I am no love expert. I just used to be the girl that day dreamed about having my own special romance. I would often admire couples that appeared to be deeply in love. I wanted to know what that felt like. To have someone feel the same way for me as I did them. I wondered what made the girls in serious relationships so special that they landed into such a beautiful position. Was is beauty? Was it maturity? Was I not looking in the right places for these guys? I needed to know so that, that could be me one day. I told God that if I ever ended up in what I believed was the real thing I would share my lessons learned along the way. Of course my journey will be different than yours, but there are still some things that I think may come in handy.

One thing that I did differently is that I decided to date with a purpose. I talked about this a little bit in the story of how me and my boyfriend came to be but here’s more details on what I mean and why I did it.

Let’s be honest. A relationship is a bond to lead one place or another. Either you and that person are going to break up or you’re going to get married. The only thing that can happen in between those options is that you end up being one of those couples that are together forever but never actually get married. Not bashing those people who are fine with that last outcome, but as a Christian the first two options are the only ones I have.

After my last breakup I took out the time to really examine some things. People often want to say it was his fault or it was her fault but to be honest we could learn a thing or two about ourselves. I noticed one of my main issues is that I was going for guys that had expiration dates on them. It’s like I knew in the beginning it wouldn’t work out. I saw the signs. Heck, I couldn’t even begin to picture a future with the guys I went for in the past and yet I still invested time and effort into them! Why?! When I came to this realization I recognized how unwise I was going about dating. I was simplifying the whole thing. If I thought the guy was cute, he seemed nice, and I liked him that was enough for me. If we did breakup I would just hope that it would end on good terms. Then when the breakup finally arrived I would often be so disappointed and cry my “why can’t I find the right one?” I would feel depleted as I thought about all the time and energy I spent into something that was was so empty.

I had to learn to stop victimizing myself. Yes, it is true that there are some pretty bad people out there that you may link up with. It is also true that we have a choice as to how we’re going about picking who we would like to spend our time with. No one is putting a gun to our heads and making us walk down these path with these people; it’s our choice. My issue was I wasn’t taking the whole relationship thing seriously, which is ironic because as I said in the beginning of this post I was the girl that always wanted a serious relationship. I didn’t realize that more needs to go into choosing someone besides the fact that you like them. Liking someone is important of course; don’t get me wrong, but keep in mind that now everything you like is good for you. For example, there are people who like to smoke, but we all know that smoking leads to health issues. Get the point?! When you take responsibility for the choices that you make I have learned that you are more likely to careful choose things.

Now, knowing that I was the one responsible for choosing who would be honored with what all I had to offer I had to create standards. When you’re not really thinking about a long term relationship with someone it’s easy to not think or enforce standards. For one you’re probably not thinking that far. When I first got with my ex it didn’t bother me that he wasn’t into education as I was. I never really worried about his future plans or anything. All that mattered was the basic things in front of me. It wasn’t until I finally started thinking about the future that I began to ask him questions and observe things more and I thought wow me and this guy most definitely can’t get married one day. Our paths were totally different. The best way to develop standards was for me to think towards the future instead of the right now in front of me. What would I like to have in my potential husband? That’s the question I had to ask myself in order to develop sound standards. Through studying the word and prayer I was able to come up with some pretty good stuff.

The next thing would be putting everything out on the table. I was more than worried that I wouldn’t find anyone after my rejuvenated way of thinking. When this all came to me I was just 19 and most people my age aren’t thinking that far. You just date and see where it goes. I was worried that if I brought this up to a guy he would take it the wrong way; as in I’m trying to rush him into marriage. Purposefully dating really just means that if there’s no future for us then let’s not waste either of our time. I’m just simply tired of getting all caught up into something that’s a dead end. Fortunately for me my boyfriend was on the same page as I was concerning that so it wasn’t a big deal. It’s important to be upfront about these thing though because it’s not use in getting with someone that your can’t share a vision with.

The next question I’ve been asked is how do you know if someone could potentially be that guy. I think it’s more than wise to become friends with someone before hopping into a relationship with them because A) whoever you end up with you have to be best friends first and B) it’s better to get to know a person and figure out if you should head down that road with them or versus dating them and then having to break it off. For example before I got with my boyfriend I was interested in a guy and we became friends and as a friend having a simply conversation I learned that he has very strict religious beliefs and in order to be together I would have to convert to his denomination. He was a very good looking, Christian man so it wasn’t that he was a bad guy but I knew that we would be unequally yoked so we didn’t go down that path. See, if I have just been like let’s just hurry up and get together only looking on the surface I would have been in a world of mess. So being friends first helps you avoid the things that might have led to a break up if you just rushed into because as a friend you can say because of this or that we should remain just friends. No real harm done or time wasted there. Next is simply if everything clear out on both ends of things as times goes by take it to the next level.

This method won’t guarantee that the next person that you date will become your spouse. If anything it has taught me to be more careful with my heart. How could I have gone all that time just tossing it away and seeing where it lands and soon as it lands on glass I’m all tears and confused about it. Your heart, your time, your love, your care, just you are special and it’s time to stop wasting yourself on a dead in. Just be more careful and date someone more promising for tomorrow instead of the guy that just cute today. Until next time you guys. Love ya and Later.

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Written by Brittany Turner,  Blogger at One Bad Beauty