If
you’re
in a relationship, do you know who you're dating?
I don’t mean
your sweetie's name, but who that person actually is — and how accurately you're seeing him or her. Do you understand how that person operates as the unique snowflake he or she is? I don’t ask because I want you to be highly
attuned to your lover’s particular qualities (even though that’s
a bonus), but rather, because we should all be checking in to make sure we're
dating the actual human we ran into on the street / were introduced to at a
party / met online, and not a person we’ve constructed in our minds.
To
figure this out, here are a few questions for you about your relationship. Have
you ever:
…Thought that your partner was
so perfect, you weren’t good enough for the relationship?
…Had fantasies that your partner
realized how special you are and changed how he or she treats you as a result?
…Lied about your partner to
others to make him or her sound cooler/smarter/better at dating?
…Dismissed or ignored the things about your partner that
weird you out, rationalizing that "everybody's got faults!" (which they
do) — but still found yourself ignoring more than you paid attention to?
…Thought, I should just be happy that
he/she is willing to date me, when you had complaints
about the relationship?
…Felt an innate and primal sense of distrust in a
relationship, not because of anything the other person had done, but because
you'd been cheated on/betrayed in the past?
…Thought your relationship was
perfect when you weren’t
together, but then had to force yourself to ignore certain things about your
partner when you were hanging out?
…Thought, My ex used to act like that. Oh shit. Am I dating my ex again?
If
you said yes to any of these questions, you might be dating a mirage. Mirage
Dating (copyright pending) can strike the best of us and the worst of us, and
it can make us see our current relationships through either rose-colored or
shit-colored glasses.
Mirage
Dating happens when we head into relationships while actively constructing the person
we are getting to know, rather than actually getting to know him or her. We ignore
the qualities that don’t
fit into what we want to see (be they positive or negative) and only focus on
what we want or are expecting to see. This can doom a relationship as well as expectations of dating in general.
Now, pay attention, because what I’m
not saying is that you
should move on if an actual relationship isn’t perfect. That’s
the thing: Relationships aren’t
perfect. Healthy relationships aren’t
constant strife, but they aren’t
constant rainbows and giggling over brunch, either. Real relationships are full
of the good, the bad, and the mundane. If the relationship in your head just
isn’t
matching up with the relationship you’re actually in, you’ve got to do some soul
searching to determine if it’s your expectations that are off, or if the
relationship is off. If it's your expectations, you have to shake them off and start looking at the relationship with fresh eyes. If it's your relationship, it’s time to either
accept it as it is, or move on.
If
you’ve been guilty of
Mirage Dating, and I certainly have, you may be wondering: Why do we do this? Why do we ignore the
person in front of us and instead construct a person and a relationship to suit
our needs? Why can't we exist in the actual relationship? Why do we conjure up
romantic ideals out of real-live human beings and then snuggle on the couch watching Netflix
with them? I’ve done it
for several reasons, listed below, but I’m sure there are more.
1. Cultural expectations.
This is a big
one for me. I was raised to believe that I should be in a romantic relationship
at all times, and that my romantic relationship should be the centerpiece of my
life. I’m not even saying
that is a terrible way to think about love, but for me, what it led to was a
belief that I need to be always dating someone, regardless of how much I
liked him or how he treated me. Quantity over quality. I dated a guy who
treated me terribly — because he was nice to me on the first
date. I dated a guy who was openly cheating on me — out of fear of being alone. I
dated a guy who I didn’t
get along with at all — just because he wanted to date me.
2. Being stuck in old patterns.
A guy
cheated on me once, and the impact his cheating left on me extended to my next
few relationships. Anytime a boyfriend tilted his phone slightly away from me
while checking his texts, my brain would start going, Why is he being so secretive? What is he hiding? I knew it,
he’s just like Brad. How lame is that? But, it
happens all the time. We need to go into relationships with open eyes, giving
the other person time to earn our trust, but we also can’t assume the worst of the other person just because we’ve been hurt before. The person
you’re dating is the
person you’re dating — not
your ex, not “just like
all men/women,” and not a
representation of an entire gender.
3. Rom-com brain.
I have watched
probably every romantic comedy in history, and I have followed every “will they or won’t they?” in every sitcom with breathless anticipation. I love
romantic tension. However, I found that it was making me comb through the
interactions I had with irritating men, searching for signs that they were
actually my soul mates. Rom-coms have led to me putting up with guys who say
they care about me but treat me exactly the opposite, because that’s how men in rom-coms behave
for the first two acts of any movie. Rom-coms have kept me in relationships
where the man doesn’t
treat me with respect but will then pull out some big, corny, romantic gesture
every few months as an attempt to “do
the right thing.” Rom-coms
are fantastic, but they’re
supposed to be fantasies, not blueprints for how relationships should be.
Love
is a beautiful thing, and fantasy lives are beautiful things, but they should
only really overlap when you’re
role-playing in the bedroom. If you’re
in a relationship, check in with yourself and talk to your friends about
whether you're really existing in that relationship — or existing in a
relationship you’ve
created. Real relationships are flawed and beautiful and works in progress, and
every single one is special like a snowflake. Don’t
sell yourself short by not experiencing the reality of love.