When dating, it’s easy to slip into bad habits. It’s not like you have someone around who is watching your every step in a date or a relationship. Here are five common bad dating habits. Check your dating life to make sure you drop them right away!
Keeping it Virtual
It’s important to remember that relationships cannot be exclusively virtual, even if you met online! It’s very tempting to keep a relationship virtual and at times it may be necessary (if one of you is deployed, for instance.) But even if you are virtual for a time, a relationship cannot stay that way.
Virtual relationships are low-commitment. When you keep a relationship virtual when it doesn’t need to be, you are choosing convenience over commitment. It isn’t healthy to keep your girlfriend in your pocket and only access her when it is convenient for you. This habit can lead you to be more selfish in your relationship.
Instead of keeping things virtual, make things as in-person as possible. This way, you will get used to putting your plans aside and making room for them. Also, you’ll get to know them better in-person. No amount of Facetime or texting can replace in-person conversation.
Ghosting
If you are used to keeping things virtual, it's likely you’ve done this bad dating habit once or twice. Ghosting is when you suddenly stop responding to someone’s messages and calls. This could be because you have lost interest in them, because you got busy and forgot, etc. Regardless, it is a bad habit.
Similar to keeping it virtual, it is bad because it makes you more selfish. But on top of that, it robs the other person of closure. There is nothing wrong with deciding you don’t want to continue a relationship anymore. There is something wrong if you don’t tell the person and you just stop responding to them.
If you are in the habit of ghosting because you are afraid to tell someone you don’t want to be with them anymore, my only advice is to learn how to break up with someone. If you are in this habit because you keep forgetting about the person you were talking to, my advice is to talk to fewer people at once.
Giving Too Much Information
A bad dating habit many fall into is giving too much information too early. Sometimes, usually when we’re nervous, we talk too much. And the easiest thing to talk about is ourselves, so we tell our date more than we probably should.
Now, this doesn’t mean being secretive or withholding. It means to be prudent when you tell your date something. Ask yourself: Does this give a good impression of me? Is it possible my date will become uncomfortable if I share this? If you are just getting to know each other, you shouldn’t tell them anything you wouldn’t want them to share with another person.
If you have a hard time not giving too much information, try asking more questions. You’re on a date to learn about them, not share about yourself. So make sure you ask plenty of questions, and eventually, you’ll be out of the habit of oversharing.
Teasing
This next bad dating habit may be controversial. Teasing in a relationship is generally not healthy. There is a thin line between laughing with someone and laughing at them, and often in a new relationship, that line is difficult to find. If you are just starting to get to know someone, you probably don’t know about any sore spots they have, so avoid making jokes at their expense.
Ask yourself whether you find it easier to compliment someone or tease them. If teasing comes easier to you, that may be a sign this habit is the one to break.
It is often said that it takes 5 compliments to outweigh 1 criticism. So, if someone says your haircut looks weird, it will take 5 compliments about your haircut to balance it out. To get out of the teasing habit, reverse engineer this. Compliment someone 5 times for every time you tease them. Not only will this break your habit, it will also make them feel better about themselves, which is a win-win.
Flirtationships
This bad "dating" habit is super common. A flirtationship is a relationship where you both flirt and act like a couple, but there is no explicit commitment. If you have ever been in this situation before, you know how agonizing a flirtationship can be. You’re always unsure where you stand and anxious about whether the other person is talking to other people.
If you constantly find yourself in flirtationships, ask yourself why you keep getting in them if they’re so miserable. You could be settling because you feel lonely. You might like the attention. Maybe you feel like you aren’t worth the commitment. Whatever the reason, you need to name it and make a plan to get out of the cycle.
Bad dating habits are all over the place. The best way to break out of them is to find friends who can call you out when you’re making mistakes. If you think you have one or more of these dating habits, find a trusted friend or mentor to talk to.
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