While it can be nice to share your relationship struggles and take advice from someone when you’re second-guessing yourself, you are not immune to bad dating advice. Don’t get them wrong. Your friends and family often do have your best interests at heart. However, making sense of their varied perspectives can get confusing at best, and misleading at worst.
Bad Relationship Advice That Friends And Family Offer
Friends and family who offer help, which in most cases is only verbal advice, do not realize that you may not have even asked for their help. Moreover, when they speak foolish things, you can get frustrated, angry and simultaneously find it ridiculously funny. Don’t take relationship advice from friends if you don’t want to, because their experiences and expectations may not match yours. All the unnecessary dating tips might make you laugh or cringe in the ugliest way. Either way, their bad relationship advice is not going to stop. Below are some of the dumbest relationship tips that friends can offer, which you must steer clear of:
1. Don’t have sex till you get married
Yeah, this is one of the worst relationship advice, no cap. It’s so silly that people in 2021 still think that couples do not have sex before they tie the knot. If someone ever tells you to not check whether you are compatible in bed and you are actually taking that advice, then you have invited trouble. Both partners need to know if they can lead a satisfactory sex life as a couple. Sex is an important need and if it is not met, your relationship is doomed. Make sure, however, that you use protection and don’t get any STDs or have unwanted pregnancies in the process. Moreover, sex is a personal decision. Do not let anyone dictate when or how you should have sex. It is a personal experience and nobody should tell you when you should pop your cherry.
2. Announce only after engagement
This one’s a classic middle-class, orthodox family bad dating advice that they give to their kids who have reached marriageable age. While friends would have no problem accepting your partner, family members seem to be uncomfortable with your dating. They’ll tell you to not introduce him/her as your partner, especially to extended family and relatives, and say that you are just good friends. It is so stupid to do that. If you are in love, no matter what the rest of the world thinks, you have the full right to announce it to the world, even if you have not exchanged your engagement rings.
3. Split your bills when you go on a date
“You should always split everything, even the bills on your date. This is one of the unwritten rules of dating”, says a friend to you? You are only going to make your relationship more transactional. That is truly really bad dating advice. Trust us, and do not take it. Bills, spending on each other, sharing finances, etc. are things that make a relationship more robust.
If you keep an account of every penny you spend on your partner and expect them to give you back the same amount, your relationship is based on money and not love. It is foolish to end your romantic date by calculating food items you ate and he/she ate and who should pay how much. Don’t ruin your date with this dumb advice.
That said, it is also equally important to ensure that the burden of keeping your love life afloat should not fall on one partner alone. You can do your bit, pitch in, share the expenses without necessarily taking out a calculator and splitting everything 50-50. For instance, if you’re going to the movies, and your partner pays for the tickets and popcorn and colas, you can foot the bill for dinner afterwards.
4. If you don’t argue, then there’s something wrong
If you and your partner, rarely argue or have fights, then most people will raise eyebrows and start advising you to start picking fights to make the relationship stronger. Such people hate simple things and they think that making simple things complicated is intelligence. Just because they have relationship arguments, doesn’t mean that your relationship is too good to be true. There are couples who are just as normal as others but surprisingly they rarely have any arguments or fights. If that is the case with you, then you are as lucky as you can get. Do not listen to this bad dating advice of making your relationship stronger by picking fights. It is not a movie story where you need some twist in the love affair, driving one of you to lure the other to make them fall in love with you again.
5. Gay? Sleep with a woman and you won’t be
You are not gay if you have not slept with a man, and if you are gay then just sleep with a woman to change. If you are gay and dating a man, do not listen to your friends or family who’ll say you should have an encounter with a woman to “change”. Such bad relationship advice often comes from fathers of gay men who have difficulty accepting their son’s sexuality. If you take such advice, you are on the path to making a fool out of yourself and also denying the possibility of being with your boyfriend who could perhaps be Mr. Right for you. Any advice that comes from a person who barely knows the circumstances or the equation you have with your partner should be kept out. Be smart and make intelligent choices in taking advice or help. Your shrink could be your friend, but shrinks can also make blunders by offering the dumbest advice.
