There is nothing young adults should value more than self-respect.
After taking a moment to think about that, consider how many times in your life you’ve disrespected yourself because you wanted to please someone else or because you wanted to hang on to something you deemed valuable.
We do things like this all the time, but we never realize it until it’s too late. Standards, morals and personal values are set aside so we can pursue something we think will make us happy.
There is no doubt that you have your own list of personal standards when it comes to relationships. You will always have an ideal partner in mind. Meanwhile, you find yourself in relationships with people that are less than perfect, but in the early days of the relationship you find yourself justifying everything that you don’t like about someone, and suddenly you deem all of the imperfections acceptable.
I’m not saying that you should stay single until you find the person that lives up to your dream. If you wait for the perfect person, you may obtain your dream partner and realize that he or she is more of a nightmare. Dating the imperfect is the only way to find out what will truly be perfect for you.
Even though you have standards that you promise yourself you won’t relax on, you let them go in times of desperation, quietly thinking that if your new partner really cares about you, they’ll change. Unfortunately, you’ve made your first big mistake. You should never enter a relationship hoping to change someone. Some people will just never change.
If you’re respecting your partner, you deserve to get respect in return, but that can never happen when you lose respect for yourself.
Never lose your standards in fear of turning someone amazing away; remember that someone amazing will be someone who can live up to those standards.
Michael Robert is a sophomore studying mathematics. Send your relationship comments and questions to [email protected].