Snags & Snares

here are some snags & snares to stay alert for when running the gauntlet of potential new – or maybe old – mate matchups.

  • Rehab Project: Falling for a fixer-upper believing the Other will become kind/romantic/trustworthy/fair/sober/adult through the magic of being with you.

  • Instant Fix: Looking for immediate gratification, rushing into too much intimacy too soon, leapfrogging over the friendship phase.

  • Defiant Independence: You’re so competent, you’d rather count on yourself than believe you could ever count on him/her (you’ve probably trusted too soon once too often).

  • Hourglass Panic: Fearing the biological clock, or gravity, or your driver’s license Date of Birth (forgetting that age is a number, not a sentence).

  • Masked Ball: Putting someone else’s face onto him or her (unfinished business with the past).

  • Last Stagecoach Out of Dodge: Believing there is no one who will really fit, so you’d better grab a ticket fast or be alone forever.

  • Imprisoned in the Tower: Believing you must be rescued from your emotional or financial neediness, thereby attracting control freaks or co-dependent enablers.

  • WYSIWYG: Believing What You See Is What You Get. Hasty decision based on short-term impressions.

  • Infatuation Boogie: Interpreting infatuation, attraction, need, chemistry, good sex, and/or attachment as love.

  • Feel-Good Trap: Assuming that if you have fun together, you are Meant To Be.

  • Magic Trap: Believing that your ideal partner/soul mate will magically appear.

  • Packaging Fallacy: Believing that presentation is all. Packaging and selling yourself as what you think the other person wants, instead of presenting yourself as you are.

  • Entitlement: Making yourself the Center of the Universe. Believing you should be made happy without any real effort on your part.

  • All-Or-Nothing: Evaluating people solely for their romance potential, instead of cultivating new friends.

_____Total # traps

Based on experience, I recognize my Riskiest Trap: _____________________

I know I’m in a trap when__________________ .

 

My trap-avoidance strategy will be ____________________.