The dating manual

Lately, I’ve been asked a version of the same question over and over again:

“How long should I date?” “When do I know it’s time to move to the next stage?”

And I get it, I honestly do.

It’s tiresome going in circles with someone who “wastes your time”, especially when your friends are getting engaged left, right and centre.

Most people know that dating isn’t meant to be done perpetually, but what people don’t know is that it has 4 clear stages or seasons (depending on your word of choice).

But most people skip them, rush through them, or get stuck in one for way too long with the wrong person, hoping it’ll just magically work out.

Then, predictably, they feel lost and confused because they had no plan.

Love doesn’t happen by accident, and successful couples in consistently happy romantic relationships know this.

That’s why they have and follow a proven system.

Just hoping things will work out is no way to live.

There are 4 seasons of dating, and each one has a job

Not knowing this is dooming yourself to a toxic cycle of disappointment.

So, without further ado, here’s your dating season manual…

This is the meeting and filtering phase.

This is when you go on multiple dates, meet people and test for fit. Your job here is to be selective, not loyal.

You're not proving yourself, you're not overthinking it, and you're not locking in after one nice dinner.

You’re making one big decision: “Is this someone worth going deeper with?”

The traps to avoid here are allowing your feelings to hijack your brain, which makes you stop your filtering process when you find someone you’re attracted to, and dating forever because more options keep popping up.

Now it’s exclusive, and you’re officially “boyfriend-girlfriend” in a real relationship.

This is where you go deeper, not just emotionally, but practically.

Here, you're learning how they handle pressure.

How they respond to conflict.

And what they believe about love, loyalty, boundaries, trust, parenting and purpose by the actions they consistently show.

You're not just enjoying the relationship, you're also testing it.

A major trap to avoid in this season is staying too long.

If you’ve been in this stage for over two years with no progress, no proposal and no clear future…

You’re not being patient.

You’re being parked.

And the longer you stay parked, the more you start shrinking to fit a relationship that doesn’t have legs.

You’ve made the call and agreed that this person is yours.

Now you prepare.

Not just for your wedding ceremony, but for your life.

This is where you check their hard skills:
- Can they manage money?
- Do they make wise decisions?
- Can they carry the weight of partnership?

And also check their soft skills:
- Do they consistently meet your 5 core emotional needs?
- Do they fight fair?
- Can they speak your love languages, and are they willing to?

An excellent way to fast-track this process is by going through pre-marital counselling.

And this is where most people fuck up in this season.

They either skip, rush or ignore this part because they’re “too busy planning centrepieces, arranging wedding venues and picking wedding colours”.

If you’re willing to spend thousands on a party, you can spend a few hundred getting premarital counselling to make sure you’re not walking into a life-long mistake.

This season should not be forever, and it should not be rushed either.

An excellent timeline for this stage is 6 to 9 months.

Clear planning and focus are your allies in this stage.

This is where all your choices show up with consequences.

You’ve said “I do.”

Now you’re going to live it.

In this season, you’ll experience their patterns, peace (or lack thereof), their habits, mindset, conflict style, beliefs, presence, and pressure-handling daily.

Here, you’ll find out that marriage isn’t a reward but a reflection of your choices in each season.

You’ll either have chosen well… or you didn’t.

And if you skipped the earlier seasons, chances are you'll be married to someone you can’t even have a hard conversation with without it turning into war.

That’s a type of hell I wouldn’t even wish for my “opps”.

And I fucking hate my “opps”

The bottom line is that each of these seasons is built to protect you, give you a process and help you move from stranger to spouse without losing your mind or your years.

But if you don’t know what season you’re in, you can’t know what to do next.

And that’s how people end up spending 3-5 years dating someone who was never serious…

Or marrying someone who never had the skills to build anything real.

If this hits close to home, and you want to stop guessing, stop stalling, and start choosing better…

The Compatibility Filtering System was built for exactly this.

It gives you the clarity and the peace of mind to know exactly who you're with and whether they’re worth building with.

Because guessing your way to love is not brave, it’s foolish and very expensive.

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