Confronting your own flaws could be the key to a healthy relationship

In an episode of Netflix’s Tales of the City, Elliot Page’s character, Shawna — who for years has hooked up with girls and then never calls them — shares an intimate night with Claire, during which the two open up about their complicated relationships with their mothers.

In the following weeks, Claire treats Shawna in a way that almost directly mirrors the way Shawna usually treats girls. For Shawna to be on the receiving end for the first time is both painful and eye-opening.

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“I don’t open up to people like that,” Shawna laments in response to the whole experience — feeling almost swindled by Claire.

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This scene rings true to real life; dating can be emotionally brutal. There’s plenty of miscommunication, lack of communication, callousness, and colliding traumas out there. In the quest to find love, a significant amount of ghosting, bread-crumbing, and orbiting takes place.

Why can’t we do better and be better? Why can’t we navigate the field more deliberately and mindfully to minimize some of the messiness?

Some hurt is inevitable, but there are ways to decrease its likelihood. Part of that involves looking at our own role.

We can state our boundaries, preferences, and needs.

We can look at how people-pleasing behaviors may appease in the moment, but cause more hurt down the line.

We can stay aware of what we’re looking for and be conscious when it changes.

And lastly, we can be aware of our own double standards. If we want an emotionally available person, it’s important we be an emotionally available person ourselves. Or at least working towards it. 

It’s hard to fall in healthy love if you’re not showing up as your best self. Or if you’re seeking out a quality in another that you haven’t cultivated for yourself yet.

As psychologist Harriet Lerner put it in her book The Dance of Intimacy, “Intimacy can happen only after we work toward a more solid self, based on a clear understanding of our part in the relationship patterns that keep us stuck.”

Tidying up the littered road to happiness

Dating could result in fewer hurt feelings and less strife if more of us engaged in it with mindfulness.

Some might say this is taking too much responsibility for another person’s feelings and that in the very beginning stages of dating, the only person we owe anything to is ourselves.

Personally, I feel that greater overall consideration would take each of us closer to finding the person with whom we’re compatible. This mindfulness would remove so many unnecessary challenges. It could help us save all the wasted time that often litters the road to happiness.

Having been on both ends of the pendulum, I truly believe that self-awareness and intentionality contribute to all-around better dating karma.

The description of Lighter by Yung Pueblo says the author hopes“that as more of us heal, our actions will become more intentional, our decisions will become more compassionate, our thinking will become clearer, and the future will become brighter.”

Dating is one realm through which we can practice this healing, and an awareness of our own attachment style behaviors plays a key role.

LGBTQ+ couples are more likely to be insecurely attached, but that doesn’t mean these couples are doomed to fail. Understanding attachment theory can help make your relationship stronger. Both the anxiously and avoidantly attached can take steps to heal the wounds that have led them to feel unstable in their relationships. LGBTQ+ couples deserve healthy, reciprocated love and the first step may just be believing it’s possible.