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A lot of dating can feel like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. But does it have to be? Dating requires a weird combination of using your heart and head. You have to go with your gut but also be methodical. —And people are usually better at knowing when to rely on either – head or heart – in every other area of life. When it comes to your career or your friendships, you might have a pretty good understanding of what’s working and what isn’t. But the pursuit of love has a way of giving us all foggy goggles. You get turned around. Sometimes you can’t tell if that weird feeling you have around someone is a spark or…a sign to run for the hills. It’s very unfair.
Some things cannot be predicted or controlled. There has to be a bit of patience, faith, and pure good luck when it comes to finding a match. However, there’s also such a thing as learning from previous experiences. When you have a bad experience once, it’s called a lesson. When you go down the same, familiar road again and have that experience again…that’s called a willful mistake. Very often, we do have the information we need to know whether or not to move forward with somebody. We’re just so tired of the search for love that we ignore it. However, you know that these might be ways you just waste your own time in dating.
Giving the repeat flake another shot
Sometimes, a person needs to cancel for a legitimate reason like a death in the family or an emergency at work. It happens. And if someone has seemed otherwise communicative and responsible in the getting-to-know-them process, but this occurs, you can give them another shot. If they offer a new day and time for the date, why not? But..if this happens a second time, and even a third time, you have to know the person is just flaky. They could have their “reasons” but what you are learning is that this person is either A) wishy-washy about you or B) just bad at managing their life. You don’t want to be with someone who is bad at time management, double-books themselves, forgets appointments, and so on. If it’s already happening in trying to plan a first date, it will happen throughout the relationship.
