love advice...don't do what i've done!

Rules for dating and love, I've made all the mistakes so you don't have too!

1. Listen to your family and friends if they give you the veto. Some people are better at telling you how they feel about your partner but if they are asking you if you are happy with concern or indicate they don't want to be around your partner, probably not the best mate for you. They may not know your partner but they know you, they know when you are at your best and when you are not and they can read your happiness. Ahhh if only I'd listened sooner!

2. Sex does not equal love! I know it's the old joke about lesbians moving in on the second date but I can't tell you how often this really happens. Sex is fake intimacy, so it feels like you know someone well or that you are close when you haven't spent the time to really bring about the kind of closeness it takes to make a relationship last.

3. You will remember the beginning forever. For the next 20 years or 20 months you'll be hearing "How did you meet?" make it memorable and drag it out.

4. Your new love's families or attitude towards family matters. My parents used to ask us when we were teenagers about our friends parents. We'd say "why does that matter?" Ah I get it now. In general people generally get more like their parents as they get older (as they do things their parents did like get married and have kids they replicate their parents attitudes in those areas). Now there are examples where someone so hated their childhood they do the exact opposite. So meeting their family or discovering how they feel about their family shows you what they will be like or the opposite of how they will be.

5. Is this somoene you should commit to forever? Ask yourself these questions:

• Imagine you are old and sitting in a rocking chair on a front porch, your new love is next to you, how do you feel?
• Imagine your mother or father, or their mother or father needs to come and live with you for 3 years, how do you both deal with this?
• Imagine you have a child with your partner and the child grow up to be exactly like your partner, are you happy about this?

Now I must admit I got this little test from some women's magazine, but i've read thousands of magazine articles and this is the only test that ever stuck with me, I actually think it's quit good. Negative answers you may want to rethink whether this is a valid long term relationship.

6. Work vs Easy. Recently a love curious teenager recently asked me how hard are relationships? What percentage is hard and what is good. I thought about it and said your relationship is less than 70% good 30% work its not worth it. Reallly it should be closer to 80-90% good and 10% work.

Lastly never say never. Love and lust makes us stupid and break all our rules all the time.