One of the most valuable qualities that we have is our ability to reflect on our actions, observe our own behavior, get feedback and constructive criticism from our friends, co-workers and others, consider changing certain things in our actions and behavior and become better than we were before. Looking to change ourselves instead of blaming others is a very useful quality in all aspects of life, including dating and relationships., because as obvious as it might sound – we can only change and adjust ourselves to our environment, and we have very little control over the behavior of the people around us.

However, sometimes, pointing fingers only at yourself and blaming only yourself for your failures in dating is a terrible path to follow. You simply cannot blame yourself for all problems that you might encounter with different people of the opposite sex.

Please keep in mind one apparent but crucially important fact – the people who you go out with and interact with on a romantic level are humans as well. As such, what happens between the two of you depends on that other person just as much as it depends on you. Blaming yourself for every challenge you encounter with your dating and relationship partners will undermine your confidence quicker than anything else, and therefore you must avoid it.

Typically, a guy who goes out on several first dates that don’t necessarily work out very well will be blaming himself for these failures. While reevaluating your own behavior is a valuable tool in such situations, he must also consider the kind of women he went out with and their behavior. Did all of them have anything in common that would suggest that they all belong to a category of women that are simply incompatible with you? If so, this should be a lesson on which women you should considering not going out with and focusing your emotions and energy on other women. Just because a woman isn’t laughing at your jokes, it doesn’t mean that they are not funny although it’s possible. It’s also a possibility that she isn’t clever and witty enough to appreciate your humor, and therefore you simply do not belong together.

Similarly, a woman who has been cheated on by several guys, while becoming progressively more bitter and frustrated with men, might start blaming herself for having guys cheat on her over and over and will start considering herself a loser who will never meet the right guy. While it’s possible that there is something about her that turns men off and away, it’s also possible that she meets those guys who are naturally driven toward novelty and variety when it comes to meeting women and sex. And the fact is that the majority of guys, especially the younger ones, belong to that exact category. Thus, cheating is nothing personal against you but a powerful force that pushes some men from one woman to another regardless of how incredibly attractive, interesting and otherwise desirable any given woman is.

So, make sure that while considering your own behavior and engaging in the invaluable activity of self-improvement in dating and relationships, you are also not putting your own self-esteem on the line, and you rationally consider and evaluate the behavior and actions of your dating counterparts.

Most guys and women keep meeting people, spending time getting to know them and hoping that their new romantic prospect will turn into a great dating and relationship partner. Yet, these encounters with new people end, proving to be disappointing over and over again. These repeated disappointments inevitably lead people to feeling frustrated with dating and to losing hope that one day they will meet someone special with whom they will have this amazing chemistry and mutual romantic connection.

Frustration with dating and relationships with the opposite sex never helps anyone but only worsens any situation making a person angry, anxious and/or needy and desperate, which in turn further reduces the likelihood that he/she will be able to turn his/her dating life around. Thus, it is very important to learn how to overcome such a frustration and be able to move on with a positive outlook on your dating life.

One of the most effective ways of recovering from negative dating experiences and not allowing yourself to get frustrated with dating is realizing and remembering that we, humans, as a matter of fact do not like the vast majority of things and it’s quite natural and normal. Thinks about it – you go to a clothing store and see hundreds of shirts for sale. None of them are really terrible. Your eye, however, only catches a few shirts that you would even considering trying on and buying. Living in a city that has 1000′s of restaurants, bars, and cafes, I notice that I keep coming back to the same 3-5 places that I really, really like, even though other places are quite good. We are picky, we have very specific and unique characters, tastes and opinions. We have many acquaintances but very few people who connect with us on a level that makes us friends.

It appears that the same principle applies to our romantic relationships. It is in our nature to not be attracted to most other people and not be interested in them as dating partners for whatever reason – be it looks, personality, or any other factor. If you are a guy, most women you meet are either physically unattractive to you, or flaky, dramatic, unintelligent, boring, and otherwise undesirable. If you are a woman, most guys you meet and go out with our insecure, possessive, controlling, cheaters, liars, or selfish. You will have to go through many people before you meet someone who you believe is a “good” match.

However, this is normal, and as pointed out earlier, this applies to most aspects of our lives! Once you accept this is a natural part of reality rather than some kind of anomaly, or curse, you will start having a healthy perspective on your your unsuccessful encounters with the opposite sex, recovering from those experience faster and moving into the future while being confident that the right person is a rare kind, but that’s what also makes finding him/her so special and rewarding once it happens.

We can’t help but be influenced in our choices of dating and relationship partners by our friends, parents and relatives. These people influence your choices when you are single by suggesting to you who you are and who you might be compatible with. They might try to set you up on dates, and they will also voice their opinions about the people who you are seeing. But, how much weight – how much importance should you place on the opinion of your friends and parents/relatives on who you are dating?

I believe that is it very important to listen to the impression of the “outsiders” about your relationship. While your judgment might be clouded by attraction and passion toward your dating or relationship partner, your friends and relatives might be seeing the dynamics between you and your partner in a much more clear and objective light. You might be reluctant to recognize or face certain problems in your relationship, but the outsiders will alert you to those problems and will likely help you see them for what they are as they are looking out for your best interest, and they might be relying on their prior, similar experiences when giving you their advice.

At the same time, I am convinced that you should take the advice from the closest people to you on the choices of people you are seeing very carefully, as no one really knows you that well – no person knows you well enough to advise you on the selection of dating partners. Think about it – your parents and your closest friends might think that they know you very well because they spent so much time with you, but they might not know you that well. They likely have an image of who they think you are, which might have to do more or less with who you really are and what you really are looking for in a dating partner.

Thus, like in most other aspects of life, balance is a key to handling the advice on dating issues from your friends and relatives. You should listen to it carefully and consider all the advice you receive, but at the same time realize that the decision is yours and no one is in a better position to explore and know what’s best for you when it comes to dating and relationships. After all, you can only benefit from considering additional opinions from people with a variety of dating experience, unless you blindly accept those opinions as true.

Too many men and women, who have a series of negative dating experiences or relationships, come to believe that they are destined to fail with the opposite sex in the future just like they did in their past, and that there is nothing they can do to change that. This is unfortunate, because such beliefs have no rational foundation. Thus, it is very important that you don’t allow your past disappointments in dating and relationships affect your present and future attitude toward dating and the opposite sex and become a victim of your own past. It is a much better idea to treat your past dating experiences as valuable lessons from which you should learn what to do, what to avoid doing and how to improve your future interactions with the opposite sex.

You must remember that just because things didn’t quite work out the way you wanted them to with the previous one, two, five, or even more dating partners before, it doesn’t mean that it will not be different and better with your present or future partner. Those bad past dating experiences are only a waste of time if you make no use of them. But you can and you should benefit from your past. What you owe to yourself is learning from your past experience – making sure that whatever issues you dealt with before, you are capable of dealing with today better than before. I often meet people who became extremely jaded after being cheated on and dumped by several of their dating partners. Often, in desire to retaliated, these people who have been hurt turn to sleeping around or cheating on and dumping others as some kind of remedy or general revenge to restore their ego. This will hardly ever be an effective way to overcome the pain of past bad dating experiences.  It is a much more effective way to overcome bad dating past by realizing and accepting the fact that such disappointments are a natural part of dating life. It’s absolutely normal for a person to go through 10, 20 or more dating partners before they find the “one.” This is just a natural part of the dating “game” that nobody can be insured against. And you better learn how to enjoy the process, because dreading dating and being overly attached to the outcome will only make you come across as a less attractive person who is less likely to find that special someone.

Further, you simply cannot rely on the quality of your past relationships to determine the way things will go with the person you are seeing now or will be dating in the future. Even if 10 people have cheated on you / lied to you or caused any other pain and problems, it says nothing about the person you are seeing now or the next person you will meet. So, resist the desire to generalize and believe that just because you had bad experiences in the past, your present and future will be similar to that past. After all, it would be a great shame if you didn’t manage to connect with that special person because your negative past was blinding you and prevent you from seeing that person for who he really is.

Surely, there is no insurance policy against arguments, fights, break-ups and other dating problems, but hey – taking a risk and moving forward with your current life and possibly your present dating partner is that small risk that we all take – it’s part of life and part of the dating game.