So many red flags, your dating life is starting to look like a game of minesweeper. 

I get it. We become colour blind sometimes. I stayed two years too long in a situationship once. With the beauty of hindsight, I look back at those times and think ‘why?’ The whole thing was a mess, but I stayed. Why?

I had a moment where it all made sense. 9:05PM. Slouched on my couch with a hot cacao in one hand and my double chin in the other, I watched the movie Perk of Being a Wallflower. It’s the moment where the character turns around and says, “we accept the love we think we deserve.” 

We accept the love we think we deserve. 

This is a good thing. It means every good decision and every bad decision you’ve made in dating is your decision, and only yours. 

The ball is in your court. The love you’re choosing to accept can change. Your standards and expectations aren’t fixed. If you’re finding yourself in red flag relationships, situationships, and wtf-are-we-ships; you can change the bar on the love you accept.

It begins with addressing what you think you deserve when it comes to love.

Imagine your self worth or how you see yourself is a compass. If it’s pointing south, you’re heading south, baby. If it’s pointing north, you’re heading north, baby. How you see yourself will direct the relationships you find yourself in. 

If you think you’re fundamentally flawed, you’re likely to think you’re just lucky you found someone who pays attention to you at all. If you think you don’t have anything interesting to say, you’ll settle for someone who doesn’t listen. If you think you’re ___, you’ll settle for ___. Fill in the blanks, this is how the compass leads the ship. 

Let’s bring in another analogy, rescue dog energy and exotic cat energy. 

Rescue dog energy. Rescue dogs are often, well, rescued. Likely neglected, rescue dogs didn’t receive the attention or love they needed growing up or in their previous relationships. Because of this, their compass is set to:

“I’m not worthy of attention, so any attention will do.”

Rescue dogs in shelters feel so overwhelmingly lucky if someone just looks their way, a tiny pat and they practically pee themselves with excitement. I’m sure you don’t literally do that or… maybe you do, I’m here to make an analogy not a judgement.

Rescue dog energy presents itself in thoughts such as:

“Anything is better than it was.”

“I want to be able to express myself openly with my partner, but I never saw that in my family, so I’m just going to stay small and be grateful that they’re dating me at all.”

“I want them to compliment me more but I never saw my father compliment my mother, so I should just be happy with this.”

Rescue dogs don’t think they deserve much, they’ll accept anyone with a house. 

Exotic cat energy. Have you ever been around an exotic cat? Or any cat, really. You know what I’m talking about. Cats are not easy to win over. They don’t care if you look at them, but they care how you treat and respect their boundaries. They care how you make them feel, and they’re not afraid to act on those feelings. Cats are the ultimate symbol of consent: if they don’t feel like being touched, you won’t have a hand left to touch them. If they feel that you’ve respected their space, they’ll come up to you and let you pat them. Cats don’t excuse red flags, they know what they deserve and they won’t accept anything less than that.

A question we need to ask ourselves is, am I living in my exotic cat energy or my rescue dog energy? If I’m continuing to accept red flags and less than I deserve, is it because I don’t think I deserve more? 

It’s time for your exotic cat era, my friend.

(And I’m not just saying this because I’m a cat lady)

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