This is advice on ways of ending up in a relationship that's more likely to last, and reducing the risk of being hurt in a new relationship:
Go to a story about how someone turned out to be the opposite of the way he seemed at first.
One thing you can do that can end up with you getting hurt is getting emotionally or physically intimate with a partner without making a long-term commitment to each other. Sex can cause some people to feel very emotionally attached to their partner. So getting physically or emotionally close just for fun or for the pleasure of the here-and-now can mean that when the relationship breaks up, either because you didn't know each other well enough to know it wouldn't last before you started having sex and then you found out you didn't get on well enough to stay with each other long-term, or because one partner never intended it to last anyway because they feel they're not ready for "serious commitment", and the other one didn't realise, it can deeply hurt one or both partners.
So it's best to do other things on dates instead.
To see more on this issue, read:
Too much pressure is put on people when they’re dating because they can feel they must perform at their best, because it's all about romantic attraction. You just don't feel that pressure when you see the person as a friend. If a person does see the other person as a friend rather than as a romantic partner, you'll feel free to be yourselves and do activities together, without spending three hours beforehand making sure and worrying over whether you look perfect.
If a romantic attraction develops after a friendship, you'll move into it in a more relaxed way, and it's likely to be more healthy, because you'll be more sure you're compatible. So it'll be better if you try to build friendships first, finding out about each other's interests and going to places where you can develop shared interests and hobbies, rather than going on dates such as going to see films, where you won't be finding out about each other, and there'll be pressure on you to get romantic before you really know if you're suitable for each other, because you'll be thought of by everyone as a romantic couple. Relationships that aren't built on shared interests will fall apart when the romantic feelings fade away, so it's better to go out to places where you can develop your similarities to each other than it is to go to places where you won't find out that much about each other and will be feeling under pressure to be on your best behaviour, like to films or fancy restaurants, where you either won't have much of a chance to talk to each other, or you won't be behaving as you normally would.
Another good reason for focusing on building a friendship together and finding out as much as you can about the likes and dislikes of each other and developing shared hobbies and interests together, instead of focusing on how physically attracted you are to each other and getting physically intimate with each other, is that you can mistake physical intimacy for love, because it feels good. So after that, if you're trying to work out how much the relationship's really got going for it and whether it's likely to last, it can be very difficult to weigh up the pros and cons of it, because you'll be so focused on how much you have enjoyed the physical aspects. So you might not pay enough attention to danger signs, like being incompatible or wanting different things from the relationship, until you've made a commitment to each other, thinking you were well-suited to each other because you were physically right for each other. So that can mean problems later on, especially if it means the distress of a divorce, if you realise you have big differences that you don't know how you can resolve, or you're making each other miserable because your personalities aren't that compatible.
If you can go to places where there will be quite a lot of opportunities for you to talk and find out about each other while you're getting to know each other, and if you focus on getting to know each other's personalities rather than getting physical, you can avoid some possible difficulties later.
When you start off by getting physical on dates rather than by building up friendships, it can be as if a person's main value is seen in terms of how good you look and how well you can perform as a date, rather than what you're like as a friend. Even before anything physical is done, that can be the underlying attitude where dates are all about romance.
Another problem can be that people dating can be so wrapped up in each other that they isolate themselves from other people. So other friendships can break down because they're not being kept alive, and the couple can become less close to their families. And one thing that can make that bad is that when you want to make decisions, you'll just turn to each other, instead of asking the opinions of a variety of people, as you're more likely to do if you're seeing more people you're fairly close to. So since you're not getting such a variety of opinion, you can make worse decisions, because you don't hear so many different perspectives on things, so there's more likely to be things you forget to consider. This could be serious when you're talking about marriage or children or moving in together, or making an equally big decision.
If you split up after having isolated yourselves from others, the friendships you had before might take a while to build up again, because the friends have got used to you not being around, and don't feel they know you as well as they did and have got involved in other things.
Another problem can be that dating can distract you from developing skills and creating opportunities that can help you in the future, so you damage your chances of getting on in life, furthering your education, making new contacts that can help you find jobs or get involved in new hobbies, and developing the skills further that you already have. You can spend so much time and energy thinking and talking about your relationship and being wrapped up in each other that you can become less interested in things that could really further your interesting experiences and life chances.
And when you have experienced a bit of physical intimacy, you'll tend to have a craving for more, so you'll keep being attracted to these kinds of relationships or focusing your energies on trying to get them instead of using your time to further your talents. You can practice being a good boyfriend or girlfriend during dating, but missing out on things outside the relationship might mean you become a less accomplished husband or wife.
Dating is an artificial environment where you're often on your best behaviour, trying to put forward the charming image you want the other person to see, which might be different from who you really are, so dating can be misleading; it isn't a good way of finding out what another person's really like, which you will need to do if you want to take the relationship further with much chance of long-term success. Dating can be fun, but it's like an escape from real life, which is good if you're in a long-term relationship and need to get away from stressful circumstances for a while, but it's not a good way to get to know someone in the first place. If you're trying to get to know someone at first, you should make sure you see your boyfriend or girlfriend's negative as well as positive qualities, by observing them interacting with their friends and family, and seeing them working on things. You need to find out how they behave when things aren't going their way, and how they behave when someone provokes them, and when they're arguing. you need to know answers to that kind of thing, because the way they behave with others will be the way they end up behaving with you, so you need to spend quite a lot of time with girlfriends or boyfriends in everyday settings.
Becoming too committed to some people too early can cause a lot of misery in the long term. One reason is that some people aren't what they seem on the surface. They can hide that for a while; but you might find out what they're really like when you've become too committed to them to just dump the relationship. Then you can be made miserable. Here's a story that gives an example of someone who wasn't what he seemed:
There's a man on an Internet forum I know who can at first come across as intelligent and caring, but who you realise in time can be very uncaring, about some of the very things he pretended to be caring about at first. And he isn't in reality that intelligent. It's not nice to realise you were deceived, but he's a lesson in proof that people have got to be careful. I'll tell you a bit about him:
He could give the impression that he was caring and sensitive and intelligent, by talking in a well-spoken way about how people should be treated with a loving attitude. He was far from treating people with a loving attitude himself! To make it easy to refer to him, I'll call him Mr Creepy. Read on and you'll discover why.
To give an example of how he could come across as caring and thoughtful, which could completely mislead someone about his true nature, in a conversation about paedophiles once, he said:
(All his spelling mistakes remain uncorrected)
People are repulsed by the idea of peadaphillia, much as they are by any sex crimes but especially paedaphillia, this repulsion causes rejection and villification - this in turn causes ostrasision (s/p?) of the perpetrator. The perpetrator then becomes twisted and only finds release in the act of paedaphillia - a nasty conundrum. These perpetrators are victims themselves and require healing with love and forgiveness but this is virtually impossible to find in a society set on hating these peoples sickness, your point is valid - paedaphiles require help to heal, healing requires forgiveness of self followed by self love - prevention is better than cure, I would forgive a paedaphile who has addressed the illness, paedaphiles require help to address the issue - alone they are lost and affraid of their actions - this is a disaster. Seek help from proffessionals in the field of psychology which addresses this issue Blupping - you must or hell on earth shall be your reward, I forgive your thoughts but you must address the issue. I think paedaphillia is an addiction to the trust, innocence and non-judgemental nature of children mixed with the confusion of sexual desire, it is the sexual desire aspect which needs attention. Good luck.
This seemed caring, but in hindsight, I wonder if anyone who thought it was was assuming too much, and really, he had a more sinister reason for speaking up in the interests of paedophiles; or maybe he just had a wish to make a friend and look good. A wish to make a friend and look good would fit in with other posts he made where he said one thing, and it was all very noble and honourable, but he said the complete opposite as soon as he realised he wasn't actually in the person's good books. But who knows.
It's interesting how motives can sometimes be very different from the way they seem at first. On another forum, there's a man who starts a thread every month with a list of snippets of things that people on that forum and other ones who believe in conspiracy theories have said, talking about how stupid they are. Then people vote on which one they think is the most stupid. Not a very nice thing to do. But it's very popular among a lot of people on the board. 
This same man started other threads about how upset he was that he couldn't get a girlfriend, saying he'd asked lots of girls out, but he was always rejected. He mentioned that he does charity work, volunteering at a shelter for homeless people, or somewhere like that, every week. One woman on the board said she'd just love a man who did charity work, and couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't.
At first, it might seem strange that the same person could do something that seemed as caring as doing voluntary work every week helping people, while at the same time starting this uncharitable thread every month ridiculing people as idiots. But actually, it's possible it could make perfect sense, when you take one thing into account. I'm not saying this man was like this, but the very same thing that motivated someone to do charity work could in fact motivate them to publicly put people down as idiots. some people might do charity work not really because they care, but because they feel inferior, and it makes them feel good, particularly if it makes them feel superior to the ones they're helping, because they're the one with the power to help, and the person needing help obviously isn't doing so well in life.
It's quite possible that the need to feel superior to others to compensate for an inferiority complex could be what could motivate a person to do both charity work, and start a thread every month ridiculing named people as idiots. They could have exactly the same motive!
Again, I'm not saying that was the case here. But it would make sense of the conundrum. Another motive that would make sense of it could be the wish to look good. Both his charity work and his ridicule of conspiracy theorists would get him a significant amount of admiration from those who thought he was doing a good thing. Again, that might not have been his motive either. His real motive is unknown.
Someone who was a member of both forums found the thread ridiculing conspiracy theorists, and though she wasn't one, she protested. It looked like downright bullying to her, so she said so. Her protest started an argument that got quite heated.
She told people on the forum where Mr Creepy was a member what she'd done, and Mr Creepy was full of praise for her! He said people like her, who stood up for what was right and defended the "weak" - (she wasn't sure that was a good description of them) - enriched his life! He said it was good that there were people like her in the world who would protest wrongdoing. Oh, the praise he lavished on her actions!
Later, he expressed a completely opposite opinion! ...
He started a thread asking whether the Bali bombers should be executed. He told one person who replied to him that he thought their punishment should be "jail with education and love". Someone else said he thought they should be given hard labour. And Mr Creepy agreed. Well, wouldn't that make them feel loved! 
But some of the things he said sounded genuinely caring and insightful, such as:
... consider the perpetrators, they believe in God and the afterlife, they believe they will be rewarded in the afterlife, they become martyrs or hero's to their cause and so their religion - we are servicing their desires and it becomes an eye for an eye scenario - this is unsustainable.Better to leave them in gaol and help them to see the error of their thinking in the hope they repent and seek to heal their indiscretion in the future to turn the tide of bloodshed - no better spokesperson to have on your side than a person who truely regrets their actions when a child and seeks to turn others from this cause with the voice of understanding and reason based in personal experience.
Their "actions when a child"? Could he have been idealising them there?
The person he'd praised so much for protesting about the conspiracy theorists being publicly ridiculed read a post or two in the thread not long after he started it, and saw what seemed to be something he said that contradicted itself. She wasn't interested in whether the Bali bombers should be executed, but she made a quip about the seeming contradiction, for her own amusement. Then he started asking her whether she thought the Bali bombers should be executed, and she decided to respect his wishes and take him seriously enough to give him a well-thought-through answer.
She believed in capital punishment, but only in exceptional circumstances where guilt could be proved 100%, and it could be fairly certain the person would pose an ongoing risk to society in prison or out, so execution would be the lesser of two evils. In the case of the terrorists who'd organised the Bali bombings, she thought deciding whether they should be killed should depend on factors such as whether killing them would inflame other terrorists more, or whether they'd pose more of a risk in prison because terrorists might try to get them released, perhaps by hijacking planes and holding hostages, as they've tried before. Another factor would be whether there was thought to be a possibility of rehabilitating them. She reasoned her arguments through, saying she couldn't decide one way or the other, because it would take someone much more qualified and familiar with the terrorists than her to assess such risks and possibilities.
He ignored all her reasoning, saying that actually, he wasn't interested in the issues but in her psychological make-up - he'd started the thread, it turned out, just to find out how moral people were in his opinion - i.e. whether they agreed with capital punishment, or sided with him! He badgered and badgered her to just make a quick decision on whether the bombers should be executed or not, suggesting she treat it like a gambling game, taunting her that the reason she wouldn't make a decision must be because she was so scared of being wrong! She found the idea of treating it like a game disgusting, since they were talking about human lives.
Eventually, she said what she knew he'd want to hear just to shut him up! She said her gut feeling was to dislike the idea of killing them. He was very happy, and thought he'd won a victory, thinking he'd harassed her into finally making a decision!
She objected to his harassment; and he apologised to her for having done what he did, saying,
I'm sorry. It was rude and insensitive of me, and rather arrogant, to make presumptive speculations regarding issues which I have not been trained to make. As you correctly pointed out I behaved like an armchair psychologist and naturally this made you indignant and irritated. For this I am sorry.
Then he said,
Every point you make in the above post is fair and reasonable - I guess I'm too used to dealing with another type of person, I will not make that presumptive mistake with you again as you have categorically proved it was my failing judgement rather than anything to do with you. Thankyou for accepting my apology. PS : Should the Bali Bombers be executed? Was the title of this thread and you answered with your opinion that this was not something you wished to state for fair and reasonable reasons - my mistake was to press you for a more definitive reason than the one you stated.
He later admitted that he hadn't meant the apology at all, but had just said it to get back into her good books again! And he went on to blithely make a lot more presumptions about people's behaviour he hadn't been trained to make, insisting that he actually knew he was right anyway. That included insisting more and more that he was certain she only refused to make decisions because she was scared to! So much for his sincerity!
She was annoyed about his attitude, and expressed her annoyance in another thread. So they had a big falling out.
At first, he tried to insist that he'd only harassed her to make a decision one way or the other out of "love" and a "duty of care", saying he used to be scared to make decisions himself, and had benefited by starting to make them with boldness regardless of the consequences, and she'd be so much better off it she'd only stop living in the dread of decision-making she was obviously living in and do the same! 
Later, he admitted he'd been doing it for fun, saying he'd been trying to get his own back on her for making the comment in his thread about one of his posts contradicting itself.
She wasn't sympathetic to him when he said he used to dread making decisions himself. She'd once heard someone say he'd heard that some weak indecisive people can actually be more dangerous than strong people, if they're in positions of power. For instance, a strong-minded political leader, if faced with a decision about whether to go to war, will have the courage to delay while he discusses the pros and cons with his advisers. A politician with the reputation for being weak might hate the reputation, and make what he considers to be a strong decision to go to war, not because it's the best thing to do, but because he wants to appear tough, and feels under pressure to act decisively and isn't a strong enough character to stand up against the tide of opinion till he's investigated the matter thoroughly.
It seemed to her that Mr Creepy had an equally repulsive attitude in trying to taunt her to make a decision not based on careful consideration, but just as hastily with just as little forethought, as if she was playing some kind of gambling game.
Meanwhile, he started making wilder and wilder accusations about how the reason she wouldn't make a decision must be because she was scared to. The only reason he had for thinking that was because he used to be scared to make decisions himself! He didn't have any evidence that that was her own reason for not making one, merely some twisted logic that said that the more she protested about his accusations, the more proof that was that they must be true and she was in denial! In fact, he started accusing her not only of refusing to make a decision about the bombers, but seemed to imagine he had some privileged information that she never made any decisions at all, unless they were to do with protecting herself.
It was at this time that it turned out that he told lies as easily as he might rip up a piece of paper. He didn't have any problems lying, if he thought it was to his advantage.
He told lies about her. And he, who had praised her so much for standing up to the people who were ridiculing the conspiracy theorists, now proved he didn't actually care about the feelings of those being ridiculed, and that all those fine words he'd used before had been totally insincere. Referring to her standing up for them, he said things like:
interestingly the only time you get off the fence of indecision is when you are defending the right of another not to have their eggshells crushed under the apparently clumsy tread of another more confident individual - you are an enabler of others sensitive eggshell policy, in other words you defend their eggshells when in actuality you are defending your own. ...
She took that to be a pompous way of saying he didn't really give a fig for the feelings of those who were being publicly ridiculed in the thread started every month on the other forum, and that it was stupid to defend them, and the only reason he could imagine she'd do that would be because she wouldn't want anyone to behave like that towards her. A complete turn-around from his attitude before!
Interestingly enough though, he later revealed that he was somewhat of a conspiracy theorist himself. In a discussion about whether the destruction of the World Trade Center could have been done by the American government or whether they were complicit in it, he said he liked the excitement of finding out more, as if it was a crime drama.
His accusations about her supposed indecisive character grew ever more strident. He said things, based on no evidence at all, like,
you are an afraid little girl who will now try to dominate me to establish a superior position which you don't deserve. You need experience driven through by actually being brave enough to take a real position in life - you hide behind your wit but lack character from experience. ... you are an intelligent spoilt brat who needs a dose of reality to wake you from your nightmare it seems. ... The reason I work with you is because I feel your pain, heve felt this pain myself and know how to share a way through the valley of darkness you are lost in, a cyclical nightmare due to an inability to address in honesty that which afflicts. I name it so you can see it to destroy it. ... Fear is the predominate force, weakness and cowardice are fears bestest buddies, you display these attitudes in spades so I mention them in reality.
Oh, what an imagination he has!
He then wrote a long post absolutely full of lies about her, misquoting lots of things she'd said to try to damage her reputation. And before she could respond, he tried to make it look as if he was being moral and honourable, and that she'd be the dishonourable one if she responded to all his accusations if she said anything harsh about him, by saying,
I'm retiring from this paltry ego based endeavour now, I have enjoyed the stouche' but there is no winning this, you may claim victory if you wish for I no longer wish to say things which may hurt you. I won't respond further in this thread nor will I be goaded into such an exchange again
So he revealed that that thread, too, where he'd been saying all those things about her being indecisive and him wanting to help her out of her supposed fearful nightmare of indecisiveness out of caring for her, was in fact an "ego based endeavour", another game, and fun!
A man joined the forum who enjoyed playfully taunting people, saying he was more intelligent than anyone else including some revered scientists. I found him amusing. But Mr Creepy took great offence that he should dare to say things like that, it seemed.
Not long after the playful man came to the board, he started a thread where he mock-boasted that he was going to crush one of Einstein's theories to powder with his brand new theory. He then said that having done that, he would take his leave.
Instead of responding playfully, Mr Creepy behaved with little intelligence, by saying things like,
Not only are you wrong and simple minded you are also a coward. Try applying a little crittical thinking and test your theories against the crucible of other minds critiqueing. Whimp.
When the woman he'd been arguing with protested, he said that was another example of her wanting to defend people's right not to have their eggshells trodden on!
Then, he started to get downright creepy. He claimed he could tell that the playful man was suffering from a mental illness and might be hospitalised, just from the few words he'd put on the board, like those about crushing one of Einstein's theories. And he said it was his duty to cure him by bullying him out of it. That made the woman think even more that he must be a horrible person. When she told him it was unreasonable to diagnose someone with a mental illness just from a few words they'd put on a message board, especially when they hadn't had any training at all in diagnosing such things, he just insisted all the more that he knew what he was doing and that he was right. He said,
To say and do what he said was to indicate a tendency to not only arrogance but also cowardice (cowardice of his type is an indicator of either fear or a mental condition requiring that no-body challenge his ideas). I call people on it to bring them back to earth and share with them better modes to carry forth their message where they aren't just instantly dismissed as a crackpot. This is not instantly discernable and accept that I can be misunderstood - I don't care I am because I have helped many people come to terms with their new found absolute awareness, I am well satisfied I do what is right to do and I do not require your approval of it.
He started accusing her more and more of being mentally ill too. His accusations got worse and worse, no matter how many times it was pointed out to him that he didn't have any evidence for them.
One day, he did something worse. No doubt if the woman who'd been arguing with him had protested about that, he'd have accused her of defending people's eggshells again. But she was totally disgusted with him by then and had given up trying to get him to listen.
What happened was that the playful man put a message on the forum that said:
im going to commit suicideUntil only last evening, i had a family. A sweet precious wife, two daughters. now all bloody gone. gone. GONE fkn gone.died in a car crash, my wife, my girls marsha and shauna died in hospital.
How did Mr Creepy respond?
He first quoted a few things that the man who'd just said he was going to commit suicide had said earlier that day in reverse order:
You will pardon my seeming discourtesey in presuming your own level of intelligence to be of a considerably lower magnitude than my ownMight I beg to furnish you with certain acts, the culmination of which might be calculated to render extinct any ignorance upon your part concerning my illustrious identity.
Good aftenoon.
Then Mr Creepy said:
Strange things to post in the chat box after such an event - I'm calling the whole fatal car accident as bullshit, not only is it bullshit but it is childish highschool bullshit. One day you shall have lived a little of this life, which you find amusing at the moment, and reality will come crashing through your consciousness, then some no-nothing know-it-all-turd will write something like you posted above, on that day you will write something akin to what I'm writing to you..to them.....In other words, grow up.
There was not a shred of a doubt in his disgusting mind that he was correct. As usual, he obviously felt brimming with confidence that he was right.
For all anyone knew, he could have been right. But the woman who'd been arguing with him thought that to behave like that, without even a doubt as to whether he was, just seemed repulsive.
A few days later, the one who said he was going to commit suicide wrote that he'd decided not to. He had a few nasty words to say about Mr Creepy, not surprisingly.
Far from saying something about having thought the matter through and being sorry if it turned out he'd been wrong about being so sure the man's family hadn't just been killed, Mr Creepy appeared so self-centred, all he could think about was what the man had said to him to insult him. He said something that might have fooled someone into believing he was wise, if they didn't know how heartless he was being in the circumstances. He said:
Please note: Your rather feeble efforts to disturb my balanced existence are wasted efforts as first; you need to be correct to strike a hit second; if the first strike hits I am grateful to you for exposing a failing which I will then repair third; this means that fighting with me only makes me stronger. Essentially it is like fighting air itself - good luck with that, wisdom trumps intellect every time.
Again, this seemed to be a game to him.
And this is the kind of "fighting" he enjoys. Here are just a few of the things he's said to people:
Wassa matter Minty? Get your ass handed to you again? Get used to it.LOL - fuck-off wanker.
Fuck-off dickhead.
Responding to someone who said,
still as guys, Ben we will never know what losing a child is actually like that was growing inside you. BUT, that still does not change my view that I have no right to tell another woman(and her husband)what to do in their situation.
He said:
You are a complete dickhead - fuck-off. Honestly.Fart = Dragon's comments.
Oh what intelligent and wise comments! And that was mild for him. Some of what he said was much nastier and much more vulgar.
So to take everything he said at face value, you'd think those on the forum who'd angered him by merely insulting or criticising him were deserving of much worse treatment than the paedophiles he'd insisted just needed help, love and forgiveness!
He had a signature at the end of his posts that said,
Self control is the chief element in self respect and self respect is the chief element in courage.
It's a pity he didn't feel the need to use a bit more self-control himself. As for his idea of courage, what's that, I wonder? The courage to come straight out and call someone's claim that they're going to commit suicide and their report of a family tragedy fake? Things like that? To read his signature at first, you certainly wouldn't get that impression.
That story proves that someone might sound all nice and caring and wise on the surface, but rushing into a relationship with them can be a huge big mistake, because they might really be heartless when it suits them, just a bully, just intelligent enough to deceive you into believing they're completely different. Just a little provocation, and their charm might disappear, letting their true nature out.
It's been said that you should never get into a serious relationship with anyone before you've argued with them so you can find out what they're like under provocation.
But a lot of people might not be nasty at all, but nevertheless, you still might find out things about them that you're really not happy with some time after you meet them. So it's best to get to know people before doing anything with them that would make you feel emotionally committed to them.
But if you're in a relationship that's going wrong, it doesn't necessarily mean you made a mistake. A lot of relationships can be improved a lot. There are quite a lot of helpful web pages that could give you some good advice. Here are a few:
To the People's Concerns Page which features audio interviews on topics including people's stories of school bullying and their suggested methods of dealing with it, experiences of university life - including the fun side, and the tale of a cycling accident that could have been disastrous if it hadn't been for reflective gear.