Coles - LOVE RULES: how to find a real relationship in a digital world

Its time to strip naked and look in the mirror. Ask yourself, What do I want in a relationship? What is your ideal scenario? Be honest.

Who is your dream catch? And what may be more realistic?

We all have an ideal weight. When we hit it, we feel happy. Sexy. Confident. And when we are five, tenor fortypounds away from it, we feel disproportionately terrible. It can feel as though we just cant get back in control, and it often makes us crave unhealthy food and want to eat more. So first, take a hard look at yourself and your current love life.

Its similar to getting on the scale. How much do you weigh? Is that your ideal weight? If not, what is? And again, be realistic. So if you are five feet six and 152 pounds but want to be 120 pounds, ask yourself, Have I ever weighed that? What is the lowest you have been? What did you have to do to maintain it? Maybe 135 pounds is more realisticand healthierfor you.

Now swap that for relationships. Sure, your best friend is dating a guy you think is perfectbut for whom? Hopefully for her. What about you? Who is the 135-pound equivalent of your potential partner? Not the John Legend or Ryan Gosling 120-pound version, but the realistic one. Perhaps even the guy who works in the IT department at your office and leaves flirtatious sticky notes on your desk or signs his work emails with a winky emoji. Or the shy philosophy major in your dorm who clearly has a crush on you. You agree with your friends that he is a dork but have found yourself wondering about him all the same. And actually you feel good when hes around.

Forget about what anyone else wants for youyour mom, your best friend, your sister, your colleagues, your aunt, or your neighborthink about what you want. This is oddly difficult to do. We are constantly seeing ourselves through others eyes; its human nature. The phrase looking-glass self was first coined by the sociologist Charles Horton Cooley in 1902 and describes this phenomenon, in which we actually define ourselves by our interactions with others. That mirror is magnified a thousand times in our modern world as there are so many points of comparison between ourselves and others. It can lead us off track. As the pioneering cyberpsychologist Mary Aiken, author of The Cyber Effect, puts it, We spend all of our time investing in trying to understand our self from the feedback from others rather than actually knowing who we truly are.

So the first rule is to start thinking about who you truly areand what turns you on or off, thrills you in the moment, and lasts for the long haul, because that is the key to finding a sustaining relationship.

And so again, ask yourself, What do I want in a relationship?

There is an ancient Greek expression that we need to make modern again: Know thyself. So much of life today is spent comparing ourselves to otherswhether that other is your best friend, the lawyer who just married a tech entrepreneur and is already pregnant with her first kid at twenty-nine. Or your colleague who got a raise instead of you and is on her third date with the hot guy she met on Tinder. Or any one of the improbably nice Kardashians. Everyone is so busy looking at, liking, and idealizing other peoples lives that we each define ourselves and our desires and goals in reaction to them, versus the internal deep work of asking, What makes me truly happy?

In a restaurant, we may ask for suggestions, but we dont let others tell us what to eat; we choose from the menu ourselves.

Everyone has different wants and needs, most based on past experiences and future aspirations. You might really like the shy, quiet guy who works in accountingthe one who wears a zipper cardigan and, gasp, Merrells. But your best friend thinks you should date the chatty trainer who flirts with you at the gym. Going along with what other people think is best for youbut what does not feel right in your heart and gutis not what we are going for here. In a restaurant, we may ask for suggestions, but we dont let others tell us what to eat; we choose from the menu ourselves. Bat away the white noise and the cultural pressure. Ask yourself, What do I want in a partner? You need to choose for yourself first and worry about the peanut gallery later.