List for Knowing What You Want in a Relationship
Nosotros all know what happens when you head to the grocery store without a list. You lot end upwards impulsively grabbing items and leaving with a cart piled full of stuff you lot didn't actually need.
While killing time in the back of a biological science class during nursing school, a then 19-year-old Elena Murzello used this "grocery list" theory to create a list of characteristics she was looking for in a potential partner. What Murzello didn't realize at the time was that this was the commencement of many "dearest lists" she would write — eventually leading her to author The Love List: A Guide to Getting Who You lot Want.
"Without a list, yous base your purchases on how hungry you are and end up grabbing random items you don't need, like pretzel-covered peanut-butter snacks," writes Murzello in the volume. "The reevaluation begins when yous stare at your half-full grocery cart as you wait in line and realize that you don't really demand half the stuff that you put in your cart. More often than not, yous forget the one thing you went shopping for in the first place because it wasn't then apparent when you were browsing the shelves."
The analogy makes sense. But applying information technology to her dating life wasn't a success for Murzello the start fourth dimension around.
"I wrote 55 characteristics and it had everything from night denim jeans, to straight teeth, to 5'11" to 6'3" … all this item," she told NBC News BETTER. "A calendar month afterward I ended upwardly meeting my fellow at the fourth dimension and we had a lengthy 10-twelvemonth relationship. It ended when he went to Vegas for a available party and met a girl. The side by side weekend he bankrupt up with me; in three months they were engaged, in six months they were married, and then they moved into the apartment that we lived in together. Needless to say, I was disappointed. I kind of went into a hibernation and I went back to grad school."
How did my listing neglect me? Did information technology change? Did he personify the list and then I changed? Did I really demand a list? These were the questions that ran through Murzellos head.
"I started to interview single, married, divorced people and asked if they'd ever had a list and all the interviews kind of just accumulated and it became the book," she says. After speaking to more than than 100 individuals, she identified the top 3 characteristics that people were looking for or what those who were married appreciated virtually about their partners. For women those traits were: Sense of humour, smart and honest, and kind. For men: Attractiveness, humour, and intelligence/ambition.
With this research under her belt, Murzello saturday down right before her 30th birthday and crafted a new list. And there was a clear development between the characteristics that made the cut now, versus the ones that her 19-year-sometime self had jotted downwardly 10 years earlier.
"My list from my 20s was 55 characteristics — it had a lot of superficial, physical stuff, and my listing at thirty kind of took that abroad because you know what? Looks do fade," she says. "The things that really affair are those personality-based traits like honesty, trustworthiness, a solid family and friend base, that kind of stuff lasts. I'm still partial to dark denim jeans, simply if you don't ain a pair we'll get you lot some."
You need to know who you are before you tin know what y'all want
The volume was written five years ago. And since and so, some of the married couples she interviewed accept divorced. The common denominator Murzello identified between them? They didn't know themselves, she says.
"I find that some people don't know themselves plenty to exist in a relationship, to commit to another person. When people who don't know themselves get together, you either have to grow together or you abound autonomously and that'south what I establish; a lot of these couples were growing apart because they just didn't know what they wanted and who they were."
What about the couples who stayed together? "They are very decisive with their list, and they weren't willing to compromise. They had deal breakers. Like a healthy lifestyle or having a family unit … you can't be sitting on the argue. Those couples actually got down to the nitty gritty and said this is where I won't compromise and this is why we're lasting because nosotros however have faith in those few characteristics that really drive u.s.a. through."
How to Create Your Own Love Listing
Murzello developed the list as a tool to help people actually define what it is they're looking for in a romantic partner.
"The love listing is a list of characteristics and qualities you are looking for in a potential mate," says Murzello. When it comes to the length of your list, less is more than, she says. With 55 characteristics her first time around she casted too broad of a net, which didn't let her to be as decisive equally she should of been. "Every bit I'm pairing it down and beingness more and more decisive with what I want, I tin meet a person and say, 'Are you correct for me? No, you're off.'"
Ready to give it a attempt for yourself? Murzello walks the states through her four-step process to putting pen to paper and writing your own love listing.
- Program
Exist mentally prepared and accept an open frame of listen. Accept your time and be solitary when writing your list. Really reflect on your needs versus your wants, says Murzello.
- Practice
Now it'due south time to write your list. Put your pen to paper and list out all of the characteristics/qualities you are looking for in a potential mate. "There are no rules and its ameliorate if you think 'bluish heaven' versus very narrow," says Murzello. Don't conscience yourself at present, you'll parse out your list in the next step.
Some questions to consider: What are your deal breakers? How practise you value certain characteristics on your list? Will you lot permit outside influences (family, friends) to dictate what is on your list? Use your experiences, both bad and good, to your reward, Murzello recommends. Have the bad characteristics and add them to your "no" column and add together the adept characteristics of people that yous've met to the "yes" column.
- Edit
Now is the time to analyze your list. Take out duplicates, couple themes together and delete unnecessary characteristics. An like shooting fish in a barrel style to begin to tailor your list information technology to keep in mind the Potato Soup versus Lobster theory, Murzello says.
"Why would you get for something bland like irish potato soup when you could potentially social club a lobster? Something unique, something you really want," she says. "It'due south beingness really clear most what you desire and really going for someone who is correct for you lot versus someone who makes yous experience safety. Those couples that are in divorce mode correct now, a lot of them in their younger years thought 'I desire to go married, here'southward a person, I'll get married to them,' whether they were right or not. It'due south about paring down to someone who is really special for you lot."
Why would you go for something bland like potato soup when y'all could potentially order a lobster?
- Act
One time you lot have your listing, it's time to become out there and meet people. Refer to your list often and revise information technology every bit you learn more than about yourself and what you want in a potential partner.
"The last piece of the puzzle is having the listing, but letting it get into the universe and being able to recognize when the characteristics pop up and when they don't," says Murzello. "Living in the moment is getting out at that place and not existence afraid to see what's there. Requite people a chance, but you don't want to give people too many chances. Recognize it for what it is and be able to be confident in your decision in what is right for you lot, and know information technology'south okay to walk away when it'south not right. Which is hard to exercise."
Remember: Information technology'southward an ongoing practise — not a finite list
"It's a really interesting process at all ages. In your 20s you have to figure yourself out and you want to have a general baseline. So you put it out there and then you explore, you run across people, there's lots of trial and error, and and then you get-go paring down the list," says Murzello. "You lot decide some things aren't important or that you need to add together something else. Equally you evolve every bit a person, you lot will take a different listing. As you lot get older priorities alter, and it might be helpful to have a concrete list considering y'all tend to forget the things that are important to you. Or you'll meet someone and realize, 'I do non similar this quality at all.' It's a quick process of elimination."
Since revising her beloved list, Murzello says dating has been more fun. "I've full-bodied more on personality traits that are important and become more stringent on deal-breakers," she says. "I don't want people to waste matter my time and vice versa, so I've learned to move on quickly."
Which puts the last line of her book into practice: "You cannot control what happens to yous, good or bad; yous can only control your own reactions."
And having a beloved list in your back pocket may just assistance you react more authentically (and snag your perfect mate in the procedure).
NEXT: How often do the happiest couples have sexual activity? (Information technology's less than you lot think)
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Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/how-use-love-list-find-your-ideal-romantic-partner-ncna847641
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