Olethea Pimenta • September 2, 2026
Here is some of the best dating advice I give clients:
You are not that special.
I know. It doesn’t sound especially encouraging.
But I don’t mean that you aren’t interesting, lovable, intelligent, or extremely charming. No.
I mean that you should be careful about assuming you will be the exception to someone else’s very established relationship patterns.
Imagine you are dating a man who tells you about a five-year relationship that ended badly.
Naturally, you want to know what happened.
He tells you that he was no longer attracted to her. She became needy and dependent. She wanted too much from him. She kept trying to move the relationship forward when he wasn’t ready.
Or perhaps they were “just having fun,” but she started trying to introduce him to her mother.
What do you hear?
Do you hear a story about a perfectly reasonable man who was unfortunately pursued by an irrational woman?
Or do you wonder whether she believed she was in a real relationship while he was quietly enjoying all the benefits of one without accepting any responsibility for it?
Not so fast. Look I know when you hear this – these dating red flags seem so easy to spot. But trust me when you are sitting across from a charming attractive guy you are so easily going to want to believe their version of events. 👀 I hear it all the time from clients when I start poking holes at what their current dating partner is saying to them.
Be careful with stories about ex-girlfriends in which every former partner becomes a character called The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
She was needy.
She was jealous.
She was too emotional.
She wanted commitment.
She was always asking him where the relationship was going.
Ok this is how he, as a man, describes women. Can you also see these relationships through a woman’s eyes?
Maybe “needy” meant she had been trying to get a clear answer for two years.
Maybe “jealous” meant he kept behaving as though he were single.
Maybe “too emotional” meant she became increasingly distressed inside a relationship that never felt secure.
Maybe she wasn’t trying to drag him to meet her mother after three casual dates. Maybe they had been sleeping together for a year, spending every weekend together, and behaving like a couple—until she asked to call it one.
You don’t have to decide that she was right and he was wrong. You don’t even know her.
But you should be curious about the story you are being asked to believe. The “crazy ex-girlfriend” narrative can be especially useful to notice when you are dating emotionally unavailable partners.
When someone describes a painful relationship, listen for whether they have a role in what happened.
Can he say:
“I avoided being honest about what I wanted.”
“I stayed even though I knew I couldn’t give her what she needed.”
“I kept hoping the problem would resolve itself.”
That sounds very different from:
“She was crazy.”
A person does not need to take responsibility for everything that went wrong. But they should be able to recognize that they were an active participant in their own relationship.
If every relationship simply happened to them, pay attention.
This is where being special becomes dangerous.
You hear that his ex wanted more closeness, more consistency, or more commitment, and you think:
Well, I wouldn’t pressure him like that.
I’m much more independent.
I understand why he needs space.
She obviously didn’t know how to communicate with him.
Ok. (Beware of being influenced by the male gaze and male narrators).
Or perhaps you are currently enjoying the early stage of the same pattern.
You may feel relaxed because you haven’t needed much from him yet. You haven’t become “needy” because nothing important has been at stake. You haven’t asked for consistency, accommodation, care during a crisis, or a decision about the future.
Being easygoing is relatively easy when everything is still easy.
The more useful question is not, “Am I different from his ex?”
It is:
What happened when someone who loved him eventually needed something from him?
Here is what I mean. One of the key questions I ask as a therapist, is: have you been in therapy before and what was your experience? Sometimes it sounds helpful but not the right fit. I learnt a lot and wanted to try something different. Great.
If someone tells me they have seen several therapists and every one of them eventually misunderstood them, disappointed them, or couldn’t help them, I pay attention.
I don’t think:
Finally! They have found me. I am so much more skilled, I will become the first therapist who truly gets it.
I think:
I’m probably not that special either.
That doesn’t mean the client is wrong or impossible to help. Their previous therapists may genuinely have failed them.
But I would want us to become curious about the pattern before assuming I will somehow be special. I am not.
But let me tell you, when I have brought this example up – many clients, even therapists will say, look if I am answering honestly. I love a challenge. I will be different and things will work between us! To this I say – Bon Courage!
When you date someone, you are not only dating the version of them sitting across from you over cocktails.
You are also dating the way they handle disappointment.
The way they respond when another person needs more than they want to give.
The stories they tell themselves when someone is angry with them.
These are the things that can reveal unhealthy dating patterns long before you are ready to call them a problem.
Dating should be fun – have fun. Just don’t become so flattered by the idea that you are different that you stop listening to the information being offered.
Trusting yourself while dating means paying attention to what you are seeing, not just to the version of the relationship you hope might develop.
You may be wonderful.
You may be special.
But you are probably not so special that someone’s unresolved relational patterns will skip over you.
If you keep finding yourself trying to become the woman a difficult man will finally love properly, let’s interrupt that pattern.
Therapy can help you stop trying to be the exception, trust what you are seeing, and choose relationships in which you don’t have to be extraordinarily understanding just to be treated well. If you’re looking for dating therapy in Toronto, we can help you recognize the patterns you keep getting pulled into and make different choices.
