Beware of the Future-Talker

What is the future-talker?

Let me explain:

You go on a couple of dates with somebody.

And then they start promising you the future.

They talk about a trip you’re going to take together six months down the road.

They talk about future vacations past the other trip.

They talk about a sporting event you’re going to go to in the fall, and it’s only the spring time.

Beware of the future talker.

How can you possibly be talking about the future with somebody when you don’t even know?

Dating to me is four seasons.

The first season of dating is the spring, and the buds are blooming. Everything feels so great.

Then all of a sudden, there’s a little frost after 90 days. You start seeing the cracks in the person you’re with.

They’re no longer on their best behavior. They’re starting to show you exactly the way they are in relationship. And that’s when all the negotiation starts to happen. That’s when you start really talking about each other’s needs, wants, and desires. That’s when you start evaluating each other to see whether or not your able to go and work off that beautiful foundation that you started on.

If you can make it to the next season—to summer or fall—then that’s when you can start talking about the future.

The first six months is all about negotiations. You shouldn’t be promising the future to anybody for at least six months because you don’t know who they are and you don’t know how they’re going to react in all types of situations.

How are they on Monday mornings? Can they handle the week?

How are they when they work late? Do they forget about you for days on end because they get so caught up in their own world and they don’t know how to make you feel good?

Are they a giver and a taker or are they just a taker? I’ve had that happen with a lot of women. Women who are wonderful for the first 90 days, and then all of a sudden, I realize that she is a taker.

Are they impressed with their work? Have you met their friends? That’s the key, how they treat their friends is how they’re going to treat you over time.

Are they reliable? Do you listen to their relationship history? Are some of the complaints that other men or women had about them starting to come out with you too? It means that they haven’t done the work on themselves.

You need a good year with somebody before you can even think about marriage. Six months, you can start talking about vacations in the future. One year, you can start talking about an actual future.

You’ve got to let the leaves fall to the ground, the bugs drop off the trees. You’ve got to go through four seasons of a relationship.

Otherwise, it’s just fantasy talk.

I’m all about watching at the warning signs. I’m so good at 90 days now. I passed all the warning signs between day 60 and day 90, and then I usually confront the woman on each and every one of them to see how they react. Am I testing them? Probably. Because it’s my heart that needs to be open, so am I testing them to see if they’ll fail? No, I’m actually testing them—I hate to use that word—to see if they’ll succeed.

Be clear. State your needs, state your wants, state your desires. If something comes up, state it. If they treat you in a way that doesn’t feel respectful and make you feel great, state it.

Don’t be afraid to state it. The more you dictate the beginning of the relationship, the better it’s going to be. The more you dictate how things need to be, the greater it’s going to be.

I have a saying. Constantly praising somebody for the first 90 days and then all of a sudden telling them things that went wrong is the biggest mistake you can make in any relationship. The reason being is, is because all of a sudden they think they’ve done fantastically. When they do something wrong their ego will protect them and say, “What are you talking about? I’ve been doing everything so great. You’ve said so!”

So start right from the beginning to communicate what you like and don’t like.

And beware of the future talker.

Don’t allow them to future talk you because you will miss things that are happening in the present.