New Relationship Tips: NOW What?

So, let’s say one day you wake up and find yourself where you’ve been actively avoiding for a long time: in a relationship. Ok, so maybe it’s not as fast as that, but, say you’ve finally had just the right sort of string of interactions with a person you especially fancy, and then you decided to TAKE THE PLUNGE. Sometimes this can scare a person a little, just in terms of the “idea” of “what it all means” to “be” in a realtionship, even though you actually feel totally fine in the situation yourself.

Here is some advice for the relationship-averse that have made a completely reasonable choice to now be in a relationship that actually makes sense, instead of dating every Tom, Dick, and Harry within eye view….because that’s the BETTER idea, RIGHT MOM?

Take it As it Comes
Don’t freak out about expectations. If you’re in a relationship with someone who you feel is going to have wildly different expectations than you, or that you’re super nervous around all the time, you probably didn’t pick the right person and you need to break up with them, likerightnow. Just know that if what’s happening feels right to you, it doesn’t mean your entire life is going to be somehow stolen from you. This shouldn’t be painful, in other words, otherwise, there’s just something wrong.

Haterz Gonna Hate
Yeah, you might have a few friends that are calling you a sellout or something. But as long as you don’t like break plans with them constantly, they have no right to be dicks. If they can’t let you enjoy the ONE time you’re not paying attention to them, they’re not really your friend. That said, stop making out with your boyfriend in front of everyone. You know who you are.

Don’t Let the Smugs Win
This is the other side of the spectrum: welcome to tier 2 of the smugness gauntlet. So now, instead of dealing with assholes who passsive-agressively imply there’s something wrong with you when you weren’t in a relationship, there is now somehing wrong with: (1) you level of commitment, (2) the person you’re with, or (3) the things you do in your life, generally. Their bullshit was, in fact, bullshit then, and um, nothing has really changed just because you’re in a relationship.

Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
Sometimes bullshit is self-inflicted. You’re not anyone else and honestly, what’s the point of living someone else’s life? Just because Suzie Q. Diamondring got married at 25, 3 months after she met some dude doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with YOU. It just means that that was what she wanted to do and has nothing to do with you. Even if the larger social trend is to be dumb and boring and soulless or whatever doesn’t mean you have to just resign to it as some sort of inevitability.

Don’t Make It The Only Thing That Matters
In shaking off all the being weirded out that you’re one of “them”, don’t commit the biggest error/relationship/life killer: becoming way too co-dependent or enabling and revolving your entire life around your relationship. Be careful which elements you intertwine with your SO. For example, anything to do with money, businesses, significantly large joint purchases, obviously kids, and anything that makes it so that if you weren’t going out with that person, you couldn’t live your life normally– all danger zones. Also, don’t act like your friends aren’t as important. Though you can’t necessarily give equal attention to each and every one of your many friends, it’s important not to alienate yourself.

Prepare for It to Not Be as Awesome Later
One thing that no one really likes to admit is that part when the infatuation dies. You’d better have something good leftover, otherwise, your relationship is dead in the water. Also, prepare for the inevitability that you WILL break up. Because you will. Everyone does, it’s just the way it is.

Photos courtesy of: damncoolpics, the hollywood gossip, connect.in.com, and trashionista