Seeking New Relationships

I talk with many people who want new relationships. People who want new friends, people who are seeking a romantic partnership, people who are wanting new connections at work, people who want to change existing relationships - and there are similarities between all of these situations.

The more we want to highlight and celebrate our own uniqueness and build custom relationships to fit that uniqueness, the more planning and consideration we have to give to the process of seeking, finding, and building relationships.

Here are some questions that are valuable for some people in that process:

• What do I want from this relationship?

• What’s important to me about pursuing it?

• How might those around me be affecting my desire for this relationship?

• How might it affect my existing relationships if I find and develop this new relationship?

• What other relationships or support might be valuable to me, either in seeking this relationship or in maintaining it once I have it?

• What do I expect the other person to bring to this relationship? Is that realistic and fair?

• How does what I want from this relationship differ from assumptions people might make about what I want?

• What am I able and willing to bring to this relationship?

• What am I unable or unwilling to bring to this relationship? Especially, what might I feel pressure to bring or shame about not bringing? What am I unavailable to provide that others might assume is part of this sort of relationship?

• How is my relationship with myself affecting my search for this new relationship?

• How is my relationship with myself likely to affect this relationship once I have it?

• What patterns or commonalities in my current relationships are working that I want to continue with this relationship?

• What patterns or commonalities in my current relationships would I like to change as I seek this relationship?

• What might a person be like who thinks I’m absolutely amazing for this type of relationship? What are they looking for? How would that person answer these questions?

I hope that reflecting on some of these is useful to you in your search for someone new in your life (or in changing an existing relationship to a new form). I’d love to hear about some of your discoveries in the comments.

And - if you’d like to further explore seeking a new relationship or changing an existing one, I currently have 1:1 coaching spaces available! If you fill out an application, I’ll personally review it and get back to you, usually within a few days.