Women lean on their friends for dating advice a lot, sometimes to a fault. Part of the reason dating can be so hard is that it’s hard to balance your opinion with your friends opinion and find a harmony between them. When we’re living the single life our perspective is much different than when you start to get into a relationship with someone. So, there is inherent conflict between your life with your friends and your potential new life with the people you are dating. Your friends mean well, they really do, but sometimes what we look for deep down isn’t the same as even our closest friends.

Everyone knows that once you get into a serious relationship with someone, eventually you don’t hang out with your friends as much. It’s a natural progression that just happens. When you’re single, you and your single friends are your primary companions for each other. Once you get into serious relationship, that changes. You will still hang out with them and have great times together, but your main focus in life is with your boyfriend. So, when you’re looking for a potential “mate”, are you looking for those characteristics that you love and find attractive over the long haul? Or are you looking at it from the eyes of your friends, and their opinions on guys? Shouldn’t the two opinions be pretty close to the same? Probably not.

There are certain behaviors or traits that we may find attractive that we don’t talk about with our friends. Why is this? I don’t know, maybe we’re embarrassed or we think they won’t understand. But those things are part of what we really want in a potential relationship. This is not to say that you shouldn’t listen to your friends at all. Your friends do know you and generally care about you. If they have concerns make sure you consider them just in case you’re too caught up in the lust to see for yourself. But as long as you have honestly done that, then it’s probably time to follow your heart. If you continue to let the opinions of others (even if they are your friends) hold you back, then you are doing yourself a disservice. You never know, maybe you already met a really great guy but blew him off because of what your friends might think. In the end, the only two people that need to be happy with each other are the two people in the relationship. Sometimes feelings and friendships change, so while you should listen to your friends, don’t hold yourself back from what you want just because of what they think.