Dear Sarah:

You wrote: “This guy came out of nowhere, and seemed like a dream”- a good dream turned bad?

You spent a lot of time, you wrote, within the last five years on self love. The thing is, regarding relationships, you can’t learn certain things unless you are in a relationship. When you were alone for five years you learned a lot of things, but not what can be learned only in the context of a relationship.

One of the things that can be learned only in the context of a relationship is to evaluate who the guy is, to learn the reality of who he ism evaluating him. I am supposing you didn’t do much evaluation of him because if you did, he wouldn’t seem like a dream.

To evaluate a guy, to learn who he is, you ask questions, really listen to what he says, observe his behavior, see if it is consistent, if over time he walks his talk and talks his walk- and all that before you get heavily invested. It is sort of an interviewing process, only not so formal. The questions you ask, for example, need to be asked gently and gradually, over many “interviews.”

I hope you see the value of the learning and progress you made in the last five years and see the current situation with this guy not as evidence that you didn’t do a good job these five years, but that there are some things that can be learned and progress made only in the context of a relationship, a beginning relationship (the evaluation).

Your thoughts?

anita