Let's avoid that by being proactive because ultimately at the end of the day, you want to be in a healthy, secure relationship where both people are showing up. So make sure you're doing your part. All right, I have two more for you. Number six on my list is texting for ages and not getting to

21:55a date. We need clear boundaries around this. This is one of the biggest time and energy weasters out there. Here's a scenario. I'm sure if you're listening, you've probably run into this. And sometimes you'll match with someone or meet someone a person or just on social media who seems more interested in texting back and forth than actually dating. They might flirt or give you compliments and tell you really sweet things. You might feel like you have a connection because you're talking about your days and sharing things with each other and maybe sharing pictures of your dog or what you're cooking or project you're working on and it feels real. And I'm sure part of it is the texting isn't dating and what happens is you do all this texting and you know they'll dodge any requests to make plans, you know, to meet which will leave you confused. Or you do meet on the date falls flat because you've already gotten to know each other and built this whole report via text. But in person, it's just not there. Or you realize that you're not attracted to them

22:57and they're just not a fit for some reason. And now you've wasted two or three weeks or more talking to someone who is not a fit or might not ever meet you. So if you're tired of wasting your time, we need to stop doing this. And the way to do that is to get to the date or phone call within the first week of talking. If you're traveling, if you're busy, if you got your kids, whatever else is going on, then just do a phone call. Have some synchronous conversations and you can hear each other's voices and tone. Ideally, yes, go for the in-person date, but a phone call is a good step too. If they don't agree, if they give you a vague excuse, they give you the runaround, I'll check my schedule, blah, blah, blah, move on. Even if it was fun to chat with them, even if they seem great on paper, you don't have to put your energy into connections that don't lead to a date. All right, the last mistake on my list of what to avoid if you're trying to not waste your time anymore is ignoring a rat of flags. So this is an obvious one, but it's a big time wasteer that I

24:03know a lot of people are doing right now. And I want to share an example of a time in my dating journey where I did follow this advice and I did not make the mistake of ignoring red flags. So I once went out with a guy who was super cute, tall, great on paper, fun to talk to, interesting, like, you know, I was into him, but halfway through our date, he revealed to me that he does not understand empathy. And he also said that his mom is a therapist. He verbatim said that he doesn't get what empathy is. To me, that was a huge red flag. I think actually it should be a red flag for anyone who is trying to get into a healthy, secure relationship. Look, I wasn't looking for a guy who was like me and had a decade of therapy under his belt and had read dozens of relationships books and spent time talking about relationships with friends, but understanding empathy and its role in relationships is a baseline. And the second he said that, I knew I was not going to have a second date with him. If I had ignored that red flag and explained it away or just focused on the good

25:07stuff on paper, it would have been a huge waste of my time. I was actively looking to avoid men who did not understand empathy. So this one does take practice because it could be hard to move along when you see a red flag and you rarely get dates or you rarely click with anyone or find them attractive or you're not. He's being single so much that you just want to make it work with anyone. Everything else about the connection may feel promising, but when you notice red flags, you are doing your future and your current self a disservice by not at least calling them out in a curious gentle way. And what I mean by that is when you notice something that's a red flag, get curious. In my situation, I could have asked him and maybe I did, I don't remember, like, what do you mean you don't understand empathy and kind of explored that more? Sometimes a red flag is like, let me just make sure and get more information about this by asking some questions. But if you know that maybe the red flag is so strong that it's not worth it, then you're better off just moving on and not

26:10seeing them anymore. The caveat is that you do need the skill of knowing what true red flags are and not just like your preferences. After doing this podcast for four years, I've learned that there are a lot of red flags out there, but there are some that are what I would consider universal, like the empathy thing or like being rude to wait staff, that kind of thing, or even lying about your age and other stuff early on. I have an episode on this all linked below. It's episode 192. It's all about the sneaky red flags that you can spot in early dating. So that is there for you because I don't want you making the mistake of you see the red flags and you keep going, like that's a waste of your time. So I hope that this will help you avoid that. And I want you to also trust yourself when you do notice a red flag, like you don't need to second guess yourself. If you think you see a red flag, ask questions, do a little digging, and it's okay to move on, right? We are trying to save your precious time and energy. So to wrap this up, if you are really trying to meet someone this year and not waste your time, I want you to focus on the facts and

27:14the reality, bring things up early, avoid being pen pals, and work on staying in the game instead of giving up with every setback. If you need a little extra support with this and you want to catch yourself in the user's days, my app, the date tracker is here to help. With this app, you can reflect on your connections, log dates, and texting to stay grounded in reality and again, focus on the facts. It will help you catch red flags and the green ones and notice deal breaker sooner, and it will keep you accountable for speaking up about what you want. I also hope it keeps you motivated on your journey. So you can check that out at thedatetracker.com or head to the show notes to get started with the free week. I am so excited about this app. I've been working on it all year and it was built specifically for dating intentionally and there's a lot more that I want to build into it. So I can't wait for you to try it again. It's the daytracker.com or it's in the show notes. All right, we're going to take a quick break here and then we're going to give you today's dating dilemma. Welcome back. We're going to get into our dating dilemma now and just so you know,

28:21you can submit yours in the show notes. I read them on every episode and I absolutely love reading them. Thank you so much to everyone who is submitted. Here we go. Hi, Talia. I 40 mail was recently told by my girlfriend 34 that she occasionally smoke cigarettes when she's super stressed. We're about three months into the relationship and I've never seen her smoke. I let her know early in the relationship that smoking is a red flag for me so you can imagine how much shock I was in when she told me she said she smokes so infrequently that she doesn't think of herself as a smoker. She says she knows how bad it is for her and then one day she'll stop but that doesn't leave me confident. We have a relationship check in coming up and I want to speak to her about this. How should I bring this up? I don't want to be judgmental but I also don't want to live my life for the smoker. Thank you for submitting this and let me know in the comments what you listening think about this one. How would you approach this? What would you say? Let me know. My advice like generally is to date people as if they'll never change. There are no guarantees she'll stop smoking even if she wants to

29:24and that is a tough felt swallow but that's like we can't just again like I said date for potential and hope that she'll just change. I think we should you should talk to her about it but I also think looking for evidence. You know has she done anything in the last year or so to try to stop? Is it something she says that she wants to do but takes no action on? Is she doing anything else to handle her stress? Like does she have any other healthier coping mechanisms that hopefully will or maybe could take the place of smoking? I think it's okay to weigh this and decide whether or not it's a true deal breaker. If that's the case and you decide that you can't date anyone who even smokes occasionally like a few times a year then you can say you know I thought about it and I realized the smoking thing is a deal breaker for me and it's best if we go our separate ways. And you know the reason she she probably told you about the smoking because you said it's a red flag from what I understand your submission you said it was a red flag for you before she revealed this so she

30:27probably was thinking like oh man I should tell him that's what I got at least but if you're willing to have a conversation about it obviously and I want you to I don't I think it's better to have a conversation before just calling it you can say something like I thought about what you shared with me and about your smoking habits and it's hard for me to accept I really like you and I want this to work but I would need to see real change toward kicking your habit for me to say and then see what she says you know and obviously you don't want to go into the conversation trying to convince her to quit smoking and you're not responsible for that that's not your work to do but you can go into it trying to understand her relationship with smoking well enough so that you can make maybe a better a more informed decision you know ask questions get curious and continue to ask yourself if nothing changes can I accept it and if after talking about it you realize okay she smokes a cigarette three times a year when she's extremely stressed and I can live with that cool but maybe you know maybe it's not actually the deal breaker that you thought it was but if you realize like no even occasional smoking is fundamentally incompatible with what I want to partner then that's

31:30your answer the important thing here is that you're choosing based on who she is today not the potential version not the version she could be who doesn't smoke at all so I hope this helps this is really tricky and let me know again in the comments how you would handle the situation and that's all I have for you today thank you so much for listening thank you for trusting me don't forget you're doing great and if you know someone who is navigating dating and could use a confidence boost or fresh perspective share this episode and if this podcast has helped you a five star view and off or spotify goes a long way once again I'm Talia this is dating tensionally and I'll see you next time