When it's good to be a bad listener

As you guys have probably figured out by now, my life is pretty much an open blog. I love to share my favorite restaurants, shops, stories, insights, jokes, and the like with my family, friends, hairdresser, doorman and well, you get the idea. That said, my love life is no exception. In fact, if there's one part of my life I especially LOVE to share, it's my dating dilemmas. I'll ask anyone who'll listen what they think of a somewhat cryptic text message or what their opinion is on splitting the bill, sex on the first? third? tenth? date, what not to say on a first date, when's the right time to break out the sweats, etc.

I'm not exactly sure why I do this. It could be the journalist in me and my natural propensity for sharing news, knowledge and ideas, it could be a manifestation of my insecurities when it comes to romance and relationships, or it might be a consequence of my unwavering need to understand how life and love "works". Likely, it's a combination of all the above. The problem is, when it comes to one's love life, over-sharing and asking for too many people's opinions can become overwhelming and downright confusing. It can also blur the line between actions you're doing because it's what feels right to you, and actions you're doing because it's what you think you ought to be doing because your best friend's friend's cousin said so, and obviously she knows what she's talkin' about because she has a successful marriage. Right? WRONG!

What I've learned is if there's anytime where you have to be truly, madly, deeply yourself is if you want to foster a meaningful connection with someone. After all, how would you feel if the person they fell in love or like with was an amalgamation of people you created based on your trainer's/ sister's/ cousin's/ friend's/ butcher's opinion? The real you is bound to come up eventually because that's just how it goes and then things can get kind of tricky and icky.

So my goal from now on is to me more judicious in my sharing, and to find a way to tell people who are close to me about my life and love life without always asking for their opinions. And, when people offer unsolicited advice, which let's face it, people tend to do A LOT, I'll have to figure out a way to listen without internalizing advice to the point where I let it dictate my actions. If I happen to agree, it's a whole other story, but then I'll still be doing something because it's what feels right to ME. Bottom line: we (and when I say "we" I mostly mean "me" because heck, who am I to tell you what to do and how to think), need to remember that no one knows us better than we know ourselves and we are the only ones who know the entirety of a situation, so we've got to trust our gut and do as we see fit. Life and love can be terrifying, but there's no other option except to grab the bull by its horns and go along for the ride -  in our own special way.