| How to Know if Someone is Worth Pursuing |
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If you've joined various online dating services, such as the ones we've reviewed, you are probably meeting many interested singles. Those who were not getting many dates before joining an online dating service may be surprised by the success dating sites can achieve, and may not know how to proceed.
Even if they're all great people, dating all of them long term is probably not the answer. You'll need to quickly narrow it down to those best suited to building the kind of relationship you want. This article gives dating advice for learning more about the people you date, to help you decide who is most compatible and suited to be your partner.
How to Know if Someone is Worth Pursuing
By eHarmony.com
Being an effective and wise dater requires that you balance several separate issues. You must be assured of your own emotional health and have created a list of qualities that you want and don't want in a relationship partner. You also must have developed the ability to actively listen. Active Listening is a way of absorbing who a person is, by the things they say. It's about asking questions and empathizing with their answers. This type of listening is the best way to quickly determine if the person sitting across from you is worth getting to know better.
Tell Me About Yourself
During a first date, volumes of personal information are exchanged. As a person talks about their life, they reveal what sort of people they have as friends, what their hobbies are, their level of responsibility, their anger level, their opinions on the opposite sex, etc. These clues are usually wrapped inside stories or observations, but to the person who is focused on listening, they are loud and clear. It is usually best to arrange for a first date to be in a setting where you can comfortably spend time talking and sharing. When you do, you can learn enough during the first date or two to decide if this is a relationship that should move ahead.
Is That Any Fun?
Dating should be fun. Life should be fun! This fact-finding attitude doesn't mean that you interview your date, firing question after question to see if they make muster. Rather, in the course of natural conversation, be aware of what is being revealed. It is also important for singles to focus on the other person during the first few dates. We all want to make a good impression, but trying to win over someone makes it hard for us to tune in to the necessary information that is coming our way. Relationship expert Dr. Neil Clark Warren explains it this way in his book How to Know if Someone is Worth Pursuing in Two Dates or Less: "Mature dating involves questioning deeper matters - matters that determine the likelihood of a healthy, long-term match."
Becoming an Expert Observer
The best way to learn the maximum information from someone is to encourage them to talk and for you to listen. Oftentimes the most basic questions like, "What do you like about your job?" are the most revealing. If someone spends 15 minutes explaining how they love or hate their job, you can discern some very valuable information about their level of day-to-day happiness. Dr. Warren encourages you to start with the simple questions. "As you listen to what the person says, you can ask follow-up questions in a natural way, and you can move toward more meaningful topics. You want to discover what the person enjoys about his daily experience, whether he is happy and why."
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
While some people are skilled at talking in ways that hide their true nature, their actions invariably reveal a great deal about who they are. By the end of a first date you have experienced: a person's phone manner, their punctuality, their manners, their respect for service employees, as well as an entire host of other behaviors that reveal their values and beliefs. Dr. Warren emphasizes assessing your date's judgment. "If the individual knows how to make consistently wise decisions, he or she will almost certainly contribute consistently to the strength and health of the relationship. So your task becomes one of 'judging your date's judgments.'"
Lastly, intuition plays a part in deciding if this person is someone you would like to continue seeing. Do you feel comfortable around this person? Can you be yourself? Even if nothing you have heard during your date seems to be a warning sign, you must still honor that feeling that says, Something is wrong. "With some persons, you feel a need to live up to their expectations, preferences and strongly held opinions," Dr. Warren explains. "With others, you experience a kind of total acceptance and unconditional affirmation that sets you free at a deep and fundamental level." Attention not only to what the person says and does but how you feel at the end of the evening is the key to making a wise relationship decision.
This online dating article is © eHarmony.com and used with permission. To be one of the millions of singles that have found success their unique matching system, Join eHarmony.com Today. Read our eHarmony Review for more information on this online dating service.
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