It has always taken me a long time to heal from a broken heart. Infuriatingly long. Instead of a fraction of the relationship, it’s more like a multiple. So, of course, I am amazed by people who are faster than me.
But then there are the people I’ve considered too fast. Like, either they’ve got someone lined up before they break it off with their current Significant Other (SO) or they bounce back and return to the dating game before long. Those people always used to make me wonder: Were you in love? Did they mean anything to you? Can you date anyone?? How did you become so resilient? Please can you teach me??
Now that I’m a matchmaker I see that this was not the right attitude. The breaking-up process and its consequences depend on the individual and we can’t generalize because it’s subjective and everyone’s got their own answer.
But, more importantly, who am I to judge how long people should wait between relationships or how they process their break up? Who am I to say they weren’t head over heels in love just because they are resilient?
Now I keep my judgement in check and when I think I am falling back into old habits, I have my ways to talk myself out of it.
But that doesn’t mean I throw caution to the wind.
I do have a responsibility to my clients: I need to set them up on dates with people who are ready for a relationship. Their matches need to be single, emotionally available, over their ex, and interested in a committed relationship.
Below are some questions I ask them and myself to figure out if they have healed their heart or if they still en route. It doesn’t matter where they are in the process but it would be wrong for me to set up a date with a single who is relationship ready and a single who is not.
- When you/they are having a conversation, does the ex come up often?
- Do you/they compare potential SOs to the ex?
- Do you/they blame the break-up 100% on the ex?
- Do you/they still live with your ex, have more than one box of stuff in their home or have a key to their home?
- Do you/they make excuses to see the ex?
- Have you/they examined the reasons why the relationship ended?
- Have you/they looked at your/their past dating patterns and understood which patterns are healthy and which aren’t?
You can use these past dating patterns questions to understand if the person you are interested in is relationship ready and, of course, you can ask yourself these questions too to figure out if you’re ready to find someone new.
But remember: Asking these questions is easy. Answering these questions are relatively easy too. The hard part is paying attention to the answers, especially if they don’t align perfectly with what you want.
This article originally appeared on Maitre Date
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