My four steadfast rules for getting into a relationship

Hello.

Certain… situations at my job and life as of late have convinced me that I should write this post. If you have been forced to talk to me long enough, you know I have four rules when it comes to getting into a relationship. I have created these because I have broken them all once before I made them, and things ended up really bad. With one exception, none of these rules have ever been altered, since they work perfectly well as they are. So without further ado, let me introduce them to you.

Rule #1: Do not try to go out with someone you work with

This one should be obvious to everyone… but it is one of the easiest to forget. I can see the appeal of hooking up with someone you work with: you already know each other pretty well, you have something similar in common, you can see each other every day… but those things that work for you can backfire VERY badly. What say you do decide to date a fellow employee, and the relationship goes bad… like fighting constantly bad? And this person who you broke up with is someone you have to see almost every day you are at work? You can see this does not end well… mmmaybe you can ride out the storm and get back to some civility, but more likely it won’t. And heaven forbid your ex doesn’t become more vengeful and uses Human Resources against you… it can go from merely uncomfortable to looking for a new job and lawsuits against you bad.

Rule #2: Do not try to go out with someone in a relationship

Again, another one that should be BLATANTLY obvious, but is often ignored. This one has so many things wrong with it; I barely know where to begin. Do I mention the angry significant other when the relationship is discovered? Or the reaction from the family members of the two in the original relationship? The inevitable spectacle that occurs… which only gets worse if the two involved have mutual friends, ending up in battle lines being drawn? But as bad as these are, there is the biggest reason to not even consider this: If someone was willing to throw away a relationship with someone else for you, what is to stop them from repeating this with someone else on YOU? Do you really need to have your life be a recreation of the Jerry Springer Show? If you do, then have at it… you are beyond any help.

Rule #3: Do not try to go out with ex’s of your friends

Yeah, I can understand the appeal of going with this. You already know them and there may be mutual attraction, but do you REALLY want to potentially ruin a friendship over this? This rule had some debate as to an expiration date on it, such as your friend getting into a new relationship, getting married, or even a time limit… but I would rather play it safe than sorry on this one. It also speaks of kind of laziness to it: are you willing to be satisfied with sloppy seconds… to be like a hyena, going for what’s left of the corpse of the relationship? Also, the potential for personal damage is magnified even greater for this one, since your other friends will be reacting to this situation as well. All in all not a cool thing to do…

Rule #4: Do not try to go out with someone outside your 10 year window

This is the one rule I have altered from its original version. Originally the rule was:

Do not try to go out with someone under 21.

This was originally created when I was in my 20’s and made perfect sense back then. Being able to go with my friends to a bar and leaving someone I was seeing at home seems appealing at first, but they would get all mad that I DARED go out without them and then tried to booty call after the fact. So this rule was created, and it did well… until I hit the 30’s. Then I realized it needed to change to what it is now.

The reason I have changed the rule to be like this is that while sure, I really like oogling at the young pretty things (mainly college age, as I see them a LOT at work) mentally we are on two totally different planes of existence. My goals, dreams, beliefs, what have you are not the same as they were for me 10-20 years ago. And 20 year olds in general don’t have the same goals as me. If I were to do this, sacrifices would be made, and while all relationships usually involve sacrifices, these ones are unnecessary… especially for the reward. I would not force someone younger than me to my plane, and I wouldn’t do that for them. So I stick to my 10 year window, which generally means 5 years younger to 5 years older. That way, we are in similar states of our lives. One day I will expand on this rule, because it has further use outside of potential sexual relationships.

So these are the main rules I follow when trying to start a relationship. There are other rules I try to follow when in one, but those are possibly for a later time. If you followed my suggestions here, it will make things far smoother for you in the long run. Or you can do what I did, and eventually make your own rules based on your mistakes. Just thought I would try to make it easier for ya…




Post Script:

Remember that even if you do follow these rules, they do not guarantee a successful relationship… they just make the attempts a little less stressful. If I knew how to have a really successful relationship, I wouldn’t currently have an engagement ring stored in a safe…