Dating Dames - Dating & Relationship Advice, Tips and Trends

Taking your time is so important.

by Lara on September 13th, 2008

I can’t stress enough how absolutely vital it is to take your time when meeting someone and deciding to have that someone be the only “someone” in your life.

I’ve never been much of a “serial dater” type. There have been times in my life where I’ve fallen hard and fast for someone, and other times where things took a while to get there. Hands down, the best relationships I’ve had were the ones that went slowly.

I know that I’ve posted here before that I really want kids. That will NEVER change for me. However my last relationship found me head over heels in love with a stupid man who was pretty sure he never wanted a wife OR children (because of his past with women, he was beyond gun-shy). Since that didn’t quite mesh with what I wanted, I couldn’t figure out why I stuck around, but I did.

I’ve learned that there are lots of people out there that I can not only get along with, but that I can form a true bond with. I’m quite the extrovert (if you couldn’t tell) and I really genuinely connect with so many different kinds of people, that it’s actually somewhat puzzling as to why I’ve made it to 31 unmarried (and even my guy friends think so).

I recently met this guy and he’s undeniably the sweetest guy I’ve ever gone out with. He’s the first and only guy to ever bring me any kind of flower on a date, but what made it even more sweet was that he picked out a single light pink rose because the florist had a list of what the rose colors meant, and he felt that the light pink one made the most sense. (As a symbol of grace and elegance, the pink rose is often given as an expression of admiration. Pink roses can also convey appreciation as well as joyfulness. Pink rose bouquets often impart a gentler meaning than their red counterparts. - Proflowers.com) 

I did know from the beginning that he’s someone I really do want to get to know better. He’s younger than me by about 6 years, which did kind of make me a little nervous at first, but he’s honestly far more mature in so many ways than some men I’ve dated 5 or 6 years older than me.

The only thing I’ve had to reinforce for both of us (myself privately, and in conversation with him) is the need to take things reallllllly slow. I’m so wanting to fall deeply in love, and I don’t want that to jade my decisions of who to do that with. I don’t want him to want it so badly he overlooks things that have always been important to him either.

One of the hurdles we are working on overcoming is the fact that he works weekends, and always out of town. I work weekdays from home. While I can sometimes take a half day or what have you, there are plenty of times during the week where I have to stay home all day and night to get projects finished. So while he’s got 4 days of doing nothing all week, my time is scheduled pretty tightly. I don’t think it’s going to be a huge problem, but it does limit our together time in this whole “getting to know you” process. I don’t think that’s a bad thing - we fill space with phone calls and text messages - but it’s something we both need to get used to. (I’m not all that worried, in fact it makes this taking things slow thing a lot easier.)

I feel better about this process right from the start than I have about whole relationships in the past, so that’s a good thing. I like taking my time… it makes me feel like we’re both sharing the control aspect of things and we’re sharing the responsibility of learning patience and managing our emotions. It’s totally a GOOD thing.

How have you felt in the past about fast-moving relationships versus slow-moving ones? I know there are exceptions all around, and sometimes people meet, date, marry, and give birth in very short periods of time who wind up beyond happy in their lives. I’m not bashing that at all - I just know what works for me right now in this stage of my life. What works (or doesn’t work) for you?

(image: Lara Kulpa)

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POSTED IN: A Dating Story