Blind Dates Aren’t Always Nightmares

Blind dates have always received a bad rep for the most part. These are events that truly frighten people whether they’ve ever been on a blind date or not. That’s because, many times, they were set up by thoughtless people that didn’t even really consider how much the potential couple may actually have in common. Admittedly, these types of blind dates CAN and usually ARE complete nightmares, but it doesn’t have to always be that way.

In this current age of dating services and online dating websites, blind dates are almost the norm now. Of course, you DO have the option of getting to know the person you’re considering going on a date with prior to the date itself because of the online contact between the two of you. There’s chatting, exchange of emails, and even phone calls, if you want. By the time you actually meet for coffee or dinner, you’ve got somewhat of an idea about the person you’re meeting.

True blind dates are an entirely different matter. These happen when your best friend sets you up with her brother in law, cousin in law, guy from her husband’s office, or a variety of other choices. You’ve never laid eyes on this guy and know absolutely NOTHING about him, yet, you’ll be having dinner with him at your friend’s home. It is blind dates of this sort that can be trouble. If you haven’t been consulted at all prior to this date, it can be even worse.

However, look at it from another viewpoint. Suppose that your friend, sister, or whoever is setting you up on this blind date, has spoken at length with you about the qualities you must have in any man that you would consider having a relationship with. Suppose, also, that this person has spent time telling you all about the man that you’ll be meeting. In fact, you almost feel as if you know this man by the time the actual date comes about. Assume that the man in question has also undergone the same process regarding you. When it’s these things that have been considered before a blind date, there’s a very good chance that you and this new man will hit it off.

Another thing that is a better idea for blind dates is to double date. So when you meet this new man, you know that there won’t be any chances of those uncomfortable silences when you don’t know what to say. If you’ve got really good friends, they’ll know if the time comes that they should make themselves scarce and let the two of you get better acquainted. On the other hand, they’ll also be able to see if the entire exercise is one in futility, and they’ll know to call it a night at an appropriate time.

When there’s enough preparation beforehand, many blind dates turn out to be very successful and can even end in marriage. The thing to remember is that they must be orchestrated in just the right way to stand a chance of working out.

Signs that Your Woman is Cheating on You

Everyone knows that men cheat all the time. It’s almost like it’s in their DNA or something. If it’s genetic, they just can’t help themselves, right?  While that’s probably a lot of nonsense, something else to consider is that women also cheat. They may not cheat quite as much as men, but they DO step out on their men for various reasons. Sometimes they’re better at hiding it than their cheating male counterparts, though. There are signs, however, that you can look for if you think your woman may be cheating on you. They include:

• Accusing YOU of cheating: This is a way of diverting the guilt from herself to you. Even worse, is if you’ve cheated on her before, she may give herself permission to get even with you by cheating. Either way, she knows what she’s done and figures that you may be doing the same thing.
• Starting to look her best when she goes out: When you notice your partner suddenly dressing to the nines when she’s supposedly going grocery shopping or to the gym, you may want to investigate why she needs to look so gorgeous.
• Telling you she needs some space: While this doesn’t always mean she’s cheating, it can mean that she wants you out of the way so she’ll be free to meet a lover.
• Hinting that she’s not happy: If your partner is telling you things like she needs more romance in her life, and that she loves things like getting flowers and love notes, you need to take her seriously. You see, if YOU don’t hear what she’s telling you, someone ELSE WILL.
• Making a new best friend that you’ve never met: In this case, it’s not so much that she’s made a new best friend and you’ve never met this friend, it’s that she’s suddenly spending lots of time with this new friend. In addition, she always has an excuse for why it’s not a good time to meet her.
• Changing her plans at the very last minute: For example, she’s gone out for a night on the town with the new best friend that you’ve never met and calls you around midnight with some excuse for why she’s just going to crash at her friend’s place for the night.
• Your friends are telling you she’s cheating: Of course you don’t want to believe something like that, and she’s told you it’s not true. However, if more than one person tells you they know she’s cheating, it’s probably true.
• Suddenly wanting to keep close tabs on you: When your woman is cheating on you, she needs to make sure that she’s not likely to run into you while she’s doing it.
• Making excuses for not having sex: This should be a huge red flag, especially if she was always raring to go in the past. Now, all of a sudden, she’s too tired, doesn’t feel well, or has the most frequent and longest periods in history.
• Has no interest in the relationship: She probably doesn’t care enough to even argue with you anymore.

You may think that these are all pretty obvious signs of cheating but you would be surprised at how many of them that men actually miss.

Help! His Best Friend is a Woman

It’s certainly not uncommon for a man to have a woman as his best friend. While it’s not uncommon, it CAN become problematic if the relationship is closer than a romantic relationship will ever be for either of them. Sex certainly does not have to be involved for a man and a woman to be monumentally close. It happens all the time with Internet relationships. However, if your partner has a female best friend and she seems to be more a part of your lives and relationship than you would like, you need to do something to change that.

Of course, the first thing you need to figure out is if there’s actually anything inappropriate with their friendship. If your partner is spending hours on the phone with his best friend on a regular basis to the extent that he’s ignoring you; that’s a problem. When you and your partner go out for the evening, if she always has to tag along or, worse yet, he makes plans to go out with her ALONE; there is a very big issue. If she’s invited by your partner to come along on your vacations, then you may definitely want to mention it to him.

Basically, if your partner is treating his “best friend” more like a girlfriend, you’ve got every right to make your feelings known. Hopefully, he’ll be reasonable about it and see your point of view. If he doesn’t, there are a few things to try so that he’ll finally get it.

Once you’ve talked to your partner about including his best friend LESS in your relationship; that should be the end of it. However, if it’s not, and he continues to put her ahead of you, it may be time to go out and find your OWN best friend: a male, of course. This is known as giving him a taste of his own medicine. Show him how it feels to be left at home while you go out for a night on the town with your best friend. Be sure to bring your best friend along on outings and trips with you and your partner. Actually, this could work better than you had hoped if HIS best friend and YOUR best friend hook up.

If his best friend has a partner of her own, you may try sitting down and talking things over with him. It may be that he’s just as frustrated as you are with this friendship and the two of you can work together to tone things down a notch. It’s certainly worth a shot.

Only use an ultimatum as a last resort. Men can be pretty strange creatures when it comes to telling them what they can and cannot do. If you make him choose between his best friend and you, things may not work out like you want them to. Even though he’s not having a sexual relationship with his best friend, he may decide that he would still rather keep her in his life and get rid of you. If that happens, all you can do is chalk it up to a lesson learned. Next time, you’ll know what to watch for in the BEGINNING of a relationship rather than spotting it after you’ve settled in.

Your Man Just Hit on Me…

A situation that comes up more often than anyone would like to admit is the one where your boyfriend, fiance or husband actually hits on a good friend of yours. It’s definitely one of the more humiliating things that can happen to anyone and it’s also one that’s very difficult to know how to handle. There are many things that come to mind at first, but there are also other things to consider before making an immediate decision.

To begin with, you need to consider the source. Is the person telling you that your man just hit on her a reliable person? Or is she someone that has been known to be jealous of you in the past and has lied to you on more than one occasion? If that’s the case, you’ll want some definitive proof that she’s not lying to you this time before you start throwing your man’s clothes out onto the front lawn. Witnesses would be ideal but they usually aren’t part of the equation as even a man stupid enough to hit on his woman’s friend will be smart enough to do it privately. So you’ll have to take another route in sniffing out the truth.

The best method to try is taking them both by surprise. Get them both together in front of you and confront him with what you’ve been told. Unless your man is an exceptional liar, you’ve probably noticed little things he does when he’s not being completely truthful with you. Watch him closely because you don’t want to miss that first involuntary response from him when you make the initial accusation. You should be able to tell if he’s guilty as charged.

Now, if he DID actually hit on your friend, you’re most likely going to want to know why. Ask the question if you really want the answer. But you’re still going to need to decide whether he stays or goes. Can you ever trust him again? Probably not. Has this ever happened before while you’ve been together? It may have. Was he drunk when he made the pass? Does it really matter? The bottom line is that he was TRYING to cheat on you and that’s not acceptable in a monogamous relationship.

So unless you want to entertain the idea of threesomes and swapping, this is one man that you probably will want to send on his way. Don’t put yourself through the agony of worrying about whether or not he can be trusted around your friends. You should be able to have attractive friends without limiting yourself to only those that probably will be old maids until they leave the earth. There should be trust between the two of you and if you’ve got to worry about whether or not he’s in the hall bathroom trying to feel up your best friend, it’s simply not worth it. Help him pack and take away his door key. Then you can find someone that’s worthy of you and who won’t behave like a wild animal in heat with anyone other than you.

Help! My Boyfriend is Gay!

You’ve been dating the same guy for a year or more and he’s all you’ve ever wanted in a man. He’s amazingly handsome, sensitive to your needs, chooses the perfect gifts, and sex is usually more about you than him. Your friends tell you how jealous they are that you’ve got someone like this in your life. Life is beautiful and you look forward to a long and happy life with this man.

Suddenly, everything comes to a screeching halt. He sits you down and tells you that he has something to talk about with you. It’s easy to tell that it’s serious because he seems to be very nervous and on the verge of tears. You take his hands and tell him that there’s nothing that the two of you cannot get through together. Then he drops a bomb you were totally NOT expecting. It seems that he’s come to realize that he’s gay.

There will be many questions that you’ll have and you have the right to ask them.  If he’s as great as you think he is, he’ll do the right thing and answer all of them as honestly and kindly as he can. Next, there will be some decisions to be made, particularly around your relationship. This isn’t as simple as it would seem.

First of all, there’s the fact that he’s been dating you for so long that it’s highly possible that he’s bisexual with a heavy leaning toward men. If that’s the case, your relationship may not HAVE to end; that is if you’re willing to share him at least on occasion. On the other hand, he may now be telling you because he’s met someone that he wants to pursue a same sex relationship with.

There are so many things that you’re going to need to think through. The first one may be that you’re so in love with him that you think you’ll do anything to keep him with you even if it means that may have to share him sometimes with another man. In reality, this isn’t something that you may be able to handle.  Most people want a committed relationship with one partner and if this describes you, it bears some thinking about how you would feel being left alone while your partner was out on a date with a man.

Consider that he’s telling you because he’s made a decision of his own. He has decided that this isn’t a part of himself that he can ignore any longer and he’s going to act on it. If he asks for your forgiveness, friendship and support in coming out, try to keep in mind that this is a man you’ve loved for a while and probably still do love. The kindest thing to do for both of you is to let him go. It’s the only way that you’ll both be able to get on with your lives. Try not to hate him or resent him. When you’ve given yourself time to heal, he may be the best friend you’ve ever had or could ever have.

Is Worry Ruining Your Relationship?

Everyone knows that there are some people that are just born to worry. These people worry about anything and everything. Some of their worries are legitimate but, for the most part, they worry about things that it really makes no sense to worry about.

To begin with, worry never made anything better. Worry doesn’t solve problems and it saps your energy without making things any different.

When you’ve been mistreated in a relationship, or you’ve had several of them just go wrong for whatever reason, you may have turned into a worrier. You start to worry about whether or not this new or current relationship is going to last. You may also worry about whether or not you’re attractive enough for your partner. There are so many different things that you can worry about within a relationship that you simply don’t know which ones are valid reasons to actually worry.

Something that many people worry about is introducing a new partner to their best friend. There is no shortage of horror stories that depict the best friend swooping in and stealing away the new partner. It’s little wonder that this is one of the top things that people tend to worry about. However, even if you do have “one of those friends” that you’re never sure you can trust, there’s nothing to be gained in becoming paranoid. The best way to handle that situation is to get rid of any friends that you cannot trust. They’re not really your friends anyway.

Do you worry that your partner is out telling some very personal things about you? This has been known to happen on more than one occasion. However, if you can’t trust your partner enough to keep appropriately private things between the two of you, it may be time to stop sharing those sorts of things. That’s rather sad, though, because it means that there are trust issues in your relationships when you can’t confide in your partner without it becoming public knowledge.

The question really should be whether or not you’re finding yourself worrying constantly about everything that MIGHT go wrong in your relationship. You may also be worrying about whatever else may be going wrong in your life, no matter what area it is. If you do find yourself doing that, you may also find that all of this worrying is making you a depressing person to be around. It’s like you suck the energy out of every room you walk into when you carry around all of this worry with you. Not only will you have trouble with getting a successful relationship, but you’ll find that most people will avoid being around you.

It’s very easy to let worry ruin your relationship, especially if you don’t know you’re doing it.  Be brutally honest with yourself and see if you’re one of those worriers. If you are, there’s every chance that you’re putting your relationship in jeopardy. Move forward quickly to take steps that will help you to not worry so much. Try talking things over with your partner so they know you’re not doing this on purpose. Maybe he or she can help you calm down.

Is it Wrong to Hook up with your Best friends Ex?

Many couples today aren’t exactly solid when they get together. In fact, more of them break up than stay together. The interesting phenomenon that seems to be forming from all of this breaking up is the pairing of best friends and their exes.

The most recent of these to be in the public eye is that of singer Shania Twain. Her very best friend was having an affair with Shania’s husband while she was still friends with Shania. When it all came out, eventually Shania ended up married to her ex-best friend’s former husband. He and Shania basically consoled each other right into a full blown relationship. Shania went through a bad time but came out on the other side a whole new woman. Incidentally, she and her former friend are no longer keeping company at all.

That’s a bit of an extreme situation even in Celebrity Land, but it’s much more common than people think that exes and best friends hook up. The question is whether or not this is the best idea. Granted, each situation is unique so obviously you can’t say that there’s a right or wrong answer to this question across the board. However, as a general rule it’s a bad idea to do hook up with your best friend’s ex.

Think of it in terms of privacy, first of all. Once your best friend has been dating and probably having sex with someone, you probably know all sorts of personal things about this person since best friends tend to talk to each other about most things. There’s a bit of an “ick factor” to that and it may, or may not bother you. But it’s still something to think about. Do you really want to be where your friend has been?

Then there are the inevitable comparisons between you and your friend that the ex can’t help but draw. You may even experience that unhappy situation when the ex calls you by your friend’s name at a very inopportune moment. Nothing is going to make THAT any better.

Another consideration is what sort of terms did your friend and the ex part on? Did they part as friends or was it an ugly battle? This is something that you have to think about seriously because if you decide to hook up with the ex, it may cause a massive rift between you and your friend. That’s when you’ll need to figure out just how much the friendship means to you. If it means that you’re going to lose a good friend if you take on the ex, will it be worth it?  That’s what you really need decide before going any further with a possible relationship.

On the other hand, if your friend tells you that it’s perfectly ok for you to form a connection with the ex, and you’re POSITIVE it really IS ok, there’s no reason for you not to go ahead with things. If you don’t, you may always have that “what if” question floating around in your head.