137. 10 Healthy Dating Rules for Women Who Tend to Over-Give

If dating tends to bring up anxiety, self-doubt, people-pleasing, or the urge to lose yourself in someone else, this episode is for you.

In this practical episode, I’m speaking directly to women who tend to be very giving, very empathic, and very accommodating in relationships, but who often struggle to stay connected to themselves while dating.

If you have a history of subjugation, self-sacrifice, under-entitlement, loose boundaries, or worrying too much about being “too much” or “too needy,” dating can quickly become stressful and confusing. You may find yourself focusing more on whether the other person likes you than on how you actually feel.

In this episode, I walk you through 10 clear dating rules to help you feel calmer, more grounded, and more self-protective in the early stages of dating, without becoming closed off or guarded.

This is about dating in a way that helps you stay connected to your own needs, your own feelings, and your own experience.

In this episode, I cover:

• Why meeting early in real life is better than building a false sense of connection through endless texting
• Why first dates should be short, simple, and low pressure
• The importance of putting a time boundary around early dates
• Why alcohol can make it harder to stay connected to your instincts and boundaries
• Why you do not need to extend a date unless you genuinely want to
• Why it is healthy to directly say you’d like to see someone again if that is true for you
• Why it matters to keep your life running normally when you meet someone new
• Why rushing physical intimacy can create attachment before real compatibility is clear
• How to think about chemistry more wisely, especially if you have a pattern of schema chemistry
• Why the most important question after a date is not “Did they like me?” but “How did I feel?”

Key themes in this episode:

This episode explores how schemas such as subjugation, self-sacrifice, abandonment, emotional deprivation, and under-entitlement can quietly shape the dating process.

It also highlights a more grounded and emotionally healthy approach to dating:

Dating is data.

Rather than treating every date like a test of your worth, this episode encourages you to slow down, gather information, notice how you feel, and assess whether the other person is truly right for you.

If this episode resonated:

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