Interesting. Where I want to go for a first date is not the same as where I want to go just to refuel. In my mind they need to facilitate different things. Are they the same to you?
its where I assume she wants to go. This is pretty much my experience of most things in relationships. I try my best to please her and am left completely unsatisfied myself.
Sounds like that’s a suffering of your own making, to be frank. You’re ignoring the “take” part of give-and-take.
I too tend to neglect myself and my needs in relationships, which is why I swore off them until I had learnt to balance my priorities so I wouldn’t forget myself.
But I also fully knew that neglecting myself was something I did, not my partners. If I enthusiastically choose what they want to do and always to predict what my partner wants, instead of expressing my own wants and finding a compromise or taking turns, then they never get the opportunity to do things for me or compromise - because they think we’re both getting what we want already.
If you are expressing your wants and still never get catered to, then it’s probably not a good relationship. But if you’re not expressing yourself you are setting your partner (and the relationship) up for failure.
I absolutely think you should make a suggestion that takes your own personality into account for a first date. Of course we dont need to dump all of our worst traits at once, but you’re not there pretending to be the perfect fit like you’re auditioning for the role of partner, you’re both there to figure out if you mesh well together.
Plus, hot dogs by a camp fire was one of the best dates I’ve been on (wouldn’t recommend deep woods or other very remote locations for a first date with a stranger though). I wouldn’t want to date someone who didn’t like camp fires!
In this case compromise means going somewhere neither of us is enthusiastic about. For me the value of eating out is that I don’t need to cook myself - a sushi buffet achieves that, and the food is good. Going to a nicer restaurant means it costs more, I need to wait longer and usually I get a smaller portion of food and the quality of it is the same at best. It’s simply just a worse experience for me personally. So since I’m not enjoying myself either way we may just as well go somewhere she wants to so at least one of us is having fun.
And you’re right - they have been bad relationships. We haven’t had anything in common. Last time though I did lay the cards on the table from the very beginning and 9 years later when she finally had enough she at least couldn’t say that she didn’t know or that I had changed. She did know.
If there is to be a new romantic relationship for me in the future I might just give it a try with a guy instead. It’s at least conceivable that things haven’t worked out in the past for the simple reason that I’ve been trying to shove myself into a mould I don’t fit into. I’m a peculiar, eccentric person and it takes a certain kind of individual to get along with me. It seems that people either like me a lot or not at all.
Excuse my cynicism. I’m not proud of it but it is what it is.
Interesting. Where I want to go for a first date is not the same as where I want to go just to refuel. In my mind they need to facilitate different things. Are they the same to you?
Sounds like that’s a suffering of your own making, to be frank. You’re ignoring the “take” part of give-and-take.
I too tend to neglect myself and my needs in relationships, which is why I swore off them until I had learnt to balance my priorities so I wouldn’t forget myself.
But I also fully knew that neglecting myself was something I did, not my partners. If I enthusiastically choose what they want to do and always to predict what my partner wants, instead of expressing my own wants and finding a compromise or taking turns, then they never get the opportunity to do things for me or compromise - because they think we’re both getting what we want already.
If you are expressing your wants and still never get catered to, then it’s probably not a good relationship. But if you’re not expressing yourself you are setting your partner (and the relationship) up for failure.
I absolutely think you should make a suggestion that takes your own personality into account for a first date. Of course we dont need to dump all of our worst traits at once, but you’re not there pretending to be the perfect fit like you’re auditioning for the role of partner, you’re both there to figure out if you mesh well together.
Plus, hot dogs by a camp fire was one of the best dates I’ve been on (wouldn’t recommend deep woods or other very remote locations for a first date with a stranger though). I wouldn’t want to date someone who didn’t like camp fires!
In this case compromise means going somewhere neither of us is enthusiastic about. For me the value of eating out is that I don’t need to cook myself - a sushi buffet achieves that, and the food is good. Going to a nicer restaurant means it costs more, I need to wait longer and usually I get a smaller portion of food and the quality of it is the same at best. It’s simply just a worse experience for me personally. So since I’m not enjoying myself either way we may just as well go somewhere she wants to so at least one of us is having fun.
And you’re right - they have been bad relationships. We haven’t had anything in common. Last time though I did lay the cards on the table from the very beginning and 9 years later when she finally had enough she at least couldn’t say that she didn’t know or that I had changed. She did know.
If there is to be a new romantic relationship for me in the future I might just give it a try with a guy instead. It’s at least conceivable that things haven’t worked out in the past for the simple reason that I’ve been trying to shove myself into a mould I don’t fit into. I’m a peculiar, eccentric person and it takes a certain kind of individual to get along with me. It seems that people either like me a lot or not at all.
Excuse my cynicism. I’m not proud of it but it is what it is.