Are you in it for the right reasons?
People sometimes wander around with the underlying problems of seeking validation rather than true love. They need to know if that potential someone thinks they are worthwhile or special enough, to feel the same about themselves.
But can you blame them?
Iso Winlund, 22, is currently doing a masters degree in Marketing at BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo. She tells me that during her 4 years at University she has dated a fair share of men who “all shared the great quality of being good listeners but most of them were absolutely dreadful at validating.”
She goes on to say that everytime she would share anything exciting or sometimes difficult with them, they would all just sit there with a “anything else?” type of blank stare.
“It honestly got to a point where I started to feel lost and I was eagerly trying to accommodate them without ever communicating my own needs, views or interests.
Iso Winlund, 22, says her perception of dating has now changed.
“After some time, I realised that I was just wasting my time trying to make someone like a ‘fake’ version of me rather than the real me.
“It was an act I knew I couldn’t keep up with and I had to get out of there before I would end up turning into the person I was pretending to be.”
Iso goes on to say she only needed validation.
“I wanted to know that they recognised me, understood and shared my joy.”
Seeking validation is not unheard of, it is frankly quite prevalent in the dating world.
Your new dating aspect is obsessed with girls wearing leggings, so you find yourself spending your rent money on every pair you come across on the internet, for then to sell them on Vinted once you have moved on to the next tinder match.
Or perhaps the next potential “the one” is a music fanatic, whose music taste you secretly despise but will still pretend to joyfully jiggle to.
Maybe you will find yourself watching football and researching all the rules in football: offside, freekick, throw-ins – you name it. You will have memorised his entire beloved team’s names and numbers before even realising it.
Brian Howie has been named “America’s Number 1 Dating Enthusiast” by The Times Magazine due to being one of the most prominent influencers in the dating world by continuously pushing the conversation about dating further. He has achieved this by having a podcast and a tour called “The Great Love Debate”.
When I spoke to him earlier this year regarding his career in dating, we touched on the topic of validation in terms of relationships and dating.
He says that one of the occurring problems with some people looking to date is their “overwhelming need to seek validation rather than love”.
“I think that people who are seeking validation from another person or from a relationship aren’t focused on what matters in the relationship, or in the other person.
“Do we all need it? Of course, but the validation needs to be in the success of the relationship and the happiness it brings.
“Not in the need to be needed.”
That being said, Howie explains how vital validation is to maintain a good and healthy relationship as it is “just as important as good communication and honesty, as long as it is given in a healthy way.”
“Once it is missing, it can cause low self esteem and insecurity in the person, to the point where the person feels like being themselves is not ‘good enough’.”
Intimacy with your partner affirms them by making them feel loved and wanted. If this were to abruptly end, they would get the sense of not being wanted, and they might seek that particular validation elsewhere.
To validate someone is to make them feel confident in themselves, to make them feel understood and heard. Telling your partner they are attractive or handsome validates them.
It’s not to make them feel obliged to replay the blisteringly rapid verse from Eminem’s “Rap God” until they’ve nailed the fastest verse, clocking in at 9.6 syllables per second.