Serial dating is usually a clue something is out of balance, because it leaves no time for us to date ourselves.
Welcome to another conversation based on my book, For the Love of My Father. And if you haven’t been here before, you should know that all of the discussions, at least at this moment, are based on this book. And the subtitle to the book is, A Spiritual Guide for Women Healing from the Absence of a Father in the Age of Spiritual Evolution.
The book, For the Love of My Father, is available on Amazon. And a lot of the things that are in the book, quotes from the book, are posted weekly on my Facebook page, Author Olivia S. Benson, my Instagram, Olivia S. Benson, and on my Twitter account, which is also Olivia S. Benson.
So what I do is that on a basically daily basis, almost every single day, I post a quote from the book with some discussion relating that particular topic. And some of them, and all of them, have comments or hearts or whatever the case might be, but there’s some of them that seem to get more attention. And one of the ones that I thought was interesting in terms of the attention was a particular quote, which comes from the book, For the Love of My Father, which is available on Amazon.
Serial Dating Is Usually a Clue That Something Is Out of Balance
And by the way, we’re talking about the second edition. And it specifically says that serial dating is usually a clue that something is out of balance, because it indicates that we don’t leave any time for us to date ourselves. And if we don’t want to date ourselves, why would anybody else? And by the way, it’s on page 109 of the book, For the Love of My Father.
So it’s an interesting thing, because I think at this particular point, most of us, just as a matter of life experience, know that if someone is a serial dater, meaning you can’t be by yourself, it’s an indication of something. There are no absolutes with anything. There could be a million different reasons — when it comes to humans, there are a million different reasons why certain things happen. But generally speaking, you can say that if somebody is the kind of person that dates continuously without breaks in between, it might be an indication that perhaps they don’t really enjoy being with themselves. I don’t want to say by themselves, I would say being with themselves.
Addressing Daddy Issues Is the Core of Everything
So obviously, with this book, we are dealing with addressing daddy issues. That’s the core of everything. And the idea is that based on my life experience growing up without my father and having various challenges in my relationship with my father, what eventually happened was that I realized that that was such a significant issue, that I needed to address it in order to come into what I would call wholeness, that sense of being complete, and in order to heal whatever damages or underlying issues I had as a result of the lack of that relationship, or to whatever extent the relationship that existed.
So coming through and discussing my processes, my stories, and my healing, as I’ve described it in the book, one of the things that I realized is that many of us, particularly women — I cannot speak with regards to men because I am a woman. And so coming from my perspective, many women who’ve had this issue with daddy and an absent daddy or a bad relationship with daddy, many of us oftentimes struggle with developing good relationships with men.
And I can’t speak for anyone else, because for each of us there’s some general principles that apply, but every person is so individual that we really have to figure our own selves out and figure what really works for us. And everything can be adapted. The things that I did in the book and the things that helped me are a general outline, and then you can work on yourself.
Something that might work for me because of my personality or my experience maybe doesn’t work for you in that particular way. It can work in another way. There are a million and one different ways of addressing things. And so you can realize that, yes, I have this issue, and yes, it needs to be addressed, but I may need to work on myself in a particular kind of way.
You’ve Done the Work, Now You’re Getting Ready to Love Another
So one of the things that you realize in terms of healing yourself and being prepared to enter a relationship — the chapter that this statement comes out of is titled Getting Ready to Love Another. And that came in my writing from, okay, now you’ve seen what your issues were. You’ve dealt with forgiveness. You’ve dealt with a number of different things, and you are at the door of really, if you haven’t found that person already or are having issues finding that person, now you’re ready to really focus in on what it takes to be in a healthy relationship with a man.
And I focus on man because I’m talking about based on my experience and the fact that generally speaking, people who have issues with their fathers have transference. They transfer their relationship, generally speaking, from what their experience might’ve been with daddy. And they tend to transfer it, in quotations, to all men. And therefore that’s why I’m very specific about what I’m talking about.
So you’re ready. You’ve done the work. You’ve read the books. You’ve forgiven everybody, forgiven your daddy. You worked on everything. And now specifically, we’re focusing in on getting ready to love another.
Take Yourself Out for Dinner
And so this particular quote comes from page 109. And we’re talking about in the book at that time, things that you need to look at in terms of your readiness for a relationship. And for me, one of them is, if you’re not prepared to be by yourself, and if you cannot have fun by yourself — I mean, enjoy the idea of just being with you. Whether it’s cooking, whether it’s reading, whether it’s doing things around the house, whether it’s walking in the park, even the most simplest thing. If you’re not able to do that, it’s something that you really have to consider.
I can tell you that in my life, at certain times, I have had months and years that I was not in a relationship. It was just not the time. I had so many things that I needed to work on. And to actually have another person in my life at that moment just did not make any sense.
And sometimes we respond to sort of external information and external demands, in the sense that if you’re not dating someone, people will be like, why aren’t you dating? Why don’t you have somebody? Why don’t you have a boyfriend? Why haven’t you gotten married, or whatever the case might be. Many times people put that on you. But I know from experience in my life, that you must have time to just date yourself, take yourself out for dinner.
And I started doing that fairly early on, being able to go into a restaurant and sit down by yourself and enjoy a meal by yourself. That is important. And it gives you a certain sense of fulfillment to know that you’re not required to have a whole other human being around you at all times. And not only that, but as I say in the book, the other person that’s going to come into your life can’t fulfill every possible need and can’t be there for you at all times. So you have to feel whole and complete in and of yourself. So this quote about serial dating and what it indicates, it’s something for us to look at.
I Was Absolutely Enchanted
I used to have a friend of mine, and on certain Fridays, she would say, Oh, I can’t believe you’re going to be in the house by yourself. And I would be enchanted with the idea that I was going to have my house, my home to myself and have all that space and have places to move around to or sleep in a different room, whatever the case might be. I was absolutely enchanted.
My friend thought that it was very sad that I would be in the home or in my house by myself. I thought that it was fun. And I thought that it was interesting to have space to myself.
And this idea of being happy with yourself by yourself is one that can even help to attract a certain kind of energy. Because if you’re in the energy of being content, happy, enjoy, that is going to attract a certain feeling and a certain kind of person. If you’re in the energy of desperation and must have and need, that’s a vibrational frequency, that’s an energy. And that’s sort of like what you attract.
One Is a Whole Number
We can never judge people from the outside. And it’s a very important thing. Because again, from the external, many times we look at people and we say, Oh, you’re not with anybody, you’re not dating anybody, you’re not married. First of all, everybody is not here to get married. Some people have come here to do something very specific. And they have their work and they’re doing that.
And it’s not anybody’s business, which is another point, by the way — I never understand how people have time to get into other people’s business, because we have so much personal work to do. It’s none of your business whether somebody is dating or not. It’s none of your business whether somebody is married or not. We have so much individual work to do, that we should consider just focusing in on us. And if we do that individually — of course, if somebody needs help or something along those lines, that’s a separate subject.
But to look externally and say to somebody, Oh, you’re not dating anybody? Or is there something wrong with you? To even think that is a very limited perspective. Because I’ve heard this said many times before, one is a whole number. One is a whole number.
So your sense of completeness is the very thing that will attract someone who might be just the right person for you. If you feel within yourself, whether people know it or not, but you just feel it, and you carry that vibrational frequency of deficiency, of not enough, of something missing, that’s what you walk around in the world with. And that’s exactly what you will attract.
So from my life experience, it was necessary for me, and I’m very grateful that I had that opportunity to just have years at a time of just clearing my mind, developing myself, having time for prayer and meditation, having time to just do whatever I want to do without having to consider another person. These are things that will help you in getting ready to love another.
Telling the Truth About Ourselves
There is a joke that I talk about in the book with regards to telling the truth about ourselves. I hope you get a chance to read the book and what it would be like if everyone, a male and a female, get together and actually tell each other the truth about what their issues are. But in order to be able to discuss what your issues are, you really have to spend time by yourself to get to know them, to feel comfortable with them, and then comfortable enough that you would be willing to share the issue with the person who shows up for you.
So again, the quote is from For the Love of My Father, which is available on Amazon. This particular quote is on page 109, and it says, Serial dating is usually a clue something is out of balance because it leaves no time for us to date ourselves. So if we don’t want to date ourselves, why would anyone else? And this is something to consider.
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