Fit For A Date?

[axelg]

I remember reading the personals in a newspaper, years back. There was this woman looking for a partner and she made it really clear that she wasn't interested in guys with emotional baggage.

At the time, I was deeply depressed but I wasn't willing to accept the fact that I was unfit for a relationship. Needless to say, the combination of feeling needy and depressed made all the dating fail completely...

What are your experiences of old baggage coming in the way?

Basic Relationship Skills

[Angela]

If your relationship with yourself is unhealthy (e.g., you are deeply depressed, or still in the midst of processing the lesson from a previous relationship), you bring that to your current dating life. Who you'll attract is a person who resonates with your ill health or lack of availability. So it depends on what you are willing to create for yourself -- do you want a healthy loving, long-term, mutually beneficial relationship or period of dating for fun, or are you willing to jump right into a relationship in which you'll be struggling and suffering?

Everybody's got old pain that they carry into relationships. The question is: how much of that old pain are you going to take responsibility for, and how much are you going to consider can be "cured" by another person? The ratio is what will determine how successful you'll be in creating the kind of relationship you really want.

[driven1]

Me, I hurt a few girls in the past. Nothing unusual, really, just me breaking up after a year or so because I wasn't feeling it -- but plenty of time for them to fall deep in love with me. I hate hurting people, especially people I care about.

So my baggage affects me in that I'm unwilling to even entertain the idea of a long-term relationship with a woman unless I'm pretty darn sure I can fall in love with her... and, you know, that's a pretty rare thing. Some women are completely fine being f-buddies, and that's great, but a whole lot are looking for a serious boyfriend, future husband -- especially women in their upper-20s, lower-30s, who feel the clock ticking and really want to start a family. Can't fault 'em for that.

But I'm not looking for anything serious, unless maybe I meet somebody incredible. So the downside is that my baggage leads to a lot of lonely nights for me. I'm also sure there are girls out there that think I'm a jerk cuz I didn't even give them a chance.

All in all, I kinda like my baggage, and I'm gonna hang onto it for a while. Keeps me honest.