You want a long-term relationship. You are serious about finding your soul mate. You want to settle down someday soon with the right guy. How do you know if he wants the same thing? In order to form successful relationships, it’s important to know if you’re compatible on many fronts. Determining if you are both seeking the same type of relationship is one of the first steps towards success. So how do you know?
1. If you’re dating online, (which you should be in order to achieve optimal dating success), there’s usually a place to fill out what you’re looking for with the following choices: a date, activity partner, long-term relationship, marriage, etc. This is the most obvious place to look first to see if you’re on the same page.
2. A person’s words are usually a good indicator of their intention. Again, when seeking a partner online, these intentions can be much more obvious. Someone who states in their profile essay that they desire to be a romantic sexual partner, even going as far as using those words in their username, like “GoodLoverMan” (this is real), pretty good chance that they are not in it for the long term!
Here’s a guy who’s too tired for a long-term relationship and makes it clear in his profile essay: “I’m retired with some bad knees from sports & the army, so I don’t walk around like I used to, but I still have a great sense of humor and looking for a nice companion.” Yawn. Call the retirement home!
3. Conversely, you can tell that someone’s intention is for a long-term relationship by the words they use in their profile essay. Here’s a clip from an essay: “I have a lot of friends, but have all the time in the world for a soul-mate.” Here’s another obvious one: “I would like a soul mate and a woman who I can spend the rest of my life with!”
Here’s someone who is revealing his core values about friendship, which speaks to his integrity and probably reveals how he would value a life partner: “Several of my friends are longtime friends. Once you’re my friend I try to keep you.”
Here’s another example of someone who is seriously looking to get married: “Looking for someone with whom I can walk arm-in-arm for the rest of my life.” He goes on to say, “We’d be soul mates, have mutual respect, trust, and honesty, knowing that we would be there for each other whenever the need arose.” Do you want to date this guy? (I did, and he was true to his word. But not the right fit for me.)
4. Beware Mr. Everything! There are people who say they are looking for everything, from a friend to an activity partner to a spouse, and those people’s profiles are often just as ambiguous. Be cautious around those types. They don’t really know what they want. Your relationship will probably be confusing and ambiguous.
If you know what you want, find someone else who’s on the same page. Once you know the keywords and gestures to look for, it’s easy to spot a keeper.
When you start out on the same page, your luck at relationships will increase exponentially. Let me know how it goes.
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This article originally appeared on Last First Date and is republished on Medium.
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