Just about everyone has had that friend who no matter what they do they are unlucky in love. The blind dates that you and others set them up with never work out, they go to various speed dating events and fail to find a match, they go out on date after date and it never leads anywhere. As their friend you’ve likely tried to help in some way, but you’ve now reached the point where you’re not sure what to do. The only thing you do know is you’re tired of your friend feeling hurt and alone and believing they will never find love.
The first thing you’re going to need to do is determine if your friend has been self-sabotaging their own love life. This can sometimes happen and your friend won’t even be aware of it. It could be they’re not over their ex and are subconsciously comparing every new person they date to him/her. As a result no other person can live up to your friend’s image of their ex. Believe it or not this may even be happening if your friend’s ex treated them horribly while they were in the relationship with them. So if you believe this might be occurring with your friend, sit down and talk to them about it. When they start pointing out what was wrong with their dates ask them if their ex would have acted differently. Just doing so may help your friend realize what they’re doing to themselves and help them. You may always want to suggest that they go to talk to a counsellor, psychologist or psychiatrist as it might help too.
Next, you might want to consider accompanying your friend the next time they’re going out on a date. Set it up as a double-date and go along to observe how your friend acts. While your friend may have told you how their dates go well, but then they never hear from the other person afterwards, the reality may be something very different. Due to the emotional involvement your friend is unable to recall the events of their dates in an objective fashion. So to be able to offer your friend some solid advice of why their dates are not leading towards a relationship you need to be able to see one up close and personal and see what’s going on. Doing so will allow you to be able to offer your friend more constructive and helpful advice which will help them in their future dates and increase their odds of finding lasting love.
Another thing you have to look at is whether you have romantic feelings for your friend which you haven’t revealed to them. If so have you in the course of their seeking your counsel about their dating life been giving them bad advice because you want to date them yourself? This can be a bit of an uncomfortable introspective process because you may not have even realized that’s what has been happening. However, if you find yourself constantly thinking about how your friend could do so much better than the various people they’ve been dating it is possible this may be more than wanting someone better for your friend. If you come to the conclusion that you do have feelings for your friend you need to tell them and also cease giving your friend advice on their love life since it will be tainted by how you feel.
You also may want to look at whether your friend has a tendency to go out with the same type of person again and again. It is not uncommon for people to date those with very similar personality traits as those they’re dated in the past. Your friend may be stuck in such a repetitious dating cycle. The problem with this is that it ends up with the same result again and again. So ask your friend to describe their last several dates and see if this is what is transpiring. Your friend may realize during the course of your discussion what they’ve been doing and this will lead them to date somebody different in the future that they may have greater success with.
Lastly, it’s important to look at the advice you’ve been giving your friend with respect to their dating life. What may have worked for you may not work for them, and conversely the reverse is true too, what didn’t work for you may work for them. So when suggesting something your friend can try to improve their odds of finding love, keep an open mind with the ideas that you offer, and you find it ends up being the advice you considered a longshot that ends up helping them.
