7 Things I Wish I Knew About Dating In My 20s

There's no rulebook for how to have an incredible relationship. And that means that a lot of us, myself included, make tons of mistakes. I'm turning 32 almost October 5th, and as I look back on the last decade or so, I realize I've done some things wrong. Which is why in this video, I want to share with you seven things that I wish I knew in my 20s. And keep in mind, I am 32, I am unmarried. I'm very happy with that. But you just need to know where someone is coming from before you take their advice. So take everything that I say with a grain of salt. Though I still think I I have a lot to share with people who do want to get married or who may be married themselves. The first thing Negotiation is a terrible, terrible tactic for change. People change because of internal motivation. And unfortunately, I see that there's a lot of people out there that think they have this perfect partner if they could just change one thing about them. If they could be cleaner, if they would stop with whatever habit or be kinder to so and so, whatever it is. And if you're using cajoling, negotiation, or nagging to try to change that person, you may affect behavioral level changes for a time. It is very unlikely that you will actually affect changes on a deep level that needs to come from internal motivation. So a great example of this. I have a friend who has been dating someone for almost 10 years. They wanted to get married, but she was a smoker. So he said, look, I know we both want to get married and you really want to get married, but. But I can't marry someone who is a smoker. So you're going to have to stop if we're going to get married. And of course she stopped and then they got married. And within weeks of the marriage happening, perhaps even before she was back to smoking. There are no binding agreements, especially when you're withholding, saying, look, I'm not going to love you as much, or we can't move in together only on this condition. If you change, will I get married to you. In any of these cases, what you need to expect is a backfire. So you kind of have to get used to accepting the person that you're dating if you want to stay with them as they are today, while being prepared that they may grow and evolve in amazing ways and in some ways that are difficult for you. The second thing has to do with chemistry. When I was in my 20s, I focused a lot on chemistry. Did I feel that physical spark? Is this someone I want to spend a ton of time with was I head over heels infatuated with them. And what I very quickly found out is that that is a, that cannot last forever. And when that is the bedrock of your relationship, well, there's not much there underneath it when it inevitably goes away. I find as I look around that some of the strongest relationships in my life that I observe are people who are fundamentally friends. And so a really good question to ask yourself as you're dating someone is, would I be friends with someone if I wasn't infatuated? If you took away the ability for us to be physically intimate, if the answer is yes, well, that's a great sign. But if not, it's unlikely that this relationship is going to last for very long. Now this can be tough to do because when you're infatuated, self deception is the name of the game. You can't see any of their flaws. Everything is perfect. So a very good way to kind of cut through the self deception is to observe and even speak to your friends. Your friends are probably like you and their relationship with the person that you are dating is going to be indicative of how you will be minus the infatuation, because they're not infatuated with that person. So if they can get along, if they're friendly with that person, that's a pretty good sign. But if a lot of your friends, most of them even all of them, don't have great things to say or aren't very interested in spending time with that person, it's very likely that you won't be either once the infatuation wears off. This isn't to say that you should date by vote or take a committee on this. This is just to say to recognize that they are, are almost like you in a few years time in terms of the clarity with which they can see this individual. So keep your eyes peeled. This might mean that you need to end some relationships based on what you observe. But this takes us to point number four. Duration is one of the worst measures of the quality of a relationship. And unfortunately I think it's the one that everyone uses. You hear stay together, can they make it work? All of these sorts of phrases that we have in popular idiom. They seem to indicate that the only thing that makes a relationship valuable is if it continues till death do us part. But I am sure that you know a couple who just makes themselves miserable and probably you've had someone in your life who has entered for a short period of time left, but was still a positive influence So I would recommend. I know that I have tried to shift from the goal of staying together to the goal of making one another happy, to the goal of growing. And if you're in a relationship, no matter how long it is where you're happy and growing, fantastic. But if those things go away and they don't come back, it might be time to end it. And there's nothing to be embarrassed about, because duration isn't the ultimate goal. Now. There's one goal that I think absolutely deserves its place here that doesn't often get mentioned, and it's honesty. How honest can you be with the person that you are dating? And a great question to ask yourself is pretend that you're having one of those conversations with a best friend and you're talking about the person that you're dating. Imagine them walking in the room right in the middle of that conversation. Is that gonna freak out and end things? Or is that something that they've heard you say before? If you're withholding things from the person that you're with, it is my belief that that will cause deep, sometimes unseen cracks in the relationship. It will build resentment. It will take you farther from one another. And while a lot of people I see this on Reddit, when someone cheats, they say, for instance, don't tell them if. If the relationship has been great. If you just don't tell them about the fact that you cheated, you can keep things amazing. That's not ever been my experience in observing other people. Resentment festers when you cannot be open and clear. So get to the point in your relationships where you could be sitting in a room talking to your friend about that individual, maybe not saying the nicest things about them, but they know generally what you're saying. They know that you've recognized their flaws, you shared them with them, and you are open and honest about them. That's going to make things much, much better. Speaking of friends, this is a never, ever, ever, never ever give up your friendships simply because it's relationship time. I don't know how this happened, but it seems like from the ages of 5 to 25, people think this is friend time. This is where I invest in making tons of friends, having incredible experiences. But from 25 on, it's career and nuclear family time. Nothing wrong with a career. Nothing wrong with creating a family of your own. But if you cut friends out, you will suffer. I think that we idealize codependence in our movies and our songs today, and that's having that person as the center of your world. But guess what? The strongest relationships, again, in my experience are ones that are not the totality of both individuals worlds. They are an important piece, but they have friends, they have hobbies, they have things that they can do separate from one another. So they're completely codependent. So if you're at that age and you're seeing that everybody's pairing up and you're kind of losing touch, don't let that happen. Invest in your friendships, call them, reach out, make trips, even sometimes. And I've done this. Plan to be in the same city, to move and have work that allows you guys to stay together in the long term. I found it to be incredibly worthwhile. And sometimes when relationships end, it's the friends that are still the ones who are there. So this brings us to the last thing which has to do with communication. I think of communication. There's a ton to talk about here. But one of the things that we don't often hear is that you need to show your work emotionally. Now when you were in grade school or even in junior high and you had a test, it was frequent that you couldn't just write the answer. You had to show how you arrived at that answer in order to get full credit. Same thing kind of holds true in relationships. And I learned this when I was about 21 years old. One of my first relationships, I dated a girl when I was studying abroad in Costa Rica. Came back to the United States of America a week or so after I had arrived in the U.S. she asked me, she said, hey, I would like to visit you, but I also have this graduation fund. I was going to spend it on a laptop. What do you think I should do? Should I get the laptop or should I come visit you? And I thought about it. I said, oh man. So I would really like to see her, but that's going to be one week of time. And I know she's been wanting this laptop for a long time. She's been sitting, saving up. That laptop could last a couple years. This is going to just be one week. I should probably tell her to get the laptop. But all I said to her was, I think you should get the laptop. And I later found out that she broke down in tears and cried as soon as we stopped talking. Of course, that relationship ended for tons of reasons. Distance can be very hard. But it taught me an important lesson. If I had simply shared with her how I arrived at that idea, that might not have happened. Maybe she would have said, you know what? I know that you're afraid of feeling guilty that I don't do this, but I really do want to see you. And in fact, she was kind of just asking permission to do that and she was gauging to see if I was interested. The high level point is when you are in conflict or even when you're just discussing with the person that you love and are spending a ton of time with, you need to show your emotional steps at how you arrived at the decisions that you have arrived at. It will cut through a lot of conflict. It makes things much, much easier. So those have been seven things that I wish I knew about dating in my 20s. I hope this helps. I did mention my birthday is coming up. I'm turning 32. So we actually had a birthday fundraiser for Charity Water and we set the goal at raising $110,000. Thanks to you, we blew past that goal. We have raised at this point, almost $190,000. That is thousands of people that are going to get access to clean water. Totally thanks to you. Thanks to the Charisma on Command community. I could not have done this without you. Truly. This is the only birthday present that I want this year. It's been incredible. Thank you, thank you, thank you for watching. Thank you to those of you who donated. It means the world to me. Water is an organization that gets clean water to people who don't have it. So maybe they're walking miles a day to get it or maybe they're just drinking dirty water. Regardless, Charity Water Digs Wells, gets biofilters, has tons of other solutions so that a community has clean water for years to come, which is truly transformative and super high impact in terms of improving the quality of life. Now I have to say I was inspired and I want to raise the bar a little bit. So I'm going to be donating again to this campaign, pushing us closer. And I would like to hit because it would get 10,000 people water for 10 years, $300,000. Now I'm going to be chipping in. Charisma on Command is going to be chipping in, but we need your help to hit that goal. So if Charisma on Command has helped you, if you want to send me a birthday present, or if you're just inspired by the fact that, well, there are people out there who don't have access to some of the most basic things that we take for granted. Clean water. Things that won't get them sick when they drink it. If you would like to contribute and help the cause, go ahead. You can donate via our link charitywater.org Charisma this was originally for the Keanu Reeves video that we did. You guys are breathtaking. I appreciate it so, so, so much. No matter what, it's been an excellent 32 years and you guys mean the world to me. So thank you so much. I will see you in the next video.