Temptation: Dating Without Integrity
By Nina Atwood
How do you date? Do you meet, get to know slowly, put off sex, take your time? Or do you dive in, date whoever is standing in front of you if he’s hot, with an attitude that you will do what you want when you want to? You may not realize it, but the choices you make today are creating a future that may be far from your desired life outcomes.
Dating without integrity means dating with little or no thought about the consequences to others or even the impact on your own life. It’s doing what feels good now while sacrificing real fulfillment over the long haul.
Dating without integrity means grabbing a cupful of pleasure today for the price of a barrel full of pain tomorrow. Examples include:
- Dating someone who is dating, living with, or married to someone else
- Having sex with someone with whom you don’t want a relationship
- Keeping the person you’re dating “on the string” while you check out other people
- Dating someone you don’t love knowing that he/she is in love with you
- Stonewalling in discussions about commitment knowing that you don’t want to marry the person you’re dating
- Diving quickly into new relationships in order to get your needs met, thinking you’ll sort it all out later (at yours and other people’s expense)
- Playing “hide the ball” when the person you’re dating wants to discuss the future (i.e., changing the subject, offering false reassurance, etc.)
I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. Ultimately, dating without integrity hurts YOU, as you slowly feel worse about yourself and cling to a false persona that you’ve created in order to keep the status quo. Why would you be tempted to date without integrity? Because it’s easy. It’s the path of least resistance. But nothing in life worth having comes that easily. And the best, most rewarding things in life are hard-won through taking the more challenging path, the path of honor, dignity, self-respect, and integrity.
The path to a great relationship is paved with integrity. That means doing the right thing, even if it means that you must endure some short-term pain or delay gratification. Dating with integrity honors you and others around you. Dating with integrity means taking that cup full of pain today, by-passing the future barrel full of suffering, and carving out a joyous, fulfilling path.
Find out more about dating without integrity and how to side-step this dangerous dating temptation – get your copy of Temptations of the Single Girl: The Ten Dating Traps You Must Avoid today!
Entry Filed under: Advice for Women,Dating
