As a girl with naturally, curly hair that gets tamed with my flat iron daily– I was nervous about how any of my boyfriends would perceive me having seen me with my normal, cute hair to seeing me with my natural locks of a fried-out fro pre-straightening procedure. The same used to hold true with me sans make-up, as well as being bloated and miserable (yep, during my visit with Aunt Flo). Thankfully, after the first couple weeks of being with my current boyfriend, he was able to see me with my hair in a blown-out fro, with clips separating the hair for straightening. I was running late in getting ready and he saw me before I was a finished product and made no deal out of it. In fact, after I told him, “Oh this is my rockin’ fro”, he laughed and said, “Wow! Cool!”

Aside from physical appearances, it’s also important to be able to submit all sides of your personality into the relationship. I’m not accusing anyone of having multiple-personalities, but it’s just a known fact that we reflect different aspects of our personality depending on the company we keep. I know that with my family and boyfriend, I have no reservations to my personality, everything is what it is. With my friends, I am myself with an amplified goofy side. With my co-workers, I am a much more reserved self with a good sense of humor. Around strangers, I am a respectable self, reserved, and polite. If you consider yourself in different social settings, you may realize there is your formal and informal personality that you tend to lean towards in different occasions. It’s important that you allow your significant other to see all of these different sides of you, and that you see all of their different sides, too! If you are comfortable enough, this will eventually happen without you even realizing it.

It’s also important to be yourself in regards to what makes you unique. I know that far too often, people will assimilate to the likes/dislikes, hobbies, and interests of their mate. While it’s not necessarily a bad thing to adopt some of the same interests (which will inevitably happen as you start to share some of your life with each other), it becomes a problem when you like every single thing that they like just to ensure that they like you. It’s a proven fact that people do not like to date themselves, that’s where the old saying Opposites Attract comes into play. Take for example if you find yourself liking every single thing that your current boyfriend likes– I like to call this a Runaway Bride Dilemma (that really cute movie with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere). Basically, Julia Roberts plays a woman who dates many different guys and goes up to the alter just to realize that she cannot marry them because she’s never been herself around them. If you can’t be yourself when dating your mate, then do you really see that relationship going anywhere? Especially if you pretend to like something that you’ve never really liked just to seem more desirable (bad idea).

In summary, just be yourself. It will get you to the right places and perhaps even keep you out of the wrong.

In general, you should never go into a relationship with the expectations of being able to change the other person. It’s one thing to think you’d like to replace that raggedy old baseball cap with a new one, but definitely another to assume that you can change their behavior patterns, attitudes, beliefs and convictions. This reminds me of the latest season of Flavor of Love (yes- I’m guilty of watching that show), in which Prototype sees Flav smoking and drinking and she is uncomfortable with that and choses to leave, which he honored and respected her honesty. This is the sort of stuff that should happen MORE often. If you don’t like the fact that the boy you are interested in is an atheist when you are a southern baptist– don’t go into the relationship with the assumption that you change who they are to better suit you. It’s important to like the person for who they are, and if you can manage to convert them on their own accord– great for you, but do not make it top priority.

Again, this especially pertains to important issues, which can also include their behavior: smoking, excessive drinking, excessive partying– but also their psychological behavior: unwillingness to further their career, lack of direction, lack of motivation. These are things that some people may never change, and you must be prepared to accept that.

A lot of people may think that this is something insignificant, and I will agree that to some people this doesn’t pertain to as much as it does to others. If you aren’t close to your family, and honestly don’t care what they think about you then this need not apply. But if you are a person who is very close to their family and friends, it should be taken into consideration how well your mate will fit in. Granted, I believe that it is unacceptable and ridiculous if your family completely dictates how you live your adult life– but if they tell you that your mate may not be for you, or if they just flat out don’t like them…take that into consideration. Your family loves you, they would never want to hurt you and they especially don’t want to see you get hurt, so while their advice to you may be hurtful, try to take it into logical consideration, or have an open conversation with them about it; you may be overlooking something.

As far as your friends getting along with your mate is concerned, just think of the Beatles and the new terminology of someone being a “Yoko Ono”. Basically, if someone calls you or your mate a Yoko, they are saying that they are splitting you up from your friends. Obviously, when you start dating someone new you are going to naturally devote a little more time to them because you’re excited and it’s new…but you cannot forget your friends. This rule applies to both men and women, but in different ways. Your girlfriends will gossip about your new man with you, and you probably want that gossip to be all good things– not how much of a jerk he is. And with your dudes, guys don’t want to feel threatened by the new lady-friend. She doesn’t have to be one the guys, but it’s definitely a plus for her to be “cool” with them.

Again, this is only as important as your friends and family are to you. Though their advice and persistent urging for you to kick their butt to the curb may be hurtful, take it into consideration for one simple reason: your friends and family love you and don’t want to see you get hurt.

In a perfect world, and in my case (ha!), your boyfriend/girlfriend would be your best friend and your mate. But in today’s world of friends with benefits, just friends, bang buddies(which I am totally against), and flings… sometimes the line can get a little hazy. I have had boyfriends before that after having broken up with them, I realized that we were always better off just friends and that the care and love that we had for each other was purely on a platonic level. This is a double-ended sword at times because a lot of people will not date their friends stating, “they don’t want to lose that friendship”, and in some instances I agree, but in others I feel like you can just further that friendship into a beautiful relationship.

The best way to determine this is to start out as friends and if you both feel the timing is right, start casually dating and see if that is weird or not. If it’s great, then keep on furthering that into the next level and then the next level and if your feelings get more complex, you’re beyond that point of just friends. Some of the best relationships are built on friendships, just make sure that you are in the right situation together and that feelings are always mutual (you don’t want one person secretly freaking out about everything, but not saying anything because they’re terrified of losing their friend!)

If early on (especially very early on) you notice things that you aren’t comfortable with, or that you two just aren’t able to work out — take it for what it is, a warning sign. An example of this being that I used to date a guy who in the beginning of our relationship, would incessantly reminisce about his ex-girlfriend and compare my every move to her. At first, I assumed that he was just getting over her…but then when he left me to go back to her, I realized that I should have paid attention to the red flag and left him way before he could do the same to me! Warning signs come in many different shapes and forms, but are obvious if you are paying attention. Another warning sign would be if you always seem to come back to one topic of debate during an argument that you just can’t seem to see eye-to-eye on. You should also take notice of warning signs in behavior, such as your mate frequently getting blackout drunk and having no remorse (or recollection) for the event.

Warning signs and red flags aren’t about being paranoid, it’s just about being observant of human interaction and behavior. If you notice constant, unchanging behavior or circumstances that make you upset– consider the direction of the relationship and if it’s worth going through it.