Does he have the capacity for you?

I mean “capacity” in several ways.

  1. Does he have time in his life for you — the capacity to bring you into his life and the availability to be a part of your? Some people say they want a sweetie, but their life is already so full of work, kids, parents, friends, workouts, classes, etc., they really have no bandwidth for anything other than an occasional dinner and movie. They really don’t have the capacity for a relationship, let alone to explore one.

     

  2. Does he have the capability to understand you — the interest and intellect to understand your hopes, desires, likes, dislikes, etc? Or is he a dull blade not sharp enough to understand much beyond his own experience? Or is he narcissistic and could learn about you but chooses not to, instead staying focused on himself.  

I’ve had budding beaus fall into both categories of not enough capacity. They were not able to graduate to full-on beau status because of the aforementioned issues.

Ideally, we look for a man’s underlying qualities and values before deciding they aren’t for us. So some may think the above are superficial. However, I think one’s values are displayed in how one decides to spend one’s time. So if he doesn’t value you or a relationship enough to invest time getting to know you and what makes you tick, you have a mismatch. Or if he’s not that interested in really getting to know you, there’s no need for you to spend your time getting to know him.

Have you experienced someone who didn’t have the capacity for you? If so, what happened?

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Comments

7 responses to “Does he have the capacity for you?”

  1. johnc Avatar
    johnc

    This is a great post! Of course, I would change it to: “Does SHE have time in her life for you”

    and: “Does SHE have the capability to understand you — the interest and intellect to understand your hopes, desires, likes, dislikes, etc? Or is SHE a dull blade not sharp enough to understand…”

    Women like to make the rules. IE:
    -You are going to fast.
    -Too slow.
    -You aren’t listening.
    -You aren’t opening up.
    -You aren’t giving me enough space.
    -You don’t want to see me enough.

    Etc, etc.

  2. Jeff Avatar

    I think what a woman can do to help her through the process of making a life changing decision before going through everything written here is ask.
    Is he someone that I can grow to love? If no the move on quickly. If the answer is yes then start evaluating him.
    Also remember that a lot of men in this world that we live are taught not to be to emotional until there is some sort of commitment from a woman first.

  3. Dating Goddess Avatar

    Johnc:

    Of course, change the gender to what makes sense for you. Since I write for women (although we welcome men viewers and commenters), I use the pronouns appropriate for women dating men.

    I’m not sure I agree that women make all the rules. I’ve dated men who had their own rules, “If we aren’t sleeping together by the 3rd date, I’m gone,” “You aren’t going to meet my kids,” etc. Each gender makes the rules that they feel are appropriate for them personally.

  4. johnc Avatar
    johnc

    I absolutely can see what you are saying to be true with regards to both genders make rules.

    I postulate that the list of rules that women make are typically much, much longer. Primarily cause men are more simple. We grunt, point and are easily satisfied.

  5. Richard Avatar
    Richard

    We hit it off. She worked shifts that changes weekly. I am ok with that, but she would not tell me when she worked, so I could schedule dates or a time to call her. She knows I work a regular 9-5 schedule, so it would be easy for her to offer times. After a few weeks of “no, I am busy then”, I stopped trying to guess and gave up on her.

  6. Dating Goddess Avatar

    Richard — your request was a reasonable. Who knows why she was so protective of her time off info? Maybe she didn’t want to be tied up. But now she’s free because she isn’t with a wonderful guy like you!

  7. Louise Avatar
    Louise

    Very important points. I think it’s important to analyze the data – if on the first date your guy (or gal) talks about some time consuming passion in their life such as a startup business, a planned bicycle trip across Europe, renovating a house, etc. there’s a pretty good chance that he’s going to be too busy for anything other than a “friends with benefits” type of scenario. Just something to be mindful of – some gals don’t mind the “FWB” thing and are super busy themselves. Others want something more reliable.

    On #2 – I had a few dates with a lovely man who was absolutely convinced that I was The One after the second date. After a few long conversations I started to realize that maybe both of us were just killing time with each other to avoid being lonely. We could hang out and watch a movie, go to dinner, but we never really “discussed” anything. He talked about his job, his kid. I listened. I talked about my job, my hobbies. He listened. It just didn’t seem like either of us would be happy in the long run (not to mention his political beliefs were vastly different from mine).

    But hey! That’s why we date, right? We want to learn as much about our potential partners before we leap into bed together.