A speaker argues that being a good lover means talking clearly about feelings and expectations from the start. She says many people avoid these conversations, leading to misunderstandings, and offers practical ways to share your emotional state without blaming your partner.
Chapters
Let's talk about being clear about your feelings in relationships. I think it doesn't matter what your age is, it can be so difficult if you haven't started out about being clear with your feelings, how you are feeling about a relationship, what, what you're looking for out of it, whether it's casual or whether you're looking for something more long-term. If you're not actually communicating with your partner about how it is that you're feeling, and I know that is really tough. It's really tough if you've been in a long relationship and you've just gotten into the habit of never discussing it. And I think that's one of the great things about being recently single. You can actually start your new relationships as you mean to go on. So you can say, like, what is this? Is this like friends with benefits? Is this something where you're thinking about something long-term? What are you looking for? How are you feeling about us, right? And the more you get used to communicating in your relationships, the easier that kind of stuff becomes until it just becomes normal to say, "You know what? Today I'm feeling like crap. If I'm just absent, if I'm not communicating, if you're not receiving a text, it's nothing bad. It's nothing about you. It's just I'm having a hard day at work. I haven't slept. I'm hungover." whatever happens to be going on in your life. So think about how you're communicating in your relationships. Are you being clear? What can you do to make sure that your needs are being met?
