Handbook Posts: Know What Your Standards Are and Stick to Them: Don't Settle for Less

WARNING: These are HANDBOOK POSTS -- WRITTEN A LONG TIME AGO by some great women with great thoughts and deemed as handbook worthy by FDS mods for a reason. If you feel triggered or disagree with something -- THE SMART THING TO DO IS TO MOVE ON. Agree to disagree and go on your merry way. Stop trying to start bullsh*t in the comment section because I have no patience to deal with you.

Originally posted in FDS subreddit. All rights reserved to the original writer.

One way to make your dating experience more seamless is to determine what your standards are and to stick to them. How do you want to be treated by your future boyfriend? What non-negotiable qualities should he have and what are your dealbreakers?

• What kind of first dates do you want? Do you prefer a drink date or do you want a man to take you out to a nice restaurant? What caliber of restaurant do you want them to take you to?

• Do you want them to provide for you, to pay for dinners, movie tickets, Uber rides, etc.? What kind of restaurants do you want to be taken to?

• How long would you keep seeing a man who hasn’t asked you for exclusivity yet? (Mine is 2 months at most. After that, they’re cut off.)

• Are you okay with a man who only wants to see you once a week or do you require a man wanting to see you more than that for you to know that he’s serious?

• How long would you wait for him to introduce you to his friends?

• When are you going to have sex with him?

Really think about the kind of dating experience that you want. Your answer shouldn’t be colored by your previous bad experiences or what they world tells you to want. Just think about how you want your future boyfriend to treat you in an ideal world.

What if I told you that how you want to be treated is very much possible? I know the world always tells us to lower our standards and to be realistic. People try to invalidate your real needs and they tell you to settle for someone who can’t give you what you want. It’s how they try to excuse men’s subpar behavior. Instead of a man changing his behavior, apparently we should be the ones who should accept less than exemplary behavior and reward them with our youth and feminine presence.

Say no to that.

As an empowered woman, you have to OWN up to your desires and to never accept something that doesn’t align with what you truly desire. Love yourself enough to honor your desires. When you accept nothing less than what you want, it allows you to cut through the bullshit. You don’t have to think, “Oh, is him doing X acceptable? Should I be okay with it? What should I do to make him change his mind?”

When you honor your standards, you instead communicate to a man frankly what kind of behavior or quality you expect from a man.

Examples from my personal life:

If a man wants to take me to a restaurant that I don’t find date-appropriate, I tell him frankly that I’m accustomed to nicer places. He can either find a restaurant that would please me or he can find another date.

Another example: I meet a man in a group setting, we go out and are affectionate with each other. But when we meet again in a group setting, he doesn’t act like how he’d act when we’re on a date. I ignore him at the end of the night, and when he asks me what’s wrong, I tell him that I prefer guys who treat me in public like how they treat me privately when we go out on dates. I don’t say it in a needy way. I just tell him what my expectations are and it’s up to him to step up and change if he wants to keep me.

Recently, I’ve learned how valuable honesty is. The more honest you are about your real desires and your standards, the more men will respect you and treat you like girlfriend material. I’ve done the two examples I’ve provided recently with a man and the man in question DID find a nicer restaurant and he DID change his behavior and was so regretful that he treated me that way. He said that he didn’t mean to do that and was just respectful of my space, and that it was the last time he’ll mess up like that again.

I’ve made it clear to him how I expect to be treated and he changed his behavior because he wants to keep me. Since then, he has shown to me in a group setting that we’re an item and he has also asked for my exclusivity. That’s how you know a man values you.

When a man has found his dream girl, he will ditch his old ways and become the man that she expects to have. The woman who becomes a man’s dream girl is a woman that has standards. All of the strategies we’ve talked about and will talk about in the future, the core of it is having standards and loving yourself enough to not accept any less. If you do this, your actions will subconsciously affect how a man perceives you and things are more likely to go your way.

So ladies, do not waver. Keep your frame. He can either take it or leave it. The right man will find you when you put in the time and effort to be a high quality woman. When you say no to things that are less than what you truly want, you make space in your life to welcome the things that you truly DO want.

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