Category Archives: Dating Advice
How to Date an Introvert – Study Breaks
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Introverts are generally thought of as quiet and reserved people who don’t like to party. Although this might be true for some introverts, or just occasionally true for others, introverts have a variety of qualities that go deeper into the realm of psychology. Whether you’re an introvert, an extrovert or a mix of both, this guide will help you if you ever find yourself in a relationship with a strict introvert.
Now, aside from being someone who isn’t loud and outgoing, introverts do like have fun and spend time with family and friends. However, not every introvert is the same, so depending on the person you’re dating, they might have different opinions on the following tips. It’s important to talk to your partner to understand their feelings and thoughts before jumping to the conclusion that they’ll feel the same way about every one of these guidelines. Some will agree to many, though, and if they do, read up on these tips for dating an introvert.
1. Don’t force them to go out.
Plans, plan, plans — not for introverts. Frequently going out can make an introvert tired and want more time alone. They prefer to be busy at times and go out occasionally, but unlike extroverts, they’re not wild or in need of plans every day.
Other responsibilities, like school or work, might take up a significant amount of their time, which would leave them drained by the end of the day. Plans after work aren’t generally on the calendar of an introvert, so if they don’t want to meet you for dinner one night, it’s probably because they’ve already done too much for the day. Try again on the weekend.
2. Give them their much-needed alone time.
Yes, sometimes that means from you too. Although your partner loves you, social interaction with others, including you, can be a bit draining, both mentally and physically. Introverts need time to relax by themselves and enjoy their own hobbies independently.
They still need you, family and friends in their life, but they also need proper alone time like anyone else. The nonstop socializing is definitely not a pastime introverts care to partake in — with or without you.
3. Know that they have a time limit.
By time limit, I mean the time it takes before an introvert taps out for the day or night. Every introvert will have their own limit, whether it’s three hours, seven hours or the entire day but then a week in hiding.
Picture this: You and your introverted partner are out for a day of fun, and a few hours go by. Well, by that time, they might have reached their limit for how long they can spend with others. Don’t take it personally; it’s not that they aren’t having fun, they just need time to recharge for the next adventure. Understanding this is key to making the relationship work.
4. Don’t constantly remind them about how much you love them.
While some might not agree with this statement, others will. When going out with an introvert, you might feel as though they need a constant reminder of how wonderful they are — they don’t. Of course, it’s nice to hear how much you love them, but sometimes the attention can become bothersome to an introvert.
They might feel as though you think they think negatively of themselves, when in reality, it has nothing to do with a negative self-view but more to do with simply being introverted and not always focusing on the self. For once, you don’t need to give your partner the constant attention that many people desire from a lover.
5. Don’t assume that they have social anxiety.
While some introverts can seem like they have social anxiety or generalized anxiety disorder, not all introverts do. They might not want to go out and socialize all the time, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to because they get nervous around others — most likely, they easily get mentally shattered when socializing.
Instead of constantly talking to others in a social setting, they need time for themselves. In the party setting, introverts can easily become exhausted and need a break from the social interaction, and anxiety generally does not take part in any of it.
6. A quiet night in can make the perfect date.
Sure, introverts need their alone time, but some quiet time with you can be nice too. A laid-back date, like cuddling and watching movies, can keep an introvert happy. Simply being with you can make an introvert content, even if all you do is sit in silence and enjoy each other’s presence.
As long as they don’t need to go out for every date to make you happy, then you both can enjoy the peaceful date.
7. Don’t misinterpret their introversion as disrespect.
Just like people can mistake a shy person as being rude, people can misinterpret an introvert’s reserved personality as being disrespectful. Of course, this is not an introvert’s intention, and in reality, they’re probably a really nice person. They just don’t always feel like talking or participating in group activities.
When you don’t understand the needs of an introvert, they might become a bit agitated and can even come off as rude, but they just want you to know they need space at times and don’t always want to be around others.
8. Even though they enjoy their alone time, don’t forget that they love you.
It seems like introverts might be better off by themselves with all the space they need, doesn’t it? Well, not exactly. While they cherish their alone time, they still enjoy the company of others on days they’re energized.
If your partner says they want to relax by themselves, they aren’t saying they don’t love you anymore or don’t like being around you. Introverts just enjoy quiet time alone too. Space and time are the two qualities you need to accept of your introverted partner.
Family Weekly: How Tinder Sparked a Dating Revolution – The Atlantic
This Week in Family
In 2013, the dating app Tinder became available to all smartphone users. Five years later, it’s clear that the app has changed how a generation of Americans approach dating and courtship, says the Atlantic staff writer Ashley Fetters. “Meanwhile, the underlying challenges—the loneliness, the boredom, the roller coaster of hope and disappointment—of being ‘single and looking,’ or single and looking for something, haven’t gone away,” she writes. “They’ve simply changed shape.”
About a quarter of American households own a “smart speaker” like the Amazon Echo or Google Home, and in the not-too-distant future, a whole host of devices and appliances—from coffee makers to doorbells to toasters—could be connected to the internet. The Atlantic staff writer Joe Pinsker questions what could happen to all the data that companies will accumulate about domestic life, and how these devices ultimately shape people’s behavior.
Highlights
Weighted blankets have been used for decades in special-needs communities, but recently they’ve become a trendy must-have for the Instagram-shopping masses. The popularization of these blankets in recent years may have something to do with a rise in feelings of anxiety in the United States, writes Ashley Fetters.
Millennials have been accused of killing all sorts of American staples, from cars to cereal to cruises. Yet, as the Atlantic staff writer Alia Wong says, there’s one old-fashioned hallmark that younger Americans are sustaining: family holiday cards. Even while snail mail is on the decline, greeting cards have bucked the trend.
Dear Therapist
Every Monday, the psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb answers readers’ questions about life’s trials and tribulations, big or small, in The Atlantic’s “Dear Therapist” column.
This week, a reader wonders why their sister has stopped giving Christmas gifts to their two children. The reader isn’t necessarily upset about the lack of gifts, but wants to know what could have prompted the change.
More Stories
Lori’s advice: Focus on your relationship with your sister, not on the gifts:
“Perhaps there’s something in your history together that has made you reluctant to simply ask her what’s up in the same way that you so clearly and compassionately expressed your question here—that the gifts don’t matter, you just want to make sure everything’s okay between the two of you.”
Read the rest, and send Lori your questions at dear.therapist@theatlantic.com.
What To Expect When Dating An Older Man – YourTango
A big age difference can be a big deal.
This summer, I, at the tender age of 21, fell in love with a 37-year-old.
He, for his part, disputes this claim, and in the unlikely event that he ever reads this, would probably prefer I stick to terms like “dated” or “developed a crush on,” but more on that later.
In case you missed it, big age gaps are having a major cultural moment right now.
From the infamous yet surprisingly long-lived Scott Disick/Sofia Richie romance to Drake’s newfound habit of hanging out with teenagers, May-December romances are raising eyebrows all over Hollywood right now. But what do these relationships look like when you’re not a celebrity?
When my last relationship ended, older friends and family members all said the same thing about my 22-year-old ex: “He’s so young. Guys that age just don’t know what they want yet.”
This was annoying advice, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. People have held men to lower maturity standards for as long as I can remember. I’ve been told that “girls mature faster than boys” since elementary school. Naturally, this is a problematic stereotype on multiple levels, from its reinforcement of a gender binary to its biological essentialism and casual refusal to hold men responsible for their behavior.
Then again, my own experience has seldom contradicted this nugget of conventional wisdom, so I figured hey, might as well give it a shot with a man who’s had a little more time to pickle. I adjusted my Tinder age range, capping it at 38 instead of 28, and decided to see what happened.
I met up with a few so-so men in their mid-thirties, but it didn’t take me long to connect with Ray, the 37-year-old I ended up spending the summer with.
Here are 7 things that happen when you date an older man — or at least 7 things that happened when I dated one.
1. You get to go on better dates.
Or, rather, you get to go on dates, period. I don’t know if it’s because cusp Gen X/Millennials came of age in a pre-Tinder, pre-Netflix-and-chill era, or if we can maybe all hope to one day grow into the wining and dining lifestyle, but dating an older guy was definitely an upgrade in that dating him actually involved, well, dates. Go figure.
When he held doors open for me at Upper West Side restaurants and held my hand as I stumbled out of West Village bars, my dating life suddenly felt much more Carrie Bradshaw and much less college.
Moreover, there were none of the annoying bad dating habits that modern technology seems to have bred in the younger generation. There was no vaguely suggesting we hang out then just never texting me on the day of the tentative plans, no “U up?” texts at 2 a.m., no pointless back and forth about where we should go for dinner. He made plans and he stuck to them. It was mind blowing.
On our first date, he texted to confirm and got there early to get us a spot. When I walked into the bar, he had already ordered a cheese plate for us. It was the most competent thing I had ever witnessed a man do — a realization that led to some serious consideration of just how low I had set the bar for men and to what extent I can blame it on society.
2. You text less.
For as long as I’ve been dating, texting has been the religion of any relationship. How often you text is the barometer for your relationship status and any decrease in frequency, shift in emoji use, or perceived change in tone has always been immediate cause for panic.
When I was seeing Ray, however, texting was never a big deal. We texted back and forth a few times a week to make plans or sometimes to chat about something specific, but our relationship wasn’t defined by a fixed schedule beginning and ending with obligatory good morning and goodnight texts.
For someone who once used to earnestly believe having someone to constantly text was the main point of a relationship, this was initially a strange, daunting concept. And yet, I was surprisingly fine with it.
Turns out your life — and your relationship/situationship/casual but secretly not-so-casual fling — is a lot less stressful when you aren’t constantly waiting for a text and then obsessively mining each one for hidden subtext that he doesn’t like you anymore.
3. You try to use him for networking purposes.
Ray turned out to be an inarguably good-looking guy, but admittedly, the collection of mostly blurry, mostly distant group shots on his Tinder profile wasn’t what got him a first date. Rather, it was the brief Internet stalk that revealed his job. I was actually explicitly forbidden from ever mentioning his real name, position, or place of work in an article pretty early on, but let’s just say the name of the company he worked for is enough to wet the panties of any unpaid editorial intern in New York. Tinder is the new LinkedIn, ladies.
On our first date, I politely pretended to ask where he worked, but I copped to my Internet stalk a few drinks in and joked, but actually not-joked, that he should get me a job. You know, flirting.
To this day, I even have an unsent text drafted in my iPhone notes to the effect of “Heyyy so I know last time we saw each other I told you I loved you then cried myself to sleep in your bed, but is there any chance you’d be willing to pass my resume along to anyone in HR?”
4. Nothing, really.
By and large, I was mostly just surprised by how normal everything felt. Ray and I clicked pretty immediately. We had plenty to talk about and lots in common. In fact, while I’ve often struggled to make conversation with men my own age, Ray and I were seldom at a loss for words. More often than not, we found ourselves cutting each other off because everything one of us said triggered a new thought in the other one’s head.
From time to time, a friend would inevitably ask me, “But isn’t it weird?” And, the answer, truthfully, was no.
All things considered, dating Ray felt pretty effortless — considerably more so than most romantic interactions I’ve had with men my own age.
5. His bathroom is cleaner than yours.
When you’re a straight woman dating straight men in their early to mid-twenties, you’re almost guaranteed to be the clean one in the relationship. This has its pros and cons. Sure, you have to hang out with some dude in his pigsty of an apartment, but you also get the satisfaction of knowing you’re the one that has their life together while putting in relatively little effort to maintain that image.
When you’re a college student dating an actual man with an actual apartment, however, the tables turn. We spent most of that summer at his place, a pristine Upper West Side apartment that I routinely littered with shed hair and lost earrings. The one time he ever came to my place — a.k.a., my dorm room — I scrubbed the place down for an hour and still couldn’t match his level of cleanliness.
“Don’t worry,” he reassured me, “’girl bathrooms are always messy.”
6. He infantilizes you.
Something I have yet to mention about my summer romance is that from the beginning, it could never have been anything more. I was an intern living in New York for the summer, and, though we rarely mentioned it, we both knew I’d be leaving in August.
We both knew our romance had come with a built-in expiration date, but that didn’t stop me from trying to thwart it when the time came. On our last night together, I went for broke. I told him I had fallen in love with him and I wanted to see him again. While I was prepared for rejection, I was not prepared for him to try to talk me out of it.
“We don’t know each other well enough to be in love,” he dutifully informed me. He told me that love wasn’t what I thought it was. He brought out the old “I know you may think you feel a certain way,” and “You’re so young, you don’t even know who you’re going to be three years from now, six years from now.” He even dropped the, “You’ll forget about me in a month.”
All summer, our age gap had been more or less negligible. But as soon as real emotions came into play, I suddenly turned into a girl with a crush who couldn’t even be trusted to properly identify her own feelings.
7. You infantilize yourself.
Naturally, I wanted to be angry at him. But the truth was, as much as I pretended not to notice our age difference, I definitely got a certain thrill from it.
Dating someone significantly older than me inevitably heightened my awareness of my own youth and its power. The reality is, we live in a youth-obsessed culture and those standards are particularly high for women. At 21, I am already sharply aware that my own youth, and the power and privilege that comes with it, is on the verge of beginning its steady decline.
We often accuse men dating younger women of trying to relive their youth, but maybe the younger women in question have some stake in the matter as well. Dating someone older exaggerated my youth, making me feel like I could preserve or extend it a little longer.
On our first date, I remember strolling out of the bar hand in hand, drunkenly admitting that “I date older men because I know that someday when I am 37, my 37-year-old husband is going to want to date 21-year-olds.”
From day one, there was definitely a part of me that clung to the illusion of eternal youth the age gap provided — probably the same part of me that’s currently sleeping with a 48-year-old.
Kayla Kibbe is a writer wrapping up her final semester at Connecticut College where she is an English major with a concentration in creative writing. She covers trending celebrity and entertainment news, love and relationships, and astrology.
Dear Abby: Sparks fail to fly for mom dating her 'perfect match' – CT Post
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A woman is unable to spark her feelings for a man she is dating.
A woman is unable to spark her feelings for a man she is dating.
Photo: Juanmonino/Getty Images
A woman is unable to spark her feelings for a man she is dating.
A woman is unable to spark her feelings for a man she is dating.
Photo: Juanmonino/Getty Images
Dear Abby: I have a close friend who is in her mid-30s. She’s a wonderful, divorced, hardworking Christian mother of four who has finally ventured back to the dating scene. She’s currently seeing a guy who in all respects is perfect for her, she says. Unfortunately, when it comes to romance, for some reason she can’t seem to get aroused, and it’s now at a point where she avoids his kiss if possible. She really likes him and would love for this to work, but she feels conflicted because she doesn’t know how to “light her fire” and find him intimately attractive. She’s afraid she’ll eventually push him away even though she wants the exact opposite. Any advice I can pass along?
Needing a Friend in the Southwest
Dear Needing: Your friend needs to understand why she’s having a problem “getting her fire lit.” Could it be related to her divorce? Her feelings about premarital intimacy? Has she seen her doctor to rule out a physical cause? Or could it be that although he looks good on paper, there’s simply no chemistry? Because intimacy is an important part of marriage, she needs to be honest with herself about why she’s reacting the way she is. If this isn’t the only man this has happened with, and she can’t find the answers within herself, some sessions with a licensed mental health professional may be in order.
Dear Abby: My husband invited his good friend (an artist) to stay with us for two nights because he is coming to our city to give a speech. He accepted. We tried to contact him two weeks ago, one week ago, three days ago, yesterday and this morning to find out what time he’ll arrive so we can plan our schedule and prepare the food. He still hasn’t gotten back to us. I had planned to go to church and a concert afterward. My husband doesn’t want me to leave. I am very frustrated about the man’s lack of consideration. My husband considers him a good friend, but after the way we are being treated, I’m not convinced.
Still Waiting in California
Dear Still Waiting: I don’t blame you for being miffed. Good friends don’t treat each other so rudely. They answer their messages and show up when they’re expected. Unless the man was in the hospital, solitary confinement or dead, there’s no excuse for his poor manners. Because your husband considers him a good friend, he should have stayed home to welcome “the artist” and let you off the hook.
Dear Abby: My son and daughter-in-law are “horrified” that we refer to our 3-year-old grandson’s penis using the correct terminology. Should we relent and refer to that part of his body as something else?
Unsure in the South
Dear Unsure: Not in my opinion. Children should be taught the correct terms for their body parts as soon as they are aware enough to identify — and pronounce — them. To do this will prevent confusion and possibly embarrassment later.
