For most of us, finding someone with whom we can
fall in love, make a life and live happily ever after is a major life goal.
And while it seems like knowing how to get a
girlfriend or boyfriend to fall madly in love with should be easy, it’s just
not.
Women often meet guys who seems to embody
everything on their list of "must haves" in a man. These men might be
funny, smart, independent, and attractive, so we take a risk, thinking this
might finally be "the one."
The trouble is that those personality traits we put
on our list aren't always the same ones that are truly essential to look for in
a man.
At least, not if you're hoping to find true love in
a healthy, long-lasting relationship.
They may be important, but they
aren’t the most important traits possessed by the kind of man a woman
can safely fall deeply in love with if she wants to live happily ever after.
So, let’s try doing it differently.
If you want to find true love in a
healthy, lasting relationship, look for men with these 5 dominant personality
traits — the kind of guys who know how to get a girlfriend and keep her safe
forever.
1. Inquisitive
There's not much that's worse than a guy who thinks
he already knows everything — who believes he has nothing left to learn about
what makes relationships work and how people need to behave, and therefore
isn’t willing to consider doing anything differently.
We all come into relationships with a certain
amount of baggage.
We've been hurts in past relationships,
disappointed by unmet expectations, frustrated by how hard it all is and by our
initially unrealistic expectations.
All of these things make new relationships
difficult, but learning from and addressing them can be exactly what is needed
for the right relationship to flourish.
Men who know how to get the girl are
eager to learn from their past mistakes and do things differently the next time
around.
They don’t hold things that went wrong in their
past relationships over the next woman's head, assuming that those things will
happen in this relationship as well.
Look for a guy who is willing to take a fresh look
at a relationship with you, and who's willing to listen to your ideas about
what might work as well.
A guy who is willing to consider doing thing
differently is a guy who is going to make a woman fall in love with him.
2. Considerate
Men women fall madly in love with are those who are
interested in putting others first.
These are the men who are willing to miss a big
football game for mom's birthday dinner, who hold the door open for someone
even when doing so means that person will then be ahead of them in that really
long line. and who are willing to bend their schedule in order to spend time
with a girlfriend or wife when she's in need of support.
Many men put themselves first, either out of habit
or necessity. Perhaps they are protecting themselves. Perhaps their mother and
father modeled that for them. Or perhaps they are just clueless.
But what good is a man with even the most wicked
sense of humor if he doesn’t put others first at least some of the time?
Do you really want to play second fiddle for the
rest of your life?
I don't think so.
3. Flexible
Life is
messy, and a key personality trait in a guy women fall in love with is
flexibility.
Every
day, even the best
laid plans are dashed by life. And when plans are dashed, everyone needs to
work together to set things back in motion again.
I know
one woman who owns her own business and has a crazy busy schedule that often
changes on a dime. As a result, she often has to change plans with her guy.
Rather than get upset that she can’t see him or taking it personally when she
has to shift things, her guy rolls with it. He knows exactly what is happening
and why, and he's happy to accept it as part of being with her.
In
return, she makes every effort to communicate changes to him as soon as she
knows of them, and she makes sure Friday night and Saturday mornings are set in
stone as time
for the two of them to be together.
They are
both flexible, and that makes their relationship work.
Yes, he
is good looking, and when they first met she was immediately attracted to him,
but his flexibility is a major factor in the reasons she fell in love with him.
4. Self-respecting
There's
nothing more attractive to most women than a man with self-respect, who takes
care of himself and his space and the people around him.
I once
went on a date with a guy I'd been getting to know over email for just over a
week. I really, really liked him and was looking forward to our first date. We
were getting together for coffee, and I dressed casually but carefully in
anticipation of our meeting.
He
showed up in sweats, with stains on his shirt and holes in the knees. His hair
was a mess and he looked like he had just rolled out of bed.
It was not a good first
impression.
Personally,
I feel like a guy who doesn't take care of himself isn't going to take care of
me. And I was right. The more I got to know him, the more I saw that he was
pretty careless in all of his life overall.
Men who
possess self-respect show women they will be treated with respect as well.
5. Self-aware
These
are the guys who know exactly who they are.
Let's
say you meet the guy of your dreams. He's smart, funny, educated, employed and
cute. But then you realize he isn't aware that he's all of these things, and he
has a chip on his shoulder because of it.
Another
woman I know was still madly in love with a man she knew from college over a
decade later when they reconnected on Facebook. After months of talking online
and through texts, they finally got together.
He was
still smart, gorgeous and good at making her laugh.
And that
was enough ... until it wasn’t.
This guy
couldn't see that he was all these wonderful things. He'd encountered many
failures in his life, and it had made him incredibly insecure in who he is in
the world, why he's here and what he's worth. He lost himself, and he struggled
with these issues daily.
His
insecurity ultimately destroyed their relationship. He couldn’t allow himself
to believe she loved him, and he couldn’t commit to her because he didn’t think
he deserved to be with her in the first place.
While he
met all the criteria on her "list", his lack of self-awareness meant
their relationship was doomed.
Love is
an important and noble goal,
and trying to find it can be frustrating.
I am
here to suggest that if we keep failing at a goal, we need to approach it
differently.
So, make
a list of characteristics you want your dream man to possess, but try to
include more than a wicked sense of humor
and bright blue eyes.
Think
about the personality traits that are most important to you, and make sure to
add them to that list.
If you
do things differently this time, you'll be glad you did! I promise.
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