If you are reading this, please PLEASE listen to me. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, sacrifice or comprise your standards for anything or anyone. Your standards are the most important thing for you and a healthy relationship, so hold on to them tight until someone meets them.
One of my standards is good communication. I need someone who won’t take a long time to call or text me back (for context, a long time to me is anything more than 3 days). For the longest time of my life, I have constantly compromised this standard, and you know what it did? It kept me in a pattern. A pattern of attracting and being attracted to emotionally unavailable women, and I took their lack of effort as an indication for me to try harder. Sacrificing my standard led me to fall for the IDEA of someone, the potential that they had. And every time this happened, I would constantly give too much and then get mad at my crush for not matching my effort. Even when they constantly showed me through their actions who they were, I still believed and fell for who they could be. It wasn’t until recently that I saw just how important it is to set boundaries and uphold the standards you hold for yourself.
If someone tells you your standards are too high or that you should give people some leeway, don’t listen to that advice. Remember, these are YOUR standards. And your standards are there to help you become the best and healthiest version of yourself to love and to give love. So please learn from my mistake: NEVER COMPROMISE YOUR STANDARDS.
6 comments
For the longest time I thought I was the problem because people reacted so negatively to my standards. I cared, I overexplained, I tried to make them more palatable. In reality, the hostility was the answer.
People love to reframe standards as insecurity, trauma, or fear, anything but a personal choice. That framing says more about the discomfort of exclusion than about the standard itself.
Most outrage over standards is just ego reacting to disqualification. They only offend the people they exclude.
Well when it comes to reasonable standards then sure. If your standards are reasonable (such as having a reasonably responsive partner). Some people just have super unrealistic standards though like being pampered or dating some kind of model. So the devil is in the details here.
This is so important fr
If your standards are that you want to be pampered like some kind of princess, while not making enough yourself to support that kind of lifestyle or having any redeeming qualities, obviously there’s a problem with that.
You don’t HAVE to lower your standards, but then don’t be surprised if everyone ghosts you after the first few dates.
I am not talking about anyone specific here, just hypothetically.
If you are to go into business with a partner in any form of that idea, Compromise is a MUST, so this is just bad advice.
A better one would be to analyze based on the initial efforts given by a potential partner. For example, I do like a coworker. I messaged her and talked, but she never initiates contact unless it’s strictly work and EVEN though we do talk at work about different things. Therefore, she doesn’t have much interest and I go about my life.
Here’s a bad example that similar. There was a friend I had where we’d text or hangout everyday, but the minute a BF comes in, she shuts me out for weeks or even a couple months outside a couple messages. That right there should tell me that I was simply a placeholder and I either let that happen as it may and keep it friendly or I move on, but instead I’d double down which made me fall harder when the relationship reached its terrible climax and it shut out any feelings for people for half a decade. Had I read the room, I’d probably be in a much better situation right now.
Excellent!! Unfortunately I am kinda the same and have done way above and beyond for people that didn’t deserve it.
You get tired of losing everything you have every 5 years. Thru therapy and an extremely smart woman lawyer I was set on the right path. I have never been happier and enjoy the best relationship/friendship with a wonderful woman.
Good luck in your future. Everyone deserves to be happy.