Full Title: Ways to Tell They’re Not ‘The One’ on the First Date, Enter a Longterm Relationship and Be Surprised When it ‘Doesn’t Work Out’

Other posts in this series:

1. Ways to Tell: Tip One

*More kindly, hopeful and constructive inclusions in these cynical appraisals of common human dynamics are ideas held within:

1. Bold text highlights alternative things to think about.
2. Most hyperlinks redirect to informative content exploring alternative concepts.

For female, male, transgender, intersex, non-binary… Any garden variety person

Week 1: Fall in love at first bitch with their validation of your woes that’s so overloaded it has outweighed its centre of gravity and toppled heavily on the side of delusion.

Make an entry in your gratitude journal about how grateful you feel that your Spidey Senses have finally developed astute character judgement of people’s energies.

Congratulate yourself on choosing this fellow ’empath’ and seeing through the untrustworthiness of:

• Date 1: Who suggested they thought the offer of a deadline extension seemed like an attempt to negotiate. They ACTUALLY ADMITTED themselves to working to develop those sorts of negotiation skills, because their communication had been more harsh in the past.

• Date 2: Who wondered uncaringly if a missed deadline might indicate you’re struggling? Could you take control and ask for some support?

• Date 3: Who said they related. They too had felt victimised at work in the past. Then they ACTUALLY ADMITTED to realising their colleague’s gentle requests were reasonable responses to their poor work performance.

Week 2: The love of your life tells you something you did triggered vulnerable feelings for them. Allow your defensive feelings to take your mindset to an episode of Law and Order.

You’re the defendant. Any display of compassion for their experience or sense of responsibility could implicate you. This could condemn you to a life sentence of developing more functional empathy, self-insight and a more fulfilling life.

Launch counter-accusations based on Ice T’s investigation, cycling roles of defendant with your partner.

Years 0-3: Continue your relationship in the state of a hung jury

No-one takes responsibility for their respective roles. You avoid the appearance of conflict by taking an adjournment and only discussing shared interests like the weather.

Who knows? Maybe things would have been different if this was real life in which learning opportunities occur when humans inevitably do the wrong thing by each other occasionally?

But you’re a realist. This is a gritty, adversarial, criminal law TV series.

Year 3: Release yourself from the prison of this relationship when one of you cheats on the other, unconsciously seeking the attention and approval of someone who doesn’t yet recognise their self-delusions.

• The cheating empath is sincerely in love… With their new lover’s naive care and interest in the one-dimensional persona they project.

• The cheated-on empath blames it on the pretence of the cheater- they were lying when they expressed their self-concept as an empath. It’s the eternal plight of the cheated-on true empath to always care too much about other people and sacrifice themselves for others. “Why does the unverified Law of Attraction never work for my empath energies?”

While you’re on parole in between relationship breakups, neither of you should reflect upon this observation:

That in the mental law court of your relationship, both of your minds’ jurors focused exclusively on the evidence of your own emotions and thoughts. Meanwhile, your ’empaths’ sat in the gallery taking selfies- too fixated by a false reality in their own image to imagine what evidence the other’s experience could expose you to.

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Non-satirical, constructive Brain Embryo resources:

• Conflict
• Expectations
• Love for another

Other posts in this series:

1. Ways to Tell: Tip One