DON'T FORGET YOUR CROWN: Self-Love has everything to do with it.

by Derrick Jaxn

Men who care about a woman’s mood are going to be concerned about her mental and emotional well-being just much as her physical.

It’s one thing to be alone, but to be with someone and have them mentally find the exit the moment you talk about things that are going on with you is colder than ice.

Knowing what to look for in a good man is the first part of believing he exists.

The second, and most important part is opening the heart for love.

Any woman that is committed to the belief that there is absolutely no more good men left on the dating scene will miss them, run them all away, or eventually lose the ones who were courageous enough to stick around at all.

There are still men who will worship the ground their woman walks on, but you won’t get yours if you’re laid up with Mr. Meantime.

The reality for a good man is this: He knows his worth, and in this day and age, knows he’s rare.

The Call Girl.

The Serial Dater.

The Open Wound.

Sour Sally.

The Diva.

While most good men don’t mind taking initiative, at minimum, they also like to be assured a woman is interested.

However, while a good man may be intrigued enough to pursue, he’s still evaluating what he’s pursuing to decide whether it’s worth eventually catching or not.

Sure, as a woman, you should be with someone you’re attracted to, but if you are pursuing the type of man that excites you more than the type that fulfills you, you may be avoiding the very one you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with.

This is a fact check on the things you told yourself made you happy to see if they really have.

The point is, your type has to be based on the right priorities per the type of relationship you want.

But if you’re wanting your next relationship to be the real thing--a companionship, partnership, and spiritually connected and growth-oriented relationship--then your type has to prioritize his character above all.

at a certain age, consistency is a lot sexier than broad shoulders and a six-pack.

At no point should you settle for a man you’re repulsed by in any way, but another thing you should never compromise on are requirements to protect your heart.

While there’s nothing you can do to control how a man responds to dating you, the power is in your hands as to how what he does affects you.

A woman goes into a relationship with a lock on her vagina but gives full access to her support for his dreams:

That access to her resources makes her feel like they’re a team, but then turns out, that’s all he wanted, and she’s left stranded with these high hopes while he’s enjoying the free upgrade she gave him.

My point is, the idea of the 90-Day Rule is solid; don’t give a man sexual benefits he hasn’t earned. But as opposed to an incentive program for longevity that leverages the postponement of intimacy, there needs to be a protection plan on your heart and every door that leads inside it.

This is about making it out of dead-end courtships unscathed, so you don’t have to spend time licking wounds after every guy who doesn’t work out.

Most times, if a man can get in another way, he’ll unlock the entrance to her body before his ninety days is up anyway.

It goes back to self-love, the part about taking time to understand yourself and set boundaries once you do.

Taking time to get on the inside will show him that you don’t open up to just anyone, and make him feel more secure once he’s in.

If he has a problem with your boundaries, then earning your heart simply isn’t that important to him.

Not giving men an alternative other than respecting your emotional boundaries is one-half of erasing the paranoia that comes with dating.

If we’re calling a spade a spade, we’re officially in the age of the overqualified woman, where most have taken full advantage of the ability to do, think, and believe more for themselves and relatively bring more to a relationship.

women are allowing themselves to make mistakes they later regret in the effort to not get “left out” of those chosen, one of them being the ignoring of red flags.

what makes no sense is how women are treating stop signs like green lights and then surprised when they end up in ditches.

This is not to say that from a first date, forward, everything goes downhill but similar to a job interview, if he can’t do the little things right in an effort to make a good first impression, history shows that those things won’t improve over time.

You win when you choose a winner, and winners, while imperfect, don’t show red flags on in the initial dating stages.

Another avoidable mistake women make in the dating phase is not asking the right questions.

a healthy relationship is. It’s a balance of both pleasure, in terms of personality compatibility, and business as it relates to life goals, financial responsibility, values, legacy that’s created for children to inherit, etc.

Yet, many women are either afraid to scare men off by touching on the business-related questions, or their subconscious auto-completes those questions with the answers she hopes are there based on what’s shown up front, which results in too many of those questions never being asked.

It’s nice to know that you can have fun with someone, but when you’re in it for more than just fun, you have to ask questions about their intentions over the long-term, if they intend to have more children, if any at all, how important marriage is to them, have they dealt with past traumas and issues of their childhood, what gender roles do they believe work best for a relationship, and more things of that nature.

Happily-ever-after doesn’t happen because two people laugh and have sex a lot, despite what the media tries to sell you. Those things certainly create the “happy” but “ever after” is credited to the business that doesn’t get compromised.

Of all the business questions to ask, the most important is, “What do you do for growth?”

You’re opening the floor for him to speak on something he should be busting at the seams to talk about anyway. That’s what happens when you’re discovering things that make you grow. It feels like you’ve stumbled upon gems that few people know or would care to hear about, so when one opens the floor for you to talk about them, that’s not offensive, it’s exciting.

You know who this question of growth will turn off? The guy who not only has nothing that he does for personal growth, but the guy that doesn’t intend to stick around long enough for you to see what evidence of that growth would be.

But this question is critical for women who are progressive, growing, and investing in themselves daily to get closer to their full potential.

if a woman is growing but he is not, she’s headed for disappointment, or even worse, heartbreak.

gauging how important his growth on a personal level was to him.

Furthermore, when a man values growth, he also sees the importance of its role in a relationship as well.

But, if growth is something he deems pointless, he’ll achieve whatever end goal he has in mind, and his efforts to remain physically and emotionally present will cease.

So growth, as not only a conversational topic but also a must-have quality, should be established early on and revisited regularly throughout the relationship.

The third, and possibly biggest mistake women make on the first date is being impressed by his actions.