Relationships

I've talked about what to do after a break-up when your heart is hurting. It's a time for healing, finding yourself again, and learning how to move on.

Break-ups can be devastating, but what happens when you're on the other side of things - when you want to do the breaking up? Maybe a long-term relationship just isn't working for you anymore. But how do you know if breaking up is the right thing to do when the friendship is important? And how do you break up with someone you care about without looking like a jerk, or worse, wondering if your ex will hate you?

First, it's important to understand that not all relationships are meant to last. Sometimes they are learning experiences, which isn't a bad thing. They help us find ourselves - without hurt and loss, we don't realize how strong we can be. We don't grow.

But breaking off a long-term relationship is a difficult process. After all, you've spent holidays and birthdays together, you know your partner's family, you know intimate details about him, like how he has to wash his face three times before going to bed or that he leaves his socks in little piles around the house. You share the same friends. How do you even begin to separate from each other's lives?

These are difficult questions that only you can answer. All I can say is, if you don't wake up in the morning excited to be with your partner, or you'd rather spend time alone than have dinner together, you're probably not in the right relationship.

Many relationships start out with passion and romance, but these don't last. If you're constantly chasing passionate love, you might want to take a look at what you're doing and ask yourself if it's making you happy. The basis of a good relationship is very simple: if you enjoy being together despite your fights, your problems, and your differences, then you're probably in the right relationship. If you'd rather find the next plane out of town regardless of whether or not you hit a rough patch, then you're probably with the wrong person.

Don't stay in a relationship because you don't want to disappoint your partner. If you're not emotionally invested, then you're not doing yourself or her any favors, and you will both end up hurt and resentful.

Breaking up isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person. Sometimes it's the best thing. Let her move on and find someone else who is right for her. And allow yourself to move on, too.

You might have missed a recent article in The New York Times about how group dating is becoming a new way to date.

Instead of meeting a match one-on-one like you would with most online dating sites, some are now offering to set you up on a group date with five to eleven matches - 3 to 6 men and 3 to 6 women total, to offer you more choices and a more relaxed and engaging first date.

The reason? Group dates tend to take the pressure off of individuals. You don't have to make a list of interesting things to say or questions to ask, or try to keep conversation going whenever there's an awkward pause. Plus, it's like having three to six dates in one night!

Best of all, you increase your chances of clicking with someone. It maximizes the chance you'll hit it off with someone in a way that speed dating doesn't. For one, you get to spend more time with your potential dates and really get to know them, instead of being rushed through a five-minute meeting and going on a first impression.

Group dating is an interesting proposition, and has been met with a lot of interest. Online dating and now even speed dating sites are opening up to this concept. So what are the drawbacks?

Some people tend to be more shy and reserved, especially around new people. If there is a gregarious, fun person in the group, he might steal the attention away from other great dates by leading the conversation or suggesting what to do next. It's hard to compete for attention. The beauty of a one-on-one date is that there aren't really any distractions and you can focus on each other.

But there is something to be said for a relaxed, no-pressured group date. There isn't an expectation of sex or romance by the end of the evening, at least not with one particular person. You don't have to plan the date in terms of picking the place and paying for both you and your date - the dating site offering the group date experience plans a location to meet and each person is responsible for her own tab.

If you're new to dating or if you've been through a recent break-up, this might be the best way to dip your toe in the dating pool. Instead of working up the nerve to go on a date, a group date is like dining with new friends, which may or may not lead to romance.

We all love reconnecting with old friends on Facebook - including checking status updates just to see what everyone else is up to. But when you're unhappy with your own life, this could be the worst thing you could do.

Have you ever been frustrated by a string of bad dates, checked Facebook, and suddenly noticed all of your friends are posting pictures with their new boyfriends or changing their status updates to "in a relationship?" While it might seem like everyone is coupled up except for you, it's not reality. But Facebook can make us think so.

How often do you post pictures of yourself when you're feeling down - sitting alone on your couch watching TV? Probably not many.

Well, your friends aren't going to share their lonely nights on Facebook either. They won't share the fact that they weren't invited to that awesome party, or the fights they have with their boyfriends, or the issues that come up soon after they get married. These are the parts of a relationship that people don't want to share. Which is why Facebook isn't an accurate depiction of reality. If you feel depressed after logging on to Facebook, you might want to take some time off.

Social media is a great tool, but it can also be harmful if we take it too seriously. You don't want to sabotage your own love life, yet that's exactly what we do when we obsess over everyone else's Facebook status.

Following are some tips to help you focus on you, instead of everyone else on Facebook:

Don't look at Facebook before a date. It can put you in a bad mood, make you more judgmental of your date, cause you to obsess about your successful Facebook friend, and generally change the whole vibe of what the date could be. If you approach your date with a relaxed and confident attitude, trying to have a good time, you likely will have a good time. If Facebook is getting you down, leave it out. With every new person you meet, you have a new opportunity to connect. So let it happen, without Facebook clouding your view.

Don't share your date stories over Facebook. Your friends might love your crazy dating life and offer their opinions, or maybe their own bad date stories, but do you really need them? There's no need to have a public forum on how your dating life is going. Just focus on yourself, who you're meeting, and having a good time. This isn't a contest.

Don't friend your dates too soon. There's too much temptation to see who he's friended and who he's dated. If you're just getting to know him, keep it limited. You might get the wrong idea from his Facebook page, like he would of yours!

Facebook is a great tool, but it's good to know when to disconnect.

The power of the Internet has certainly changed how we date, especially with the popularity of online dating. Social media has made it really easy to access information about your dates, too. A lot of your dates will be checking out Facebook and Google to learn more about you before you actually meet in person. And chances are, you'll know more about them too.

I encourage people to do some research before the date. A few of my friends were horrified to discover their matches had engagement websites for their upcoming marriage to someone else, yet they were still online dating! Another saw that one of her matches had a police record. You don't want to be caught off guard or misled, so research is important.

Police records aside, how many of you research dates a little more than necessary? Do you really want to know what junior high school he attended, or what he ate for breakfast yesterday morning?

A quick look at Facebook or Twitter can tell you a lot about a person, but dating should be more mysterious. Don't you want the excitement of getting to know your date over time, discovering little quirks and habits for yourself? Or would you rather everything be out in the open, like her background in conservative politics or his experience growing up in a commune?

There's another argument to be made that sometimes we know too much, too soon. When you spend so much time researching someone you haven't met in person, building this idea of who he is in your head, you'll likely be let down in real life when you meet and there's no spark. You might even feel cheated. After all, you thought you really knew him.

But seeing someone's online persona - who he is through social media - can be a bit misleading. A person's social media presence isn't typically who he is in real life. People are much more complex. It's better to think of someone's blog or Twitter page as just a snapshot compared to who they really are as a whole.

It can also be misleading if you're emailing a potential date back and forth several times, becoming more emotionally attached to a virtual relationship. Maybe neither one of you feels compelled to meet in real life, at least anytime soon. But when you do this, you're not getting a complete picture of who your match is. You're falling for an image that you've built up, and one that might not even be real (catfishing).

Instead of getting hung up on your virtual interactions with dates, it's better to meet them in person sooner rather than later, and it's also good to learn about him in real life as you date, not just over Facebook.

“Love at first sight” is a phrase that is seen by most as cliched, or outdated. We roll our eyes when the concept comes up... at least in public. Yet, many still harbor hopes or even expectations of love at first sight - particularly when it comes to online dating.

Consider the “ideal” online dating fairy tale: someone signs up for an online dating site on a whim. They create a profile, start searching, and soon enough, they see it: the profile of their perfect match. They can already tell the match is perfect just from the profile alone - it somehow speaks to their very soul. They send off a first-contact email (or maybe they were even contacted by their perfect mate in the first place) and immediately head out on their first date, where their date is even better-looking in person. And they all lived happily ever after.

If online dating is the wave of the future, why do we cling to the same old fairy tales? If anything, the online dating version is even more outlandish than the original, because we’re falling in love with a profile first. Most “love at first sight” stories can really be called “mutual attraction at first sight that eventually developed into more,” and to be sure, chemistry is a mysterious and powerful thing. But expecting to identify chemistry from a profile is a slippery slope - and often how scams happen.

When we choose to pursue online dating, we have to remember that we’re signing up for: a more efficient way to meet new people in person. We’re not acquiring any magical powers or knowledge. Profiles allow us to get a vague idea of who we’ll be meeting - in many ways, better than taking a chance with someone we’ve met on the street or in a bar, because we have a preliminary stage in which we can weed out the most obvious red flags. We can also meet people outside our own limiting social circle.

But we’re still going to have to assess chemistry in person. We still have to ultimately rely on our own judgement, even if we were initially introduced by a computer algorithm. We have to listen to our instincts, and keep a cool enough head that we don’t get carried away by a promising profile and photo.

Even when we do experience attraction at first sight, only time will tell if love and trust will grow. The truth is, love is mysterious and exciting enough on its own, and online dating is an exciting alternative to the same old methods of meeting people. Relying on a tired old fairy tale to jazz it up will only lead us to the same old unrealistic expectations and frustrated disappointment.

Dating would be so much easier if someone else always made the first move. Even better: if their thoughts and intentions were broadcast in a thought bubble above their heads, like a comic strip. We’d know if we should approach and strike up a conversation. We’d know if they were looking for nothing more than friendship. If they were single, we’d know if they were truly ready to move on past their last relationship. We’d know if they were interested in us, too.

Alas, we don’t have those powers of telepathy or projection. And even though women are approached by men more frequently than the inverse, there’s no hard and fast rule about who should be making the first move. Thus, we’re all forced to take that blind first step from time to time.

Here’s the thing: it’s hard to do. It can be wrenching and awkward to be approached by someone you’re not interested in and turn them down, but making the first move requires extra elements of courage and adrenaline. You’re willfully making yourself potentially uncomfortable. Regardless of your gender or orientation, it’s tough.

Thus, it’s no wonder we seek to avoid it as much as possible. By using online dating sites, we hope to dull the sting of rejection. In person, we search for tiny clues, even subconscious ones, that might give us insight before we approach. We get surly about having to make the first move, whether it’s our first time doing so or our fiftieth.

And it’s exactly for these reasons that we should all make the first move when we can. Because our potential matches feel the same fear and adrenaline, but one will have to win this game of chicken in order to ever meet and fall in love. Instead of keeping score with how many first-contact emails we’ve sent, we should continue to send them, because we should take responsibility for seeking out potential love. We shouldn’t miss out on opportunities because we’re pouting and think it should be our turn to be approached. After all, what if your potential match is in the same boat?

Making that first move can be hard, even in online dating. No one likes rejection. But perhaps recognizing that we all have those same basic emotions and fears will make it just a tiny bit easier to approach someone next time. There’s always the option of ignoring your opportunity, too, but the outcome is predictable: you’re passing up a chance at love.