A common misconception of dating and marriage is that you are looking for a soulmate; that there is only one person out there for you. This misconception can make dating seem very intimidating. It is not any one persons fault that this idea has developed, we get it from movies and the people around us all the time. The question we need to ask is this: what makes a match? We often think that a match is someone that has every quality we want in a partner, but what if we turn that around and say that a match is someone with whom there are no deal-breakers? Surely if nothing is going to break the deal, then the couple will stay together. Instead of looking for the soulmate, we shift the mindset to looking for someone with whom there are no deal-breakers. In a way, once you find a match, you become soulmates as you grow together.
From that perspective, let’s look at the pyramid of relationships. Starting from the bottom, you have
- Acquaintances: People that you have a small amount of social contact with
- Ex. Someone in the same class as you
- Friends: The acquaintances that you become closer to because of mutual interests and connections
- Ex. Someone in your class that you talk to and maybe grab food with occasionally
- Close Friends/Friendship Dating: These are the friends of the opposite gender who you spend your time with the most and are very comfortable around
- Ex. The person you would ask to a high school dance because you knew that it would be fun and there would be no pressure or expectations
- Boyfriend/Girlfriend: A relationship where you both have decided to date each other exclusively
- Engaged: A relationship where you have been exclusively dating and then decide to get married although you are not married yet
- Married: Being legally and lawfully wedded as husband and wife
The reason this is a pyramid is because you have more 1’s than 2’s, more 2’s than 3’s, and so on; and in theory you should only have one 6. The numbers on this pyramid are how we will refer to each of the different stages of relationships. With the introduction of the pyramid, we need to discuss the difference in expectations and desires of men and women that are a contributing factor of Pitfall #1.