Stage 25 – Coming to terms with reality

I want to start of this post by saying I’m sorry to those of you who expected me to be completely open about my dating life. I’ve been dating someone for a few months now but I’m not certain about where things are going with him right now. I know the direction I’d like it to go but I’ve also prepared myself for the other direction. The guy knows about this challenge and knows he can google it if he wants to read about it, but as he hasn’t spoken much about it I’m guessing he hasn’t.

In the short space of time I’ve known him I can honestly say he has inspired me to improve in some areas of my life that I’m not so competent in but have been planning to improve on, i.e cooking. Don’t get me wrong I can cook to survive and can make edible meals but I’ve never really been one of those ladies who are really into cooking and cook every day. I feel ashamed to admit it, especially now but it’s true. I always used to joke about marrying a chef when my parents tried to force me to learn when I was younger. I know it’s not too late to learn now. I just feel so ashamed that he can cook a lot more dishes than I can and because he is so critical of the food he eats I’m always nervous when I cook for him and look for approval from him. I haven’t cooked much for him for this reason. I feel like I need to learn and have even asked one of my aunties to teach me before cooking for him again.

I’ve come across a few challenges with him already and sought advice from some of my single and non-single friends. As I’ve been single for such a long time I didn’t think carefully about who I went to for advice. Based on the type of advice I received from the two groups of friends I have to say it is very important who you go to for advice. I appreciate the fact that my single friends listened to me and had something to say to make me feel better but with hindsight I now know that was the wrong thing to do. There comes a time in life when we need to cease from going to the usual people that we go to for help and advice. I’m not saying we should do so because these people don’t have our best interest at heart, no, they are just not always equipped to give us the advice we need. “Seek advice from the people who are where you hope to go”. This is the advice one of my friends, who recently got married gave me when I told him about this post. I wish I had gone to him when I needed relationship advice earlier.

I feel like my understanding of relationships has definitely matured slightly from doing this challenge and I feel prepared to have a relationship now. I know nobody goes to school to learn how to sustain a healthy relationship but I feel like I have through this challenge. I’ve been able to question my approach and reactions to certain things and one thing I’ve learnt recently about relationships is that it’s important to know where your partner is coming from. A lot of the time people get upset over things that others say or do because they’ve heard or seen the situation differently from how it was meant to be received. I’m not saying I will always take things the way they were meant, I’m just a bit more mindful of the confusion that can occur in the process of communication. I usually use my lack of understanding as ammunition to get over guys because as you all know now my standards are quite high, so if I feel a guy falls short I usually amplify any bad thing he says or does to me to get over him if I’m into him.

As I’ve been getting that look and things said to me that are usually directed at females who get married late in life from my family I’ve decided to humble myself and work hard at understanding where the guy I’m dating is coming from before getting upset over some of the things he says to me. I still get upset over some things but I’m working on it. Even if things don’t turn out as I would like them to, I’ve chosen to see my time with him as an opportunity to grow and learn new things. Most of the things I now appreciate in life I’ve had to go through pain, shame and stress in order to arrive at appreciation. As getting married is something important to me I’m ready to put up with more than I was willing to in the past to get there. I’m just going to pray for wisdom to be able to decipher what’s worth putting up with and what I shouldn’t even consider putting up with.

Thanks for reading My dating year – stage 25.

PS: The final post of My dating year will be posted within a week from this post. I’m going to give an update on the guys I went on dates with, more details of what I’ve learnt from the process and what I plan to do moving forward. I hope you’ll find the time to read it.