You’ve been single for a while now and everyone seems to be getting along fine apart from you. Maybe your friends have been pushing people at you to date, but nothing is gelling well for you.What do you do? Luckily, I’m here to help you out!

Expectations

The first question to ask yourself on this journey or self-reflection is are your expectations too high? Are they high because you don’t actually want a relationship? Are you still thinking about your ex and because of that, you aren’t truly interested in dating someone new?These are important questions and you should take some time to think them over and come up with your answers. If your standards are so high you’ll never find the person that reaches them, you are going to be single for a long, long time. In addition to there not being many people who will fulfil your criteria, there’s the fact that you may not fulfil their criteria! Successful, beautiful people surround themselves with people like themselves. If you can’t offer something of an equal or better standard, you won’t ever be dating them.If you don’t really want a relationship but feel pressured to have one by your friend, family or work obligations, you should try to figure a better way of doing things. Admitting you don’t want to date right now is perfectly fine if that’s truly what you want. Be honest with yourself if you aren’t looking for a relationship. Nobody else has the right to pressure you in to one against your wishes and they will have to learn to live with that.

Where Are You Looking?

You can look as hard as you like in the wrong places, you’ll never find what you are looking for. This is especially important if you are looking for a good partner, suited to you and your lifestyle.Don’t go down to the dive bar if you are looking for someone to marry and have a family with. If you are looking for sporty types, don’t go looking in a coffee shop. Alternatively, you wouldn’t go looking for a scientist in a gym. Use your head, if there’s a specific type of person you are looking for, maximise your chances by going to the places they would. You can always find out information about things that are happening in your city using the Internet if you aren’t sure where to go. Obviously, I’m oversimplifying things here by saying intellectuals don’t go the gyms, (of course they do) but the logic stands. surround yourself with those you admire and you are much more likely to end up dating one of them.

What Are You Looking For?

We all have an idea of the perfect partner in our head. The problem is that the perfect partner in our head is flawed. They don’t really exist. Not at all. Nobody is so perfect you won’t find something to be complained about. When you kid yourself you are the looking for The One and that you will only be happy with The One, you are making sure that you won’t be happy.Your ‘type’ probably isn’t even a type too. A lot of people say they won’t date x because they aren’t their type. This doesn’t mean anything. You never know what characteristics that someone will have without getting to know them properly. Profiling people and using heuristics in your thinking to find specific people is fake efficiency. Rugby players don’t all look the same and so on.Try experimenting by specifically going on dates with people you wouldn’t usually. This has two benefits. By dating people you wouldn’t usually, you can confirm specific characteristics that you know you don’t like and you will discover others that you haven’t thought about before. It’s always a good idea to revise your ideas of the word, to see if your map is accurate in relation to the real world.Maybe you don’t like funny partners, because of something that happened a few years ago. By now, you’ve changed so much that you no longer can be sure you don’t like funny people to date. On the other hand, dating them proves rubbish, so you can move on and ignore comedians for a few more years!It’s a win win situation. It doesn’t necessarily have to only relate to dating either.

Optimism

If none of the above applies to you, you could be sabotaging your dates by being pessimistic. Body language shows a lot about how you are feeling and your outlook on life. If you go in to things with a bad frame of mind, you’ll find things turn out poorly more often. Try to think positive thoughts before a date and try to get excited about going out.