Dating in 2025 Is BROKEN: Here’s Why It’s Failing You (And What Actually Works Now)

How do you date with intention? One of the biggest tips is to be the observer. Be the observer. It really does take some time to get to know somebody. 90 days at least to really get to know someone and see how they move and see how they operate and see how they are in different scenarios. And really, it takes more like a year. But when we're dating, we really don't know the person when we first meet them. And so how do we navigate that in a conscious way? First, we want to get really clear on what it is that we are available for and looking for. Getting clear on that before you even step foot into a dating situation is really helpful, because if you don't know what you want, then you could end up in all kinds of different situations and scenarios, and that's all good, because you'll learn a lot. Believe me, I have learned a lot. Dating can be a wild ride, especially in the beginning. The overanalyzing— do I like you? Do you like me? Should I respond right away to the text, or should I wait? Should I just show up as my authentic self, or should I try to be cool and play a bit of a game, right? All of these things. I mean, dating is quite an adventure, especially in 2025. We can fall for potential instead of falling for the person that's actually in front of us. It's been a big one for me personally in the past. It's a lot for our nervous systems, and it's no wonder because we weren't ever taught how to date consciously, right? They don't sit us down when we're in middle school and say, hey, you know what, guys, this is how you navigate this in a really healthy, conscious way, right? It's basically just, oh, I think you're cute, you think I'm cute. Cool. Let's go. Right? But now as adults, we wanna bring a little more intention to the process. Most of us have been taught that we have to be a certain way, that we have to perform, that we need to be perfect to somehow be chosen. Right? But that's actually the exact opposite of how I would say to operate. What you want to do is be as authentic as possible. Just be yourself. That's it. And guess what? You will attract people that are aligned for you in doing that, and the ones that aren't will fall away. And I know that that's easy logically to think, oh, okay, cool, but when the emotions get involved, it can be really hard, right? If you like someone and it's not aligned and then they fall away, that's not fun. The more authentic you are to your own self, the more you get anchored into your own self, the more that you are okay whether they're here or whether they're not. And that's a really powerful place to be. And becoming the observer in dating means that you're actually going to commit to being really honest with yourself and just observing what's unfolding in front of you rather than what you would like to be unfolding. You're actually going to look at it as clearly as you possibly can. Slowing down is really helpful in this because if we rush the physical component of dating, forget it. I mean, there's no formula, okay? So I will say that there's no formula for this, but the more that we rush the physical component, or the faster that that happens, the more that we have this rush of hormones and all these chemicals and things that really make it hard to see clearly. So slowing down can be extremely helpful in discerning if this is somebody that you actually want to date and you want to build something with or not. So the first 3 to 6 months is the observer phase, right? You're observing, you're learning, you're learning a person, they're learning you. You're not chasing, you're not trying to be chosen, you're not trying to mold yourself into who you think they want you to be. You're just observing and being as true to yourself as you can, which is challenging because many of us have been taught to disconnect from our truths in order to be chosen or in order to survive, right? But this is some of the unwinding that we want to do so that we can be true and authentic to ourselves. Because guess what? The other stuff isn't sustainable. So here are some questions that you can ask yourself when you're in the Observer Phase to help you be really clear and discerning. How do they show up when things are easy? And how do they show up when things are not? So how do they handle Your first disagreement, for example. How did that go? How did they move? How did you move? How do you feel in your body in their presence? Not just how attracted to them are you. How do you feel in your body? Tune into your body. Do you feel peaceful? Do you feel calm? Do you feel agitated? Do you feel stressed? How do you feel? And this one is the mack daddy of all the things. Okay. Do their words and actions match? Actions and words matching is integrity. Do their words and actions match? If one or the other are not matching, they're not in integrity and you cannot build with that. Also on your end, make sure that your words and actions are matching, or if you notice that they're not, take some steps to correct that and repair it if you need to. This isn't about blaming yourself. For anything. That doesn't get us anywhere. It's about empowering you. It's about empowering you to look at the only person that you can change, which is yourself. You also want to practice showing up in your truth. In order to do that, you need to know what your truth is, which is why I really suggest doing some inner work on yourself to get clear and release any patterns that maybe you needed to survive— patterns of people-pleasing, patterns of overgiving, patterns of chasing, patterns of proving, doing the work to free yourself from that so that you can just show up in your authentic truth and move from that place and be honest, right? Be honest. Share what it is you're looking for and what you want. Just unapologetically share it. And you don't have to say, I want this from you specifically to the person in front of you, but just share like, 'Yeah, you know what, I'm really looking for a serious relationship. That would be amazing if I found that.' Or, 'I want to get married and have kids,' right? Speak your truth, because if it's aligned, the other person will say, 'Oh my gosh, yeah, me too.' And then great, now you know, versus dancing around the whole subject of do they want what I want, do I want what they want, and then you get connected and attached, and then you stay together for a few months or a few years, and then you realize, 'Oh my gosh, it wasn't even aligned to begin with.' and then it's really painful because the goal isn't to get somebody to like you, right? The goal is not to mold yourself into whoever they want you to be, whatever their ideal is. The goal is for you to show up authentically and honestly, and authenticity is the highest currency. If you're being true to you, you will really align quickly with what is meant for you, and that includes partner, that includes money, that includes health, that includes career opportunities, all the things. If you're being authentic to you, then all of those things will be able to align with you easily versus if you're trying to be something that you're not. And if you being real scares somebody off, it's not rejection, it's literally redirection. Rejection is God's protection. Have you heard that? We want to be mindful of the narrative that comes up if that happens. If somebody says, oh my gosh, you know what, that doesn't work for me, or I'm not interested, or somebody ghosts you. If you take that and make that mean something about you, then that's where we have some work to do. If you internalize it and use it for evidence of your story that maybe you're not worthy, or maybe you did something wrong, then this is where the work lies, because we want to unwind and untangle that and rewrite that narrative. We want to create a vision for what it is that we desire. Your vision is everything. The vision for what you desire is everything. The how and the timing is not up to us. But think about what are your must-haves in a partnership? What are your must-haves? Some for me are consistency, someone who's available, and somebody who wants what I want, and shared values, right? And I have an extensive list, so if you need some help with that, I can help you create a really clear your vision for what you desire in partnership. And also you want to think about what are your deal-breakers? What are your non-negotiables? Things that just do not work for you. What are they? And if you don't know where to begin, which a lot of people don't, that's okay. You know, when I made my best list like this was actually when I got out of one of the most painful relationships of my life, and I wrote down every single quality that I wished I that he had that he did not. I wrote them all down, and that became the beginning of my vision for what I desire in partnership. And if you're really having a hard time with it, you could just write down all the things that aren't working, all the things that didn't work for you, maybe with past relationships, or even things that are happening now that aren't working. And what would the opposite of that be? What would the opposite be of the thing that you don't want? So an easy one is, you know, someone who's unavailable. Well, I need someone who's available. And what does available look like? Actually defining that, right? For example, I got into a relationship with someone going through a divorce, and I thought that he was available. He was not. So now I know, right? A lot of these things just give us more information. So dating is really such a learning process, and relationships are too. All of life is really our teacher. I learned that from one of my mentors a long time ago, and it's really true. Life is our teacher. Life's going to show us whatever we need to see or hear or know to become the highest expression of ourselves, if we take that opportunity. And life will be really, really generous and keep showing us whatever we need to look at, whether we go over here, over here, over here. The same messages are going to keep showing up. Whatever's on our curriculum that we need to learn in this lifetime is going to keep showing up, and we can't actually avoid it. So let's use it as a vehicle for alignment with what we want. And listen, everybody's gonna have red flags, okay? I'm— I don't like that narrative of the red— oh, they had a red flag. Yeah, everyone has a red flag. Welcome to being a human. Everyone probably has a few red flags. You have to look at whether or not those red flags can actually work for you, right? What is the way that they deal with their red flag? Is it something they're currently working on? Is it something that you can work with, or is it on your non-negotiable list? You know, we can get a little cuckoo with all this stuff and think, oh my God, they have a red flag, and run in the opposite direction when really it's something that we could have worked with. Because there is no perfect, okay? Everybody is a human. The biggest thing to remember is that we're all learning here. We're all learning, we're all growing. There is no perfect way to do this, so go easy on yourself because you're practicing conscious dating, which is something that none of us were taught, right? Just like most of us were not taught how to have healthy relationships or how to manage conflict or how to communicate in a way that actually repairs conflict that happened. So go easy and learn as you go. And even if you fall flat on your face, that's okay, it's part of it. Feel free to share with me if you have questions, and if you need some more support with how to date with intention and how to date in a conscious manner, then book a call with me. I'd love to connect with you.