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“Keep an open mind.” “Don’t be so picky.” “Don’t be so judgmental.” “Adjust your standards.” Maybe these are pieces of advice friends, family, dating coaches, and anyone who loves to give their two cents have given you over the years. And, in some cases, the advice can be good. For example, if you’re stuck on finding a man of a certain physical type, determined to date someone who works in a certain industry, or you’re fixated on where someone went to college, it wouldn’t hurt to be more open. One could argue, correctly, that those traits don’t have much to do with compatibility – they aren’t indicators of the qualities that will make a bond stick. So if you’re fixated on those then, sure, maybe you need to keep an open mind, not be picky, not be so judgmental, and all of that. But there is a difference between being picky and simply having good standards. A lot of men who hope you’ll lower your standards for them will try to confuse you and say you’re being high maintenance when you’re simply asking to be treated with respect or in a way that won’t leave you picking up all of the slack in a relationship. Here are standards that are never too high when dating.
That he keeps his word
People can come up with a lot of fancy ways to say anything but this: “I didn’t keep my word.” If they were to lay it out there like that, it wouldn’t sound so good. So instead, they list excuses and rationalizations to distract you from the fact that they did not do what they said they were going to. But you’re perfectly within your right to ask that someone do that. Keeping their word could be as simple as calling when they said they’d call. This is, in fact, a big one people can fall off on. Since it’s “just a phone call,” they can believe it’s no big deal. However, generally, those who can’t keep their word on the small stuff can’t keep it on the big stuff either.
