QUESTION...
"I am a guy. I am dating this lady who is more obsessed with our relationship more than our friendship. I wish I could be best friend to her or she could be my best friend, but that’s not her focus.
The lady wants me to do everything she request from me. I don’t have time for myself. She wants me to talk to her always, pay all her bills every moment, take her out, make her laugh.
There are so much expectations from me simply because I am in a relationship with her. Sometimes I feel like am not her friend. Because as Jim Morison says, “A friend is someone who gives you the freedom to be yourself”.
There are so much expectation from me many times, I feel like she is not my friend, because she puts the pressure of relationship on me. I have tried several times to tune her mind on being friend to me, but to no avail."
What do I do?
From the question above we can clearly deduce that the guy wants to quit dating and enter into friendship with the lady. This is a very great question that everybody is asking. Should he or she be my friend or my dating partner?
Truly, you can’t be dating and show yourself unfriendly. You might be asking, “What does it mean to be friendly in dating”. But wait, relax, let us dissect the question from the point of dating first. Afterwards, we will link it with friendship.
Basically, dating is when individuals hoping to marry decide to study each other. Dating through to marriage is not an opportunity to exude happiness form each other but rather to express happiness.
Expressing happiness means you are already a happy person and you make those around you feel happy. Exuding happiness means you depend on other people for happiness. Which of these is better? Expressing happiness or exuding happiness?
Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from our own actions. At the point of dating, we must be ready to express happiness to each other, not to exude happiness from each other.
Only people who were happy and independent before dating can express happiness when dating. Entering a relationship primarily for what we can get of it defrauds the other person, and this isn’t a good attitude. Dating is only a process to study each other.
The dating process is not where we satisfy the needs of each other or run at a deficit at all cost. Not all dating should necessarily result in marriage. If you didn’t do any weird invest while dating, then there will be no cause for alarm if you want to quit that particular relationship due to some observed issue.
It will be better to quit an unhealthy relationship than to break a marriage. Let me tell you this truth, when people make sacrifices in a dating process more than what they can afford, they find it difficult to exit from that relationship even if they perceive it to be unhealthy at a point in time.
To be continued?
Stay tuned...
SAMUEL E. ABBUAH,
SOF STUDENT,
ASHANTI REGIONAL CAMPUS.