Letting Go of Fantasies and Expectations When Dating
It is almost impossible not to have expectations when you first start dating new people. If you go online and see a photo of someone you really like, you naturally form expectations about what this person will look like when you see them. When you read their profile, it is hard not to create an idea in your head of who they are as a person. Even if they just said a few words about themselves, which I personally don't recommend they do, their energy and vibrations can most certainly be felt. And if we don't have much to pick up from, our imagination naturally fills in the missing blanks. And then we go out there to our first coffee date and see someone completely different. We feel the jolt in our stomach as we greet the stranger. Sometimes it is a good jolt, other times not so much.
What happens when you really like this man or woman and you decide to continue seeing him or her? Again, our natural tendency is to imagine things that haven't happened yet just to try and see what it would be like to go to Disneyland together, travel to an isolated tropical island, go on a ski trip together, live in the same house and so on. And of course, let's get real, we start wondering what it would be like to be in bed with this person. Don't we? It may or may not feel weird and awkward at first, but as we start getting comfortable with this idea, that's when we get ahead of ourselves. Then, when we see this person again in the reality of the daylight, it feels awkward and weird again. As much as I try to tell people not to have expectations, as much as I hear other people say the same thing to me, I don't think it is really possible not to have even the slightest very settle expectation. But we can be aware of it and we can stop ourselves when we go too far.
The truth about this kind of fantasy is, as much as we think we own it in secrecy and no one but us really knows about it, we couldn't be more wrong. Your daydreaming about another person creates such a strong energy pull that it can be felt by anyone who cares enough about you, especially the object of your fantasy. They notice how you look at them with those dreamy eyes and not really see them for who they are and it makes them feel uncomfortable. I think this is the difference between really being in love and being in dream love. When you really fall in love with someone, you see this person for who they are and you fall in love with what you see. When you get ahead of yourself, you typically fall in love with the person when you're away from them, when you start seeing things that are not really there. So what happens when this person feels the pull from you like this? Consciously or not, they realize that you have a fantasy or an expectation of them that they can't and perhaps don't even care to live up to. That's when they start trying to get away from you. Sometimes they are upfront with you and tell you that this isn't working for them, other times they stop calling you and they don't return your calls, leaving you alone with your fantasy and wondering what went wrong.