Teenager Teen Relationships, Dating and Choosing a Partner Wisely

When you are a teenager, or a preteen, you are learning about yourself and also learning about what kinds of people you like to be around. You are hopefully living a happy, healthy life, but I realize that many of you are not living a homelife that is mentally healthy.

Some of you have supportive parents and others of you have abusive parents. Whether they abuse is physical, sexual or mental / emotional , any kind of  abuse will affect your judgement about selecting friends and boyfriends / girlfriends.

You have to know who you are. You are on a path of self discovery. As you learn about yourself, you also need to believe in yourself.

You are still developing your self esteem and your value system. You are still developing your personality and how you present yourself to the world. You are learning how to interact, how to attract others and what to do with them, once you attract them.

Here are some important things for you to remember, when you are dating.

1. You matter ! Your feelings and your thoughts matter.

2. Trust your feelings and your intuition. If you feel like something is wrong with w certain person, or a certain relationship, then listen to that intuition. It is there as an alert system for you.

3. Do not let others choose for you. People think they know who you are and who would be a good match for you, but they do not. You know what you want and need. NO one else can pick someone for you.

4. Do not choose someone, in accordance with  what the social group wants you to do. Not only will individual people want to “set you up” , but the social group itself may have rules about who you can and cannot date.  Be careful to think for yourself and not to let others think for you.

5. If you do not like being with someone, you never will. Do not try to force yourself to like a guy that you do not like, just so that you can have a boyfriend / or girlfriend. You are better on your own than with someone who you just do not like.  Do not think that you can Make yourself like them, by hanging out with them.

6. Relationships Should be Balanced. There should be give and take in relationships. It should not be one-sided, where one person gets their way all the time. One person should not be dominating over the other person.

7. No Abuse!  The No Abuse Rule Cannot be Broken. No one can abuse you for any reason that makes it okay. Abuse includes being physically rough with you. This includes talking you into sex that you do not feel comfortable with. 

Abuse is also any emotional or mental torment. If anyone is manipulative with you, by making you feel bad (guilty, shame, sad, scared) then that is abuse.

Abuse can be mental abuse, which could be trying to make you into someone you are not. Making you feel stupid, making you feel embarrassed in front of other people. Being nicer to your friends than to you. There are many mentally and emotionally abuse behaviors and you can read about them in some of my other posts.

8. Your Parents Can Not Choose for you.  Your parents may thing they know someone who would be a good match for you. Most guys will act a certain way in front of your parents, that does not allow your parents to see everything about them. There is not enough information that your parents can get from any girl or boy that you like, in order to know how they will treat you.

PLEASE NOTE – If you have good parents that are not abusive, they will be looking out for you. I did say that they cannot choose someone for you, however they can WARN YOU if someone seems to be abusive or a very bad match for you. When you have feelings for someone, it is easy to miss red flags, but your parents may pick up on them.

9. Communication is Very Important. You should be able to communicate with the person you are dating, You should be able to talk about your thoughts, opinions and your feelings.

If they shut you down, and do not care about your feelings, then you should move on and let them go.

If they always have to be right and do not want your opinions or thoughts about things, they are a potential abuser and you need to get out.

10. It is okay to be on your own. It is okay to not have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. You do not have to be with someone all the time, or at all. If you have recently come out of a break up, then it is good to wait a while before jumping into a new relationship. Your emotions need to heal before you will have a good perspective to make good choices.

It is ok to be on your own. You do not need to be with someone, in order to be cool. You do not need someone in order to be happy. In fact some people will make you miserable.

It is ok to be on your own, just because you want to. You have a  lot of things to do, with school, family and activities. Relationships take time and you may not have the time right now.

It is okay to be on your own. It is okay if no one has asked you out. There are always some girls who seem to get asked out all the time. You might be the one that no one seems interested in.

This is probably because you are a real person. You are not all fluff and puff. You have depth and intelligence. There will be someone that will really respect and love you for that. But the “click” people and the “popular”  crowds do not like independent thinkers.

Be yourself. Do Not Change to fit in. DO not change to get a guy. be yourself and the right guy will come along. You would not be happy with these superficial people anyway. You would be frustrated and bored.

You need someone with some depth and intelligence. You will have to wait patiently until that special person comes along, because there are not as many independent thinkers as there are “crowd pleasers”

Guess what? This guy is also wondering where you are ! He is somewhere with people that he does not fit in with. He is the one not getting asked out,  because he does not fit in with the group. They are waiting to meet you.