Blog Audit: Expansion 2

Blog Audit: Expansion 2

In this blog, I’m going to go more into detail on the risks and benefits of hooking up. In today’s society, especially in the college world its acceptable for people to hookup. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I have hooked up in the past, and I would like to go into some detail of the effects it had on me and in previous relationships. For starters, some of the benefits of hookups would be having no strings attached. This could be fun and exciting for some people. Some people may even experience the feeling of being wanted and desired, or even feeling sexually gratified. I can personally speak on having it be fun and exciting. Since I was in a five-year relationship in the past, it was something new. It felt like a “new me” in a way. At times, I would feel courageous because it was something I have never done in the past. Another benefit would be that the hookup could help you get over your previous relationship. I can speak on this as a personal example. It was very hard to get over my ex-boyfriend on my own. As soon as I started to put myself out there more, and talk to more people it became easier. Eventually, this led to having sexual relations with another guy, and that really helped me move on. It was part of the “closure” that I needed from my ex-boyfriend. However, in this blog I’m going to focus on the risks of hooking up. Not only is it possible to contract an STD, but it can mentally and emotionally drain you. I have a good personal example to go off of this. My first hookup was with someone who was considered a “fuck boy,” excuse the language. In today’s society, a “fuck boy,” is a guy who gets around and sleeps with and messes with a bunch of women. I knew this going into hooking up with him. His friends, along with my friends, have told me over and over not to get involved with him. I went into it thinking I wouldn’t catch feelings, and that it would help me move on from my ex-boyfriend. Well, it turns out that I fell for him, hard. He said all the right things, and really made me feel wanted. He was fun to hang out with and he was funny. I really started to like him. We both considered ourselves as having a “thing,” together. I even got to meet his family, so I thought it was getting sort of serious. However, one night I walked into his house and he was sleeping with another girl. The next morning he tried texting me like everything was fine and I went off on him. I was devastated. I’m still not sure who I was more mad at; him for hurting me, or me for allowing myself to get hurt. After that, my guard went all the way up. I gave myself a while before I started talking to other guys. When I finally did, I started talking to the previous guy’s friends. I knew this was a bad idea, so my guard was still up. People were telling me how he’s exactly like the last guy, and that he’s a “fuck boy” too. I confronted him about it and he denied it. Again, he said all the right things and then some. We started to hang out more and more. We talked about meeting each other’s families, and talking about goals we had in life. We had meaningful conversations, and at times I really felt like he cared about. One night, we went out together. We both had a few drinks and a little bit later I looked over and he was making out with another girl. I was furious; more towards myself for allowing this to happen AGAIN. We ended up not talking, and ever since then I look at hooking up completely different now. Every time I even think of the word, I think about a broken heart. I get my hopes up, and then the same mistake happens over and over again. This blog is meant to show was emotionally and mentally attached you can get to someone, even if its just a hookup. I should have took into account all the warning signs, and listened to my friends. I should have looked at my previous mistake and not allowed it to happen twice in a row. This is all a learning experience for me, and I’m learning what I want and what I don’t want in a relationship. This HDFS 115 course has also taught me things to look for and what not to look for in relationships. It taught me what a “Healthy Couple Relationship” is, and I’m striving for that someday.

Blog Audit: Expansion 1

Blog Audit: Expansion 1

The first blog that I want to expand on is “Long Distance Relationships and My Experience.” I picked this blog because I felt that I could go a little bit more into detail on my personal experience, along with relating it more to lecture material. As I stated in that blog, my last relationship did not start out being long distant. It wasn’t until we have been dating 4 years, he got deployed overseas. It was extremely hard on both of us. We went from seeing each other every day, to not being able to see each other for an entire year. Our communication styles have changed from talking on the phone and talking in person, to writing letters and occasionally skyping when he had free time (which was rarely ever). This relates to the lecture in that men and women communicate differently. Females discuss their feelings, while men tend to discuss objects and actions. This was true in our relationship which made it sort of frustrating. When we did get time to talk overseas, I would always tell him how much I missed him and loved him. I would express my feelings to deeply and he would say “I love you too,” or short simple responses. However, when I asked what he was doing in Afghanistan, he rambled on about the details he was doing. He never would tell me if he was sad, mad, lonely, happy, etc. It was a guessing game when it came to communicating. This was one of the stressors that we experienced after our relationship became long distant. Another stressor was that we didn’t have the physical and intimate touch that we used to. This could relate to infidelity. Although infidelity is more common among close relationships, it could happen whenever and wherever. Fortunately for us, it didn’t happen. At least not that I know of. However, there were times were a guy would snapchat me or text me, and I could easily flirt back or meet up with him without my partner ever finding out. That goes hand in hand with him. He could have been texting or instant messaging other girls, and I would have never known. He could have also been deployed with other women and started to like them. There was one example that I started to doubt how “loyal” he was to me, however. When he came back to America, he started talking to a girl he deployed with. They both attended UW-River Falls, and I thought nothing of it. One day I went to surprise visit him at school and he wasn’t at his dorm. I called and called and waited an hour outside of this room. Finally, he called back and send he was at the library studying with a friend. I asked who it was and he told me it was the girl he deployed with. Of course I assumed the worse right away and we got in a huge fight. Little did I know, they were actually just friends and she had a boyfriend herself. That was an example of what I thought could have been infidelity, as it can be defined differently among other couples. All in all, the long-distance part did not break us up. Although it was extremely hard to overcome, we did it. When he returned home, we stay together for quit a while. The long-distance part didn’t break us up, it was other things that happened in a geographically close relationship. It was other factors in the relationship that did it, factors that relate hand in hand to lecture material.

Blog Audit: Reflection

Blog Audit: Reflection

After re-reading my blogs, I have noticed that I related most of them to my previous relationship with my long term ex-boyfriend. There were only two blogs that related to a guy I had a thing with. The overall pattern that I saw was relating course material to my previous relationship, and then realizing what could have been done to fix some problems. I really liked how the course gave examples of other people’s life, along with statistics showing that these topics really occur in everyday relationships. I would say that I main thing throughout my blogs was reflecting on the problems I had within my relationships, and learning from the course material what could have been differently if I would have known it. I really could relate to most of the lecture, and that’s what kept me so engaged. Because I was so engaged with the material, it made it easier to write blogs, almost to the point where I actually wanted to do it on my own time and not just as an assignment. I do believe that the nature of my blogs has changed over the semester. When I first started blogging, I felt almost uncomfortable reviling such personal issues to the world (or whoever has access to the blogs). However, more towards the end of the semester, I went more into detail and was more confident in my writing. I felt in a way that it allowed me to vent about my problems on previous relationships, without letting those partners know and without hurting anyone’s feelings. It also allowed me to write things that I haven’t told anyone else before. It felt good to get it out of my system, and understand that it shouldn’t be embarrassing. There are many different issues that arise in relationships, along with many mistakes, and they shouldn’t be ashamed of. You live and you learn, and that’s what the blogs helped me understand. The two blogs that I think I’m going to re-visit would be “the benefits and risks of hooking up,” and “long distance relationships.” I feel that I could expand more on these two topics because a lot of different class topics could relate to these. I could also add in more personal examples/experiences as well. The aspects of weekly blogging that I value the most would be deeply relating my personal life to the course material. This allows me to apply it to my life, and learn from my mistakes, and possibly prevent me from making more. It shows up in my entries because I go into detail about how certain topics made me feel, and/or give the personal examples that related throughout my blogs. I really did find this assignment to be useful. I have never used “Blogger” before, and honestly, I just may continuing writing blogs for my own use and venting sessions.

Healthy Couple Relationship Tips from Elderly

Throughout my Healthy Couple Relationship course, I have learned many things. For the past lecture, I have learned five tips from the elderly on relationships. They include: marrying someone like you, friendship is just as important as romantic love, don’t keep score, talk to each other, and don’t commit it to your partner-commit it to marriage itself. In my own opinion, I feel like they all are essential in a healthy relationship. If I had to pick just one, I would say that marring someone a lot like you is the most important. I say this because when the ‘butterflies,’ and romantic gestures fades out, you are still married to that person. If the couple doesn’t get along, other than in a romantic way, then there really is no relationship. When I get married, I want to marry someone who has the same core values as myself. I would like to have the same goals and understandings in life. Without similarities, there could be tension and fighting in the relationship. This goes into having a friendship with your partner is just as good as having romantic love. I want my husband to be my best friend, someone I can tell all my secrets to. Someone I can have fun with and be completely myself. I would say that talking to each other would be next in line on the importance scale. If there is no communication about problems, then it could lead to boiling up and all the problems come on. It could ruin the entire relationship. As I feel like all five tips are important, I would say those are my top three. In a relationship, if you keep score, you’re already asking for trouble. The partners should just want to see what they can do to satisfy their partner or how they can make them happy. As so committing yourself to marriage and your partner, I feel like that’s important too. Marriage needs to be taken seriously. All in all, the top three tips I want in my future healthy relationship would be marrying someone like me, having a friendship and a romantic love, and talking to each other because communication is key.

Emotional Bank Account- Gottmen's Love Lab

Today, I’m going to discuss an Emotional Bank Account, that is from Gottmen’s Love Lab. Gottmen came up with a “magic ratio” for couples. The ratio is 5:1. This means five positive behaviors to one negative behavior. Positive behaviors could range from hugging, to putting gas in your partner’s car. These positive behaviors show interest, affection, shows the partner you care, and shows concern. Negative behaviors are disappointments in the relationship. A more negative ratio is 0.8:1. This ratio consists of positive to negative behaviors in unstable marriages. In the beginning of my previous relationship we started out with the “magic ratio.” There were a lot of positive behaviors. These consisted of making dinner together, going on double dates, spending time together, sharing secrets, and giving each other compliments. The one negative behavior would be that my partner would workout a lot, and it would ruin some of our plans. However, we worked around it. It was about four years into the relationship and the magic ratio went down to the more negative ratio. There were more negative behaviors than positive ones. We started hanging out less, because he didn’t have time for me. Football, basketball, and working out was his top priorities in life, which left me hanging. As for the positive behaviors, there wasn’t many compliments anymore, the secrets were told to other friends and not each other, and the double dates came to an end. There were multiple problems in the relationship, but I was just trying to show how a relationship can go from the “magic ratio,” to the more negative ratio if the relationship isn’t worked on. A lot goes into a relationship, and in my opinion, communication should have been better focused on.

Differences in Communication with My Personal Examples

Today, I’m going to discuss the differences in WHAT males and females communicate, and not HOW they communication. This topic is going to be related back to my previous relationship. Females discuss their feelings, while males discuss objects and actions. In my previous relationship, I would tell my partner how I felt and the emotions I had throughout the day. My partner would tell me about football, basketball, changing oil, and basically anything that didn’t have to do with feelings. I would try to get what he was feeling out of him one day and it was a complete fail. He wasn’t into talking about feelings, emotions, or deep conversations. Females speak with less force, being indirect and less certain when speaking to men. Whereas men speak forcefully, being more direct and certain when speaking with other men. In my past relationship I would ask my partner ‘I’m going to go to Lacie’s house if that’s okay..?” Although I was telling him what I was doing, it came out to be more of a question. I was not forceful and I was indirect with less certainly in my tone of voice. My partner would be more forceful when talking. For example, he would come over saying “I’m going out tonight with buddies.” He would leave it at that. When he did go out with his friends, he wasn’t talking as certain with them as he would to me. The last difference that I’m going to talk about is that females have higher expressivity, and men have more instrumentality. I would speak in dramatic terms, whereas my partner would take more leadership in the conversations. All in all, there are differences in men and women- especially in what they communicate about in relationships.

Levinger's Barrier Model and My Personal Experience

Today I’m going to discuss breaking up on individual changes and relate it back to my previous relationship. This relates to Levinger’s Barrier Model. On the model, it says: if attraction is high, barriers are high, and alternatives are low, then the couple stays together. If attraction is low, barriers are low, and alternatives are high, then the couple will break up. Let me explain this a little bit more. Attraction are the reasons to stay in a relationship. For example, in my previous relationship the reasons where: I loved his family, and we had fun together. Alternatives are the reasons to leave. In my previous relationship, these would be: he never had time for me, we were sort of mean to each other, and all we did was fight. The barriers are the things that make it hard to leave the relationship. For example, we were together for 5 years, that’s a lot of time we were ‘wasting’ if we were to just break up. During the last year of our relationship, the model changed. The attraction lowered. Now, it changed to me only loving his family because our time together wasn’t all that fun anymore. The alternatives increased to: never having time together, less caring, less trying, mean comments back and forth, and the fighting increased. The barriers became less important. The only thing keeping us together was basically the time and effort we put into the relationship. When we both came to reality, the more we are unhappy together, the more time we are wasting. So in short, the attraction was low, the barriers were low, and the alternatives were high. The Leninger’s Barrier Model was accurate when it came to my previous relationship, as the result was we broke up.

Stages of Dissolution and My Personal Example

Today, I’m going to talk about the stages of dissolution, or the stages of my previous break up. The first stage is the personal phase. This is when one partner grows to be dissatisfied in the relationship. In my pervious relationship, I started to become unsatisfied around 4 years of dating. The second stage I went through is called the dyadic phase. This is when confrontation happens. I told my ex that I was unhappy. We did try to resolve our issues, but they were too far along to be fix. There really wasn’t any way for me to be completely happy with him again. The next stage I hit was the social phase. This is when the partner seeks support from friends or family. For me, I went right to my friends. I would vent about my relationship problems, and soon they became sick of it. I was sick of how many problems our relationship had and how many negative things I had to say about it. The next stage I hit was the grave-dressing phase. This is when mourning decreases, and you ‘get over your loss.’ This stage basically becomes a ‘story’ of the relationship. At this stage I would tell my friends, ‘yeah we used to do that…’ etc. The final stage I went through was the resurrection phase. This is where I re-enters my social life as a single person. This was a major change for me because I just came out of 5 year relationship with my ex. However, I learned how to make myself happy again and I moved forward with my life.

Long Distance Relationship and My Experience

There are 14 million couples involved with long distance relationships. My last relationship did not start out as being long distance, but when my boyfriend got deployed to Afghanistan, it become a long-distance relationship. A long-distance relationship is self-defined for all couples, but in my case, I’m sure most people would agree half way around the world is long distance. The statistics show that 32.5% college students are in long distance relationships’, and I was a part of that statistic. There were a lot of stressors when my ex-boyfriend was deployed. He experienced loneliness, as we didn’t have the physically and intimate touch as we used to. I experience guilt, as I emotionally missed him. There were times that I felt like I “lost” him, like he was no longer on this earth. In a way, I thought the long distance was harder for me. I thought this because everywhere I looked, and the things I did, reminded me of him. I would drive by his house, see his friends and family, listen to music we used to listen to, it was the little things that reminded me of him. He had a completely different view in Afghanistan. I’m sure there wasn’t much that reminded him of me there. Research shows that more infidelity happens in geographically close relationships, and less in long distance. I can completely agree with this. I felt totally committed to him when he was overseas, and I know he wasn’t texting or talking to other girls either. We obviously had a loss in day to day intimacy, for a solid 12 months that he was developed, so that put a stressor on the relationship as well. The first 6 months we wrote letters to each other, and the last 5 months we skyped here and there. It wasn’t as great as in person, but it did the trick. It was a very difficult time, but when he came home we did stay together for a long while afterwards. The long-distance part didn’t break us up, it was other things that happened in a geographically close relationship.

Intimcy Posions: Infidelity and My Personal Example

Previously I made a post on intimacy poisons. I’m going to talk about one more that ruined my relationship. Infidelity is the betrayal of relationship expectations. This can vary from relationship to relationship. It can be something ‘small’ to texting/flirting with someone else, hanging out, or something ‘large’ to intercourse or having relations. Notice how I italicized ‘small’ and ‘larger’ because they could be different things to different couples.

I’m my previous relationship of 5 years, there was infidelity. It was more sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity. Both my previous partner and I have done things that would not agree with our relationship, so we are both at blame. There would be times where my partner wouldn’t have enough time for me or wouldn’t give me enough attention, and I would start messaging other guys. At first as friends, but as the conversation grow, there were flirting texts involved. My partner rebelled on this and did ‘yoga’ in another girl’s single room dorm without telling me. Infidelity happened back and forth in this relationship, and it was unfair to both of us.

There are statistics saying that 66-77% of Americans state that infidelity is always wrong, but 40% men and 25% of women conduct in it anyways. I agree with this statistic because I think it’s absolutely wrong, but I was involved with it anyways. It doesn’t make sense to me, but it happened.

Some of the factors that could lead to infidelity is the quality of the relationship, boredom and lack of emotional support, the love styles, and attachment styles. For our past relationship, I would have to say that boredom and lack of emotional support were the reasons infidelity happened. I would say in a way my partner was bored of me, and I would say he didn’t give me enough attention and emotional support. The quality of the relationship also plays a huge role because of the revenge affair, which my ex was involved with (yoga).

I think the type of infidelity that we both were involved with would be “philandering.” This could be anything from causal meet ups, being active on Tinder, or a sex addiction. For our relationship, I think it was causal meetups, or causal texting. When it was all said and done, we broke the relationship up because again, it wasn’t fair to be giving other people more attention that we were giving our relationship. Infidelity is another intimacy poison that ruined my relationship.

Intimacy Posions: Addictions and My Personal Experience

Intimacy poisons have a huge impact on relationships. They can destroy trust and with it, hope. They can create secrets and they can lock couples into short term strain reduction rather than long term growth. The intimacy poison that I’m going to focus on is addiction; the addiction to alcohol.

I met a guy about 5 months ago, in a bar (which should tell you something right away), and we started talking. We had fun times when he was sober and we shared secrets. However, he would constantly put ‘going out,’ and drinking before our quality time together. We would make plans to see each other over the weekend, but when the weekend came he insisted that he wanted to go to the bar with the guys instead. So usually, our weekends consisted of hanging out at the bar together/see each other from a distance. It was not a good relationship at all. I would consider him to have alcohol dependence, which means that he needs an extreme amount of alcohol to get the drunk feeling.

He would tell me that his drinking issues give him problems with his family; as his parents lecture him about it being unhealthy, and a complete waste of money. Unfortunately, drinking was a daily routine for this guy, and nothing I said would change it. He would sometimes tell me, “I’m so unhappy in my life, I don’t know what to do so all I do is drink. I know I drink too much but I can’t help it.” The drinking became too much for him one night, as he went to bed with another girl. He was passed out in bed with her when I found them. Neither of them knew I seen them, and the next morning he pretended he didn’t do anything wrong. This is where the secrets came into play. It completely destroyed trust, and the relationship went to potentially long term, to short term just like that.

In a way, we were doing an “intoxication dance.” I would over function and try to fix the relationship, and he would under function and be irresponsible with the choices he made. That is how an intimacy poison ruined my ‘relationship.’

How to Solve Solveable Problems: Previous Experience

What I wish I knew 5 years ago: how to solve solvable problems in my relationships. There are problems in relationships that can be fixed, it just takes time and knowledge of them. To begin, you should soften your start up. This means that if you must bring up a problem, bring it up gently and calmly- do not use criticism, and instead complain about the issue. Instead of saying “you need to come home right after work because its so annoying that you’re never home,” you could say “do you think it would be possible if you could come home after work most days? I really miss spending time with you.” Instead of using “you-statements,” and finger pointing, you could use “I-statements.” This has happened multiple times to me in my previous relationship. Our fights would have harsh startups and it always seemed to end badly. We needed to be clear, polite, and appreciative, but we were everything but that. Next, you should have repair attempts. This could be a statement that deescalates the tension. This could either fix or make the fight worse, so you really have to acknowledge the start up. And finally, you have to sooth yourself and each other. This was another big problem my previous partner and I had. We needed to take a break after the fight, and each do our own thing, and then come back to each other almost feeling “refreshed.” Sometimes you just need time to think it over. These are some of the ways I learned to solve solvable problems in a relationship.

Four Horsemen and How They Played a Role in My Previous Relationship

In my previous relationship, all four of the “horsemen” played a role. The four horsemen include: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling. These are poor communication tactics, and can harm the relationship. Criticism is blaming, attacking the person’s character, and insulting them. This happened in my previous relationship when I showed up to my ex-boyfriend’s family event 5 minutes late. He verbally attacked me saying “you were supposed to be here 5 minutes ago. You could have even been early, but I know that will never happen because all you do is care about yourself. You’re too self-centered.” This caused me to be defensive. The next horsemen is defensiveness, which is defending yourself from criticism by making excuses, launching a counterattack, acting like an innocent victim, or whining. I confronted my ex-boyfriend about an issue we were having, like he was texting another girl, and he counterattacked me saying that boys will ‘snapchat’ me all the time, and basically shifting the blame on me. The next horsemen is contempt which is, mockery, sarcasm, eye rolling, facial expressions, and the intent to make someone feel stupid or foolish. This is the best predictor or divorce, and in my previous relationship, this was the most common horseman- which could have been why we broke up. I would say something to my ex and he would say something like “are you retarded? Why would you even ask something so stupid?” Another example, is if he heard something that he doesn’t want to hear he would either mock me or just sit there and roll his eyes. The last horsemen is stonewalling, actively engaging from a conversation. This has happened multiple times in my past relationship. I would bring up a topic and my ex would just watch tv or play on his phone and pretend like he wasn’t listening. It would drive me absolutely nuts! These are some examples of the Four Horsemen, that have occurred in my life. These are poor communication tactics, and in the future, I will know how to fix them and work through these issues.

Benefits/Risks of Dating and Hooking-Up: Personal Examples

In today’s society, it’s acceptable for people to “hookup.” In my life, I have both been in relationships and have also hooked up. Speaking from experience, I’m going to go over the benefits and risks of both.

For dating, the benefits could be having someone to confide in, and feeling liked and love. In my personal opinion, it’s about having that “best friend.” With relationships, you also basically get another family. The risks of being in a relationship are getting hurting, having a broken heart, losing a friendship, and being rejected. The biggest risk for me would be getting hurt. In the past, I have been cheated on and lied to several times. Today, I feel scared to be in another relationship because of that. Another risk I would add is fighting. Fighting within relationships can lead to stress and anger.

Let’s move on the hooking up. Some benefits from hookups would be having no strings attached, it’s could be fun and exciting, that feeling of being wanted and desired, and feeling sexually gratified. I can personally speak on having it be fun and exciting. It’s something new, especially if you’re just getting out of a new relationship. A personal benefit I would add is having that person help you get over your previous relationship. Maybe all you needed was “closure” from the past, and the hookup potentially helped you. There are risks to hooking up however. The number one risk would be contracting an STI. For females, the biggest risk they think is wanting a relationship but the other person doesn’t. And basically the opposite, for men, it’s the other person that wants a relationship and not them. Personally, the biggest risk is getting a sexually transmitted disease, and possibly getting feelings for that person.

Those are just a couple benefits and risks in both being in a relationship and hooking up.

How Media/Sterotypes Can Negativly Affect Relationships and How It Relates to My Life

In today’s society, a lot of what we learn comes from the media, TV shows, and movies, and songs. I’m going to relate how women are portrayed/stereotyped in society and how it relates to my life. I’m going to relate it to Disney movies first. In Disney movies, the princesses are all physically attractive. The princesses are tall, unrealistically thin, long hair, and they don’t have flaws. They are always social, nice, caring, a good house wife, and they don’t work. They basically work for the husband. Also in Disney movies, the men are always muscular, tall, dark, and handsome. They are brave and courageous. The men or “Prince Charming,” always seems to save the day. Let’s do a reality check. Women are not perfect, and they are not made to just clean and cook and cater to the men. Women should not be unrealistically portrayed and neither should men. Men are not always strong, or brave, or save the day. In my life, I don’t need prince charming to make me happy. I cook and clean, but for myself. I’m not 90 pounds, I’m 140 which for my height and age, is a healthy weight. I have flaws, as does everyone else. I feel like stereotypes like these, influence relationships and allow us to have expectations and desires when looking for a relationship. Another example is how the media portrays both men and women. For example, there’s a Burger King ad that says “It’ll Blow…. Your Mind,” which a woman with her mouth open wide trying to fit the burger in. This allows men to look at women sexually, as objects. This could potentially give men/women the wrong idea and go into relationships negatively. This not only relates to my life, but everyone’s life as some point or another. If we have all these stereotypes, and unrealistic morals, we’re steering people negatively in the relationship world and giving them impractical expectations.

History of Dating and How it Relates to My Life

There are three different timeframes of dating and marriage. The first is called Political and Economic Relationships from ancient world to 1650 AD. The second timeframe is called Transitioning to Love-based Coupling from 1650-1900 AD. And finally, the last time frame of dating and marriage is called Love-base Coupling from 1900 to present day.
Being that I was born in 1995, all of my relationships have be in the "Love-based Coupling" time frame. During the 20th century, dating was called "going steady" and couples would go "parking" and park their car somewhere hidden and experiment sexually. For dating, it usually required the young man to take the woman outside of the house and pay for the date. I have personally been on dates where the man has paid for my meal or for a movie.
Several of my classmates have had babies outside of marriage- which seems to be the norm in this time frame of dating. There are also co-ed high schools and colleges. I have never attended a school with all women, and personally, I think that would be horrible. Too many hormones! I do think, at the current college I'm at, that there are equal numbers of women and men.
And finally, in this time frame, there is the impact of technology. Technology gives us instant gratification from instant messages. In my past relationships, I know we relied on our cellphones for communication when seeing each other was not an option. Technology also gives people access to web based dating services- such as tinder, bumble, and chat rooms. I have personal met a few people off of Tinder, although it did not end well, it still gave me access to people that I may have never met before.
That was a quick summary of the time frame of dating and marriage that I am currently in.

Adult Attachment Styles and How It Relates to My Relationships

Attachment style is the way a person relates to others in an intimate relationship. But what exactly is attachment? Attachment is special emotional relationship that involves an exchange of comfort, care, and pleasure which is established in childhood (HDFS 115 Lecture 2). I have recently taken a quiz on my personal attachment style and I would like to share my results. My attachment anxiety score was 4.83 (on a scale of 1 low anxiety to 7 high), and my avoidance score was 1.78 (ranging from 1 low avoidance to 7 high avoidance). If someone scores high in attachment anxiety, they will often experience fear of rejection. If someone scores high in attachment avoidance, they are less comfortable opening up in their relationship. My taking this quiz (the linking is posted below), I learned that my attachment style is “(insecure) anxious/preoccupied.”

For those of you who don’t know, there are four different types of adult attachment theories within relationships. The first one is secure, which is being emotionally close and opening up to the partner. The next attachment theory is anxious/preoccupied, which I will explain in the next paragraph. The third theory is dismissive/avoidant, which could be someone who is comfortable without close relationships. And finally, the last attachment theory is called fearful/avoidant, which is having mixed feelings about close relationships.

Again, the attachment theory that best describes me (according to the quiz, which I agree with) is anxious/preoccupied. In this attachment I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, however I find others not as eager to get intimate. For example, I was seeing this guy for a long time and I wanted to have a committed “dating” relationship with him but he did not want a girlfriend. In this attachment, I can be overly dependent of others. My last boyfriend of 5 years would also be busy with playing sports, and I would just sit around waiting for him to have time for me to make me happy. I realize after we broke up that I had no idea how to make myself happy, I would always rely on him. And finally, I found myself as being “clingy,” as this attachment style explains.

http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl

Filter Theory of Attraction

Filter Theory of Attraction really stood out to me because it happens in my everyday life. Filter Theory of Attraction is the process an individual/couple can go through to meet all of their potential dating partners; or basically how person A ends up with person B. The first 'filter' is called proximity. Proximity says that the person has to be close to you in time and space. Well, this theory has changed a little bit because nowadays we have social media and we're connecting with more and more people all over the world. For example, in my life I have used "Tinder," which shows people near you. However, if I were to travel, it would still show people near me, but I could potentially meet someone hundreds of miles away from where I originally live. The next filter is attractiveness- something about this person is attractive to you. This could mean looks, money, etc. In my life, I have been attracted to someone because of their looks, and also because of the way they dress (their style). The next filter is called similarities. In my life, I have met people that have complete opposite goals in life than mine and the relationship did not work. For example, my ex-boyfriend was obsessed with working out and football, whereas I was obsessed with our relationship and school. My ex-boyfriend rarely had time for me, and when he did he would always want to work out together. We were not similar at all and it caused the relationship to crumble. The next filter is complementary, which is personal characteristics. In my experience, I have met someone very shy (and I was shy too), so the conversation didn't last long because neither of us knew what to talk about. Whereas, in a different relationship I had, one of us was talkative and the other was shyer. I believe that together we made a good team, and that it was just the right amount of difference. Finally, the last filter that relationships go through is commitment readiness. In my past 'relationship,' I was the one ready for a relationship and my partner was not. He did not want to have a relationship with me, not now and possibly not in the future either, but he was stilling wanting to hang out and have a "thing." I ended it there because I didn't want to waste any time if the relationship wasn't going anywhere. All relationships are different, but I firmly believe that in most relationships, we all go through at least one of these filters to find our "soul mate."