Your Standards Are Not The Problem, Your Expectations Are
LET'S TALK ABOUT IT
Your Standards Are Not The Problem, Your Expectations Are
You keep saying you have high standards. What you might actually have is a list of expectations nobody agreed to, and that is why the situationship keeps winning.
I hear it constantly. I have high standards, that is why I am still single. Maybe. Or maybe what you are calling a standard is actually an expectation, and those are two very different things wearing the same outfit.
A standard is something you hold, no matter who is in front of you. I will not be disrespected. I will not be lied to. I will not shrink myself to make somebody comfortable. Those do not move, and they do not need the other person's permission to exist.
An expectation is something you are hoping somebody else figures out on their own. He should just know I want to be called, not just texted. She should just know I need quality time, not gifts. Nobody agreed to that. Nobody signed up for reading your mind. And when they do not deliver on something they never knew they were supposed to deliver, you call it a red flag when really it was just an unspoken assumption.
Why This Keeps You In Situationships
"A standard is something you hold. An expectation is something you are hoping somebody else reads your mind about."
This is exactly how a situationship survives past its expiration date. You have real standards buried somewhere in there, but they get drowned out by a pile of unspoken expectations you never said out loud. So instead of naming what actually matters and asking for it directly, you keep hoping the person changes into someone who already knows.
They do not know. They were never told. And you stay three, six, ten months into something that was never going to become what you needed, because naming it plainly felt harder than just hoping.
The Conversation You Are Avoiding
Cutting it early is not cold. It is honest. If somebody cannot meet a real standard, something you have held for yourself no matter who you are with, that is information, and it is information you deserve to have in month one, not month eight.
But before you can cut it early, you have to know the difference between a standard and an expectation yourself. Sit down and actually write both lists. What do I hold, no matter what. What am I hoping somebody figures out without me saying it. The second list is not wrong to want. It just has to become words, out loud, early, instead of a silent test somebody is failing without knowing they are taking it.
Say It Out Loud
Here is the work. Take the expectation and turn it into a sentence you can actually say to a person's face. Not I wish he would call more. Instead, I need a phone call, not just a text, that is what quality time looks like to me. Say it in month one. Watch what they do with it. That single sentence will tell you more in one conversation than three more months of hoping ever will.
Your standards were never the problem. The silence around your expectations was. Fix that, and watch how much faster you can tell who is actually worth your time.