IPRESSTV: date

Showing posts with label date. Show all posts

Viral Tinder Couple Finally Goes on First Date in Maui After Messaging for Three Years

Kent State University students Josh and Michelle may have put off meeting for three years, but after finally coming face to face, the duo wasted no time heading to their date in Maui.

As previously reported, the pair messaged back-and-forth on Tinder for three years, with each extremely delayed response giving a hilarious excuse for the time gap between messages. Their exchange went viral after Josh, 22, posted screen grabs on Twitter on July 7, writing: "Hahahaha one day I'm going to meet this girl and it's going to be epic. Look at the dates of our tinder texts.”

The hilarious conversation quickly caught America’s attention, prompting Good Morning America execs to bring the two in to meet face-to-face on its Tuesday, July 25, episode. On GMA, Michelle explained why they kept the conversation going for so long. “I was committed to my joke,” she said. “I loved the fact that we had a similar sense of humor so I was not going to be the one who gave in and gave up that great joke we had.”

Following their first meeting on the show, Tinder sent the duo on an extravagant first date: a trip to Maui.

“We’ve had the most incredible weekend ever and can’t thank Tinder and Grand Wailea enough,” the couple told IPRSSTV in a statement following their weekend getaway, during which they relaxed with drinks by the pool and went on romantic excursions. "We are excited to get back to Cleveland and continue to learn more about one another.”

6 Ways To Differentiate Between Real Love And Attachment

Are you in love with your partner or are you just attached to them? Love can be complicated, but this article explains a few of the differences between attachment and real love. I hope that these explanations will aid you in nurturing your current relationship or creating one based on genuine love in the future.

1. Love is selfless, attachment is selfish

When you’re in love, you focus on making the other person happy. You’re always thinking of ways to make sure that your partner feels loved and fulfilled. You aren’t keeping score, arguing over who helps more, or fighting over who is supposed to wash the dishes. You don’t emotionally blackmail your partner, try to manipulate them, or seek to dominate the relationship.

When you’re merely attached to someone, you’re focused upon the ways in which they can make you happy. You become heavily dependent upon your partner and may even try to control him or her to avoid abandonment. Instead of confronting your own issues, you use your partner to improve your self-esteem and fill a void within you. You believe that they are responsible for your happiness and become frustrated and angry if they fail to bring you contentment.

2. Love is liberating, attachment is controlling

Mutual love allows you to be your true self. Your partner encourages you to be who you genuinely are and you won’t be afraid to expose your weaknesses. Mutual trust develops and becomes a powerful catalyst for personal growth for both of you. Love is never controlling. In actuality, love transcends control. Your partner’s ability to accept you for who you are and encourage you to pursue your dreams allows you to let go of the need to control their life.

Attachment, on the other hand, tends to fuel controlling behavior. You may discourage your partner from spending time with their friends, play mind games, or put an unhealthy level of focus on pleasing them. You may even try to manipulate them into staying with you regardless of their feelings.

3. Love is mutual growth, attachment is encumbering

If you’re in love, you and your partner will grow together. When both of you work to become the best versions of yourselves, you’ll become better than you could have on your own. In short, your partner stimulates your growth, and you do the same for them.

In cases of attachment, your urge to control and your inability to solve your own problems restricts your growth as well as your partner’s. Your unresolved issues cause unnecessary dependence upon your significant other. Not surprisingly, this restricts the growth of both parties and makes it difficult to love in a healthy way.

4. Love is everlasting, attachment is transient

Love survives the passage of time. You and your partner may ultimately breakup, be it temporarily or permanently. If you were truly in love, however, that person will always have a place in your heart and you will continue to wish them well for the rest of their life.

If, on the other hand, you were merely attached to them, you will likely hold resentment after a breakup. You may even experience feelings of betrayal. These feelings stem from the assumption that your partner had an obligation to make you happy that, in your eyes, was not fulfilled.

5. Love is ego-reducing, attachment is ego-boosting

When in love, you become less self-centered. Your relationship serves to reduce your ego, fosters your growth, and encourages you to become less selfish and more loving. The relationship you have with your partner fuels positive changes for both of you. More importantly, you’ll both have the courage to share your weaknesses, expose your vulnerabilities, and communicate from the heart.

Alternatively, relationships based on attachment are typically dominated by the ego. This is why many people repeatedly fall into a continuous stream of unsatisfying relationships, each of which involves the same, recurrent problems. You find it difficult to look within and resolve your issues. This generates dependency within your relationship, which triggers the feeling that you can’t be happy without your partner. You rely on your significant other to solve your problems or, at the very least, help you forget them.

If you aren’t in love right now, I sincerely hope that you will find your soul mate and build a magnificent relationship with that person. Until then, why not work on becoming a better and more loving version of yourself? As the saying goes “Like attracts like”. If that’s the case, it’s wise to become the person that you wish to attract!

6 Guides To Get You Back Into a Relationship After Suffering an Abusive Marriage

Being a part of an abusive marriage is an all too common phenomenon, but the problems don't end once your marriage ends in divorce. Whether the abuse was physical, sexual or emotional in nature, you can take steps to ensure your next relationship is healthy and abuse free. You can have a healthy relationship with a new partner, but taking the extra time to make sure you are properly prepared for one is very important.

Get professional advice. The effects of an abusive marriage can last a very long time. You've probably suffered emotional trauma and damage that you must address before you can enter into a new, healthy relationship. Seek professional therapy from a counselor or mental health professional as soon as possible so you can begin the healing process.

Learn as much as you can about abusive relationships. Abusive behavior can stem from a number of root causes and have lingering effects. Educating yourself about why abuse happens, the effects it has on your emotional and mental health and what leads people to enter into abusive relationships can be a big step.

Stay aware of your emotional state. When you become emotionally involved or interested in a potential partner, your ability to objectively evaluate that person is necessarily compromised. Always be aware of your own emotional response to a potential partner and seek the advice of objective parties when entering a new relationship.

Go slowly. Your abusive relationship has probably affected your ability to trust and build a healthy relationship. Don't rush into an intimate relationship with a new partner. Build your relationship slowly over time, and explain to your partner why you are cautious.

Make sure you are legally protected. If your abusive ex-spouse still presents a threat to you, your health and your family, you must take steps to ensure no further damage can be done. Talk to a lawyer about what options you have in asking a court for a restraining order or a protective order that limits contact between you and your ex-spouse.

Here are 10 Mostly Ignored Threats to a Happy Marriage

I feel bad for marital communication, because it gets blamed for everything. For generations, in survey after survey, couples have rated marital communication as the number one problem in marriage. It’s not.

Marital communication is getting a bad rap. It’s like the kid who fights back on the playground. The playground supervisors hear a commotion and turn their heads just in time to see his retaliation. He didn’t create the problem; he was reacting to the problem. But he’s the one who gets caught, so he’s sent off to the principal’s office.

Or, in the case of marital communication, the therapist’s office.

I feel bad for marital communication, because everyone gangs up on him, when the truth is, on the playground of marriage, he’s just reacting to one of the other troublemakers who started the fight:

1. We marry people because we like who they are. People change. Plan on it. Don’t marry someone because of who they are, or who you want them to become. Marry them because of who they are determined to become. And then spend a lifetime joining them in their becoming, as they join you in yours.

2. Marriage doesn’t take away our loneliness. To be alive is to be lonely. It’s the human condition. Marriage doesn’t change the human condition. It can’t make us completely unlonely. And when it doesn’t, we blame our partner for doing something wrong, or we go searching for companionship elsewhere. Marriage is intended to be a place where two humans share the experience of loneliness and, in the sharing, create moments in which the loneliness dissipates. For a little while.

3. Shame baggage. Yes, we all carry it it. We spend most of our adolescence and early adulthood trying to pretend our shame doesn’t exist so, when the person we love triggers it in us, we blame them for creating it. And then we demand they fix it. But the truth is, they didn’t create it and they can’t fix it. Sometimes the best marital therapy is individual therapy, in which we work to heal our own shame. So we can stop transferring it to the ones we love.

4. Ego wins. We’ve all got one. We came by it honestly. Probably sometime around the fourth grade when kids started to be jerks to us. Maybe earlier if our family members were jerks first. The ego was a good thing. It kept us safe from the emotional slings and arrows. But now that we’re grown and married, the ego is a wall that separates. It’s time for it to come down. By practicing openness instead of defensiveness, forgiveness instead of vengeance, apology instead of blame, vulnerability instead of strength, and grace instead of power.

5. Life is messy and marriage is life. So marriage is messy, too. But when things stop working perfectly, we start blaming our partner for the snags. We add unnecessary mess to the already inescapable mess of life and love. We must stop pointing fingers and start intertwining them. And then we can we walk into, and through, the mess of life together. Blameless and shameless.

6. Empathy is hard. By its very nature, empathy cannot happen simultaneously between two people. One partner must always go first, and there’s no guarantee of reciprocation. It takes risk. It’s a sacrifice. So most of us wait for our partner to go first. A lifelong empathy standoff. And when one partner actually does take the empathy plunge, it’s almost always a belly flop. The truth is, the people we love are fallible human beings and they will never be the perfect mirror we desire. Can we love them anyway, by taking the empathy plunge ourselves?

7. We care more about our children than about the one who helped us make them. Our kids should never be more important than our marriage, and they should never be less important. If they’re more important, the little rascals will sense it and use it and drive wedges. If they’re less important, they’ll act out until they are given priority. Family is about the constant, on-going work of finding the balance.

8. The hidden power struggle. Most conflict in marriage is at least in part a negotiation around the level of interconnectedness between lovers. Men usually want less. Women usually want more. Sometimes, those roles are reversed. Regardless, when you read between the lines of most fights, this is the question you find: Who gets to decide how much distance we keep between us? If we don’t ask that question explicitly, we’ll fight about it implicitly. Forever.

9. We don’t know how to maintain interest in one thing or one person anymore. We live in a world pulling our attention in a million different directions. The practice of meditation—attending to one thing and then returning our attention to it when we become distracted, over and over and over again—is an essential art. When we are constantly encouraged to attend to the shiny surface of things and to move on when we get a little bored, making our life a meditation upon the person we love is a revolutionary act. And it is absolutely essential if any marriage is to survive and thrive.

As a therapist, I can teach a couple how to communicate in an hour. It’s not complicated. But dealing with the troublemakers who started the fight? Well, that takes a lifetime.

And yet.

It’s a lifetime that forms us into people who are becoming ever more loving versions of ourselves, who can bear the weight of loneliness, who have released the weight of shame, who have traded in walls for bridges, who have embraced the mess of being alive, who risk empathy and forgive disappointments, who love everyone with equal fervor, who give and take and compromise, and who have dedicated themselves to a lifetime of presence and awareness and attentiveness.

And that’s a lifetime worth fighting for.

This post originally appeared on DrKellyFlanagan.com

27 Signs You Should Not Ignore That Will Make Him Be a Good Boyfriend

1. He asks about how your friend Becky is doing after her breakup. Him caring about your friends and asking about them later not only shows that he's a caring person, but he's invested in your life and the people in it.

2. After he met Becky for the first time, he was like, "Do you think that went well?" You don't want to end up with a guy who's like, "I don't care if your friends hate me, they suck anyway." That's just a logistical nightmare and is surely going to end in some severed ties with people you really care about.

3. When you bring up that your boss is being rude to you at work, he doesn't sigh and roll his eyes because you're "complaining again." If he can't sit through a five-minute tirade about a lame work situation, he won't be able to sit down with you when something seriously big goes wrong.

4. He's polite to waiters and cashiers, and doesn't do that awful thing where you yell, "CHECK, PLEASE," across the restaurant. It might have been cool to date the guy who was sweet to you but an asshole to everyone else when you were 13 and bullies were kind of sexy, but that sort of relationship doesn't hold up in adulthood. Don't date a man-bully who could very well turn around and bully you if you piss him off.

5. He doesn't desert you at his friends' parties. It's OK for him to encourage you to be friendly with his friends, but it's not OK for him to have an exclusive conversation with Chad while you sit alone awkwardly on the couch.

6. He always offers to share the last slice of pizza with you and then doesn't say anything when you "accidentally" eat way more than half of it. If the last slice is sacred enough for Drake to rap about it in a love song, ("You could have my heart or we could share it like the last slice") then it must be a real sign of a potentially great romance.

7. He doesn't manspread across your entire schedule and take over your whole world. It might be flattering if the guy you just met wants to spend all his time with you, but if he's really invested in who you are as a person, he'll encourage you to be your own person and hang out with him when you both have time.

8. He's genuinely interested in (or at least good at faking it) your long, rambly stories about family vacations you took as a kid. Instead of getting frustrated and impatient when you talk for 10 minutes about that one weird trip you went on in 2007, he's excited to hear about what happened after that fight you had with your little brother in the backseat of the family van.

9. He doesn't get upset when you say you need some alone time. You would understand if he needed some, and he doesn't want to take over your life anyway.

10. He never says things like, "You're being crazy," or, "You're being ridiculous." Because he's compassionate and empathetic, and realizes saying things like that make you feel little and stupid, and a good boyfriend would never do those things.

11. He makes you feel like a hot babe all the time. You don't want to spend a significant amount of time with a guy who makes you feel insecure or question whether or not he's attracted to you.

12. He has female friends who aren't just a collection of women who've seen his penis before. If other girls (who aren't exes or former flings) like him enough to be his friend, he's probably a good guy that you'll also enjoy spending time with (and kissing a lot).

13. He gets really excited when you hit it off with his best friend Jason, just like he knew you would. He wants his friends to like you.

14. You don't find a million texts and missed calls on your phone from him after spending a night out with your girlfriends. This is a red flag of a potentially obsessive or manipulative guy. NOPE.

15. He doesn't try to act hard and pretend he doesn't have feelings when he's around you. Mature adults shouldn't be afraid to say things like, "I like you," or, "I think you're really cool."

16. He texts after work to see how that meeting with your boss went. It would be annoying AF for him to be texting you every 10 minutes when he knows you're busy all day, but checking in later shows he cares the right amount.

17. He doesn't rush you out the door when you're trying to make sure your lip liner is perfectly applied and not smudged. He might do a little bit of gentle ribbing about how slow you are, but he shouldn't shame you for taking your time and trying to look good. That's rude.

18. When he screws up, he's quick to apologize instead of letting you stew in your anger for a week and a half. Stubbornness is actually an incredibly unattractive quality, and it only makes little fights turn into enormous ones. And a good boyfriend typically tries to avoid enormous fights.

19. And when you screw up, he doesn't hold a grudge forever like a sullen teen named Todd. If he isn't perfect, he can't expect you to be perfect either. He forgives.

20. He has interests and hobbies aside from dating you. You want to date a person, not a prepackaged boyfriend. That gets so boring so fast.

21. When you're hanging out, he talks about things he wants to do with you in the future, even if it's just the near future.

22. He doesn't immediately start acting like your boyfriend after hanging out one time in a friend's backyard. Going from zero to 100 real quick is a good way to end up crashing and burning before the relationship ever gets started. This guy gets to know you. You know, like an adult person.

23. He sends a "Hey, I had a lot of fun" text after hanging out with you. He isn't trying to follow any bullshit dating rules about waiting three days before texting or calling. He just likes you is all.

24. He's clear about his intentions early on, instead of leaving you in "Is he a hookup or a boyfriend?" limbo for forever. If he doesn't know what he wants and doesn't figure it out in a reasonable amount of time, he probably never will.

25. He gets excited about showing you things he likes. Not because he wants you to be his weird female twin, but because this is the best part of having a good girlfriend.

You Should Learn These 27 Things From Your First Genuine Relationship

The first #real relationship you have is both the sweetest, best thing in the world, and the hardest, most soul-crushing thing in the world. Caring for somebody deeply is exciting and crazy in all the right ways, but learning all the lessons about heartbreak the first time 'round feels impossible until you make it through. A recent Ask Reddit thread asked people to reveal all the lessons they learned from those first relationships, and all of them are so, so real.

1. "You can convince yourself anything is fine if you don't think you have any other options." —DFP_

2. "When trust goes the relationship follows after." —44elite444

3. "How incredibly important it is to find someone that is of, or around, the same emotional and mental maturity as you. Also don't ignore red flags. If there is recurring behavior that gives you pause, listen to that feeling." —TacticalTruth

4. "Your partner is your best friend, but shouldn't be your ONLY friend." —Teaquanox

5. "That the both of you can be perfectly good people, but that doesn't always mean you're good for each other. And that's okay." —pistachio muffin

6. "That an end to a once beautiful relationship is something you can recover from." —pandafoxshark

7. "You're far better off finding someone you're compatible with than trying to mold the first person who shows interest into someone you'd actually want to date." —Just_Move_Out

8. "The thought process directly following an orgasm is a surprisingly effective gauge for how much you love a person." —dicklemytick

9. "You can't save someone, they have to save themselves." —StudebakerHotch

10. "People can totally mean something when they're with you, but have different priorities when you're absent." —Accent-man

11. "Long-distance sucks." —p1i1c1h1u

12. "You can, and will, get absolutely furious over shit that don't matter. Talk about your issues, it helps in the long run." —Amirax

13. "Just because you've invested so much time into a person doesn't mean you have to stick with them after you've fallen out of love with them." —-thisperson

14. "There are worse things than being single." —CatRugLZol

15. "Someone can claim to be completely in love with you one day and wake up the next day wanting nothing to do with you. And it's not always your fault." —string

16. "You can't just fix someone's problems for them no matter how much you care and no matter how much it hurts to see them suffer. The best you can do is be supportive." —improvyourfaceoff

17. "Try to be the partner you would want to have." —TheOne-ArmedMan

18. "Broken people will be a good fit for other broken people. But it can hurt like hell." —Cheniarg

19. "It hurts less to have a hard conversation now than to put them off." —revdrcanon

20. "Don't fall too hard too fast. We dated seriously for three years, but got emotionally serious way too fast. The fizzle was hard and fast on my end." —MadeSomewhereElse

21. "I deserve more than I always believed." —Aimless_Precision

22. "Don't put in more than you get back." —royal

23. "Equal ambition is a necessity to success in a relationship." —Kenner

24. "All the love in the world isn't enough." —JapaneseMercedes

25. "You have to be happy together and happy when you're apart." —BurstStream

Over This Thanksgiving Weekend You Could Get More Matches on Tinder Than Ever

Dating apps certainly have their frustrations, and we're all about meeting someone IRL. But if you've been meaning to message those matches piling up in your Tinder inbox, now may be the time: Over Thanksgiving weekend of 2015, the app saw 2.3 million swipes more than usual—and 23 percent more matches.

According to data from Tinder, you may have extra luck if you live in Baltimore, New York, Provo, Chicago, or Boston—all cities that saw the most matches during Thanksgiving last year. The places with the greatest increase in matches were Detroit, Houston, Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Baltimore, so if you don't normally have luck in those places, you may have a little more to be thankful for right now.

If your schedule is packed this weekend, you've still got another few months to take advantage of this surge in dating app usage. Apps tend to see the most activity between Christmas and Valentine's Day, with Match's new memberships increasing by 60 percent.

Whether it's due to the longing for someone to snuggle up with when we're snowed in or the fear of showing up dateless to holiday parties, people are really on the prowl during the holidays. Engagements and conceptions go up in December, and 54 percent of Brits have kissed a colleague at a holiday office party

Clearly, cuffing season is celebrated as much online as it is IRL. Match, Plentyoffish, and OKCupid all see the most traffic during the weekend after New Year's.

So we don't mean to take away from your time with your family, but if you're stuck in your hometown with nothing better to do, a little swiping could go further than usual right now.

When A Person Is much Too Busy for a Relationship

There are some dating clichés that are all too familiar—“it’s not you, it’s me” and “I really like you, but I’m not ready to be in a relationship” immediately come to mind. And now there’s a new one making the rounds: “I’m too busy for a relationship right now.” It has all the makings of a dating cliché, but experts say it might be more than just a flimsy excuse.

“I actually applaud people who recognize that, because otherwise they are just going to frustrate a partner,” says licensed clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula, Ph.D., author of Should I Stay or Should I Go?. Maybe someone is studying for the bar exam and barely has time to take care of themselves, or has a job they know requires all their time and energy right now.

Whatever it is, they’re able to recognize that diving into a relationship just isn’t sensible at this point. “Some people may also have been burned in [the past], where their schedule may have wrecked a relationship and may be more cautious as a result,” Durvasula says.

Jocelyn Charnas, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in private practice in Manhattan, agrees. “There can be some reality to the idea of being too busy to date,” she says. “It often turns out that the time when we’re trying to establish our career and identity is the same time that we’re supposed to be looking for a mate.”

Of course, there’s also the chance that someone is just feeding you a line. “We’re looking at two options: One being that there’s reality to it and they’re not willing or able to invest time in a relationship, or the other being that it’s a kind way to deliver the message that they’re not that into you,” Charnas says. “It’s a clear message either way.”

While it can be tempting to want to wait it out—especially if the two of you seem to hit it off—experts say it’s best to cut bait and move on. “Do not think that you will change their mind,” Durvasula says. “It won’t work, you will get hurt, and you will be disappointed.”

Charnas points out that there’s not much you can do about it either way. “Whether it’s an excuse or reality, the message you should be getting is that this person isn’t the right one for you at this time,” she says. Besides, you know your worth, and you wouldn’t want someone trying to squeeze you into their life regardless.

If you’re really into them and you feel like they’re really into you, too, Durvasula recommends “compartmentalizing” them—meaning, put them on the backburner and go about your life. If their schedule opens up in the future and they pursue you, great. If not, you’re too busy with your own thing to worry about it anyway.

IPRESSTV

Pages

PARENTING

ad