The Only Dating Advice You’ll Ever Need As A Woman

If you’ve ever looked back on your dating history and wondered why it never quite felt as good as it was supposed to, you’re not alone. So many women are doing everything they were told would lead to love, being patient, being “chill,” giving chances, compromising, yet still end up feeling disappointed, disconnected, or stuck in the same dating cycles.

The truth is, most dating advice given to women focuses on how to be chosen instead of how to choose well.

As a woman, your focus should be on a pleasure-centered, growth-oriented relationship—one rooted in self-worth, emotional safety, and mutual desire. And, if you take a step back and re-examine your love life and those around you that you see as thriving in romance, you’ll notice this: healthy, fulfilling relationships don’t come from luck, perfection, or pretending to be someone you’re not. They come from clarity, boundaries, and self-trust.

In this relationship guide, you’ll be given seven foundational principles that will help you stop settling, stop abandoning yourself in relationships, and start dating in a way that actually aligns with who you are and what you want.

🎥 Prefer to listen or watch instead?

I recorded a free, in-depth video that breaks this down with examples and real-life context; it's available here.

Dating Tip #1: Stop Settling For The Bare Minimum

First things first, beautiful.

Stop settling for the bare minimum and low effort in a relationship.

Ask yourself, what does a happy, healthy, and lasting relationship feel and look like for me?

Often, we get too caught up in the pursuit of a fantasy and not of a person because we’re too busy trying to cast someone as the love interest in our lives to fulfill society's expectations of what it means to live the “good life”. 

It’s those things we keep on our mental checklist of the Wishlist characteristics or preferences of what we want in a partner that are typically unactionable items that look good on paper and that we have no control over. These are the items that are not based on the feelings this person will evoke in you or add value to your life. These are the bare minimum criteria they have to meet to keep your initial attraction to them.

For example, the guy I dated, whom I swore was “the one” at one point in my life, did not go beyond my thinking that he was physically attractive, well-educated, made great money, and seemed goal-oriented and driven.

Needless to say, this checklist gave me a mindset of, okay, he checks all the boxes, so when issues arose, or I didn't feel good in our relationship, I found myself accepting anything he gave to me, which was the bare minimum he had to offer in terms of emotional connection and made me ignore any red flags he waved in my face. It kept me from closely examining whether being in a relationship with him was adding any real value to my life or how he made me feel.

And it was not good, boo.

That’s why you need a relationship rubric that clearly outlines what brings you pleasure in a relationship, what makes you feel valued, secure, loved, and respected, and what all these things look like to you as actions, not just words that can easily become empty promises a person can make to you to placate you and avoid conflict.

And the best way to develop this relationship rubric, girl, is to take the time to truly get to know and understand yourself, discover your interests, and put into perspective what you need to feel your best self and set goals to achieve your happiest and healthiest life.

Then, when you have a clear image of who you are and feel like in this season of your life, you feel like you know yourself, it’ll help you have a better understanding of your self-worth.

Self-worth is the internal sense of knowing that you’re good enough and worthy of love and belonging from others. It’s when you can recognize and identify your intrinsic value as a person, independent of others' validation.

And having good self-worth is what will keep you from accepting the bare minimum in relationships because you’re assigning your own value and not allowing others to do it for you. If you don’t have the knowledge that you’re the damn prize, many people will treat you like you’re not. 

When you put in the work of getting to know yourself and understanding your worth, it makes it easier to stand on business and teach people how to treat you by showing them with your actions that you are unwilling to accept the bare minimum from them in a relationship.

Dating Tip #2: Stop Pretending To Be The “Cool Girl”

To truly enjoy a relationship and ensure it thrives, continues, and grows in a positive direction, and to maintain its longevity, you have to show up as your most authentic self from start to finish.

Which brings me to our next topic. Stop pretending to be the “cool girl” you think your partner will want you to be in a relationship.

Many heterosexual cisgender women adopt the role of “cool girl” in the early stages of a relationship to appear more appealing to romantic prospects and fit societal expectations of “feminine energy.”

This is supposedly every heterosexual cisgender man with “masculine energy” dream woman. It’s the woman who’s low maintenance, super chill and laid back, is always bubbly and happy, never gets angry, always up for whatever, whenever, and willing to cater to her partner's version of a good time, and loves whatever her partner enjoys. They achieve all these things typically at the expense of their true and most authentic self, burn out, and end up hating themselves, and begin resenting their relationship and partner.

By adopting the persona of the cool girl, you're doing a disservice to yourself and your partner by building an unsustainable relationship based on a web of lies.

Then, when you adopt this disingenuous persona and wear this mask, you’ve created a rocky foundation for this relationship. You inevitably feel that if you do anything outside the scope of this image, you won’t be valued or loved for simply being you, which is why it’s important to know yourself and understand your worth.

That’s why when problems arise, you don’t feel comfortable communicating, openly and honestly, about what you need to be happy in this relationship, causing you to lose your true identity and stay in a place in your life where you’re absolutely miserable with a person that if you probably closely examined your compatibility with them, you probably wouldn’t even want this relationship long term, anyways. And unfortunately, before you know it, you’ve lost your separate identity from this person and your voice.

Pretending to be a “cool girl” doesn’t allow your partner to create the environment you need to communicate your true feelings and leaves them feeling confused about why you have an issue with anything they wouldn’t consider a problem.

The biggest way to avoid falling into the trap of becoming a cool girl is not only to know who you are and understand your worth, but to be okay with not being liked by everyone.

Consider relationship compatibility, like choosing a favorite ice cream. People are like ice cream: we all come in different varieties, which means we each have acquired tastes. Therefore, you must not look at compatibility as a competition but as looking for the person who will see you as that favorite delicious ice cream flavor, the ice cream flavor they’d find comfort in and seek out on their worst day, enjoy experiencing and view as a treat on their best day, and feel as if that flavor were discontinued they’d be robbed of some form of joy in life.

Dating Tip #3: Stick To Your Dealbreakers

If you’re going on a date after date, feeling like you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, or find yourself trapped in relationships where you feel like a person is just wasting your time. You can’t figure out how you keep ending up with these partners, where nothing seems to click between you all, then let me ask you this question:

What are your dealbreakers?

Dealbreakers are pertinent in dating and relationships because they are specific qualities, behaviors, or circumstances that a person cannot overlook or accept in a partner(s), leading to a decision not to pursue or continue a relationship. Typically, in relationships, dealbreakers are essentially non-negotiables that, when present, signal the end of the potential for an ongoing partnership.

It’s important to know and understand your dealbreakers because these help you set clear boundaries in your relationship.

Also, it’s just as vital not only to know and understand your dealbreakers but to communicate them clearly and confidently to your romantic partners and stick to them.

This no-go list is things that you shouldn’t emotionally exhaust yourself trying to get someone to adhere to. These are not things that you compromise on to save a relationship because if you compromise on them, it will be at the expense of your happiness and well-being and can you truly see yourself in a happy, lasting relationship with someone who didn’t respect a boundary of yours that they actively knew if they violated you’d take it as a cue to end the relationship?

Trust me, I understand creating dealbreakers, setting boundaries, and taking measures to show someone that you won’t stand for them showing blatant disregard for these non-negotiables is incredibly hard.

If you’re sitting here confused and trying to rack your brain to answer this question, girl, you aren’t alone. And not being able to rattle off your dealbreakers instantly might be why you’re having more dating fails than you care to count.

Therefore, if you find yourself out here shooting your shot at your relationship goals but always feel like you’re missing the mark, then honey, dealbreakers may be the key to that missing piece you need to help you stop feeling like you’re unlucky in love.

Check out this unmissable relationship discussion, Dealbreakers and Dream Dates with the fabulous Lauren, a licensed mental health counselor and intimacy coach, and I will have a raw and real conversation on how to sift through the blehs and mehs to find your hell yesss, create that no-go list, and set love life goals that actually feel like you.

Lauren, LMHC, Relationship & Intimacy Coach and founder of Oh Yeah Coaching, will share the juiciest tidbits to transform your approach to dating with confidence, fun, and a touch of sexy sophistication. Tune into this chat to get all your burning questions about dating dealbreakers answered.

Now, let’s continue to the next dating gem.

Dating Tip #4: Stop Putting Yourself On The Backburner

After a breakup, have you experienced the feeling as if you lost a part of yourself, or you don’t even know who you are anymore?

It’s because you’re not maintaining your independence in a relationship and putting yourself on the back burner for your partner.

And girl, you don’t deserve to be a backburner bitch for anyone, especially yourself.

I’m here to tell you that there are a ton of bull shit things people say about relationships and partnerships, but two big ones among a list of many are that you need to find someone who completes you and you should spend most of your time with a partner.

One, it’s more important to view yourself as a complete person independent of others and understand that if you're learning, you’re evolving, and you can still feel complete even if, on most days, you feel like a work in progress because, in all honesty, we all are works in progress.

Therefore, it’s important to find someone who can help you evolve and grow with you.

Two, it’s good to have some distance from your partner in a relationship. We all need alone time, as we expend a lot of emotional energy in life, and our energy is our currency. Also, it’s irrational to believe that you and your partner will always like the same things, and you should not let someone’s want not to do something keep you from experiencing new things or doing what brings you pleasure.

Maintaining your independence in a relationship helps keep it fresh and happy, and keeps everyone involved and grounded. A relationship is not about losing yourself to someone else, but about sharing your whole self with each other. Keep up with your hobbies and passions, and continue to cultivate friendships and family relationships.

Also, a key to a healthy relationship is that it consists of people practicing healthy habits, including loving and caring for themselves. Allowing self-love and self-care practices to fall by the wayside can turn a once-enjoyable relationship into a burden and a source of life dissatisfaction, as you have nothing outside it to balance your energy, and we all need balance in life.

It’s important to remember that the most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself, and the greatest love of your life should be you. If you love yourself, it will radiate out, and in order to get people to show up for you how you want them to, you must first and foremost show up for yourself in that manner.

Dating Tip # 5: Stop Being A Lovesick Fool

One of the best pieces of advice I was fortunate to receive early in life is not to make rash decisions based on feelings and emotions because feelings and emotions are subject to change.

Love is a set of emotions and behaviors characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment, and these emotions and behaviors can change for you or your partner(s) at any given time.

So, stop acting like a lovesick fool in a relationship and explaining away destructive behaviors or ignoring red flags, all in the name of love.

It’s vital to balance your heart and your head when in a romantic, intimate, or sexual relationship.

While it’s important to embrace vulnerability to allow someone into your world to deepen your connection in a relationship and support you in your highest high and lowest low, you should never ignore that gut feeling or intuition that something isn’t right. You must listen to logic when making relationship decisions and not let your emotions override rational thinking.

Also, ladies, please don’t get dickmatized and allow yourself to become delusional over a man.

Sex is a skill, and you can teach others to please you in the bedroom. So, don’t allow yourself to become overly infatuated or blinded by sexual attraction to a partner(s) to the point where you overlook critical red flags in relationships. Rely heavily on prioritizing your self-awareness, setting clear boundaries, and cultivating an emotional connection with people to avoid the trap of falling into that toxic cycle of fighting, fucking, forgiveness, and forgetting.

Above all else, you can combat becoming a fool in the name of love by always choosing yourself, dignity, and self-respect. If you feel like someone’s actions are making you choose between them and these things, then that relationship isn’t worth it.

Dating Tip #6: Stop Dating The Same People

Do you find yourself feeling like you’re dating the same person over and over again?

It’s like every time you get into a relationship with different people, and certain events begin to occur, you start to feel like, in the words of the iconic Taylor Swift, “you’ve seen this movie time and time again, but you didn’t like the ending”.

I have encountered many women in my line of work who always tell me all my boyfriends end up cheating on me, or all I end up dating are men who don’t prioritize my feelings or well-being.

And I ask them, well, what do you think is the common denominator or reasoning that this continues to happen?

While no one deserves to be cheated on or treated like shit, and while we can’t always choose who we love, we can, however, choose our partners and the type of love that we’re willing to accept.

The one common denominator as to why these women are getting with the same type of man is themselves. If you find yourself dating the same person just with different faces and getting the same shitty result, it’s because you’re not learning from past relationships.

And I think part of that reasoning is that people don’t want to take the time to examine past relationships because they don’t want to revisit relationship failures or feelings of rejection. This suggests you need to reflect on how you perceive relationship failures and feelings of rejection in a way that you’re not internalizing them as negative things that reflect poorly on you. You need to stop fixating on it in a way that leads to self-deprecating thoughts that there must be something intrinsically wrong with you.

You are worthy and deserving of a great love story, but what’s stopping you from finding the person who will make you feel that way is seeking out the same partner with a different face, looking for a successful outcome to validate that you weren’t the problem or reason your past relationships failed.

When you get to a place of healing and can think clearly after a breakup, it’s vital to reflect on previous relationships not as a failure and a reason you’re unworthy of love but as lessons that guide you to finding what you truly want in a relationship, as well as, figuring out things about yourself that you might need to work on or unpack.

Part of digging deep and reflecting on past relationships is holding yourself accountable for any role you played in a relationship that didn't work, or for staying in one that no longer served you. As human beings, we are as flawed as we are beautiful. We often get in our own way, especially in situations where vulnerability, high levels of emotional intelligence, and strong communication are required to thrive, such as in romantic and intimate relationships.

Dating Tip # 7: Savor Every Date

So, a new dating trend that I’ve seen making its rounds on social media is people who sit down on the first date and unload on their date what they bring to the table, and dive headfirst into the deep end of the pool with expectations, rules, and things they don’t like.

And this gives me icky vibes.

While yes, I agree, you should use a first date or a meet-up as a vetting process, and yes you do need to set boundaries and communicate wants, desires, and goals openly and honestly; however, you don’t need to have people showing up for a first date feeling like they’re on a job interview and need to give you, personal references, a resume, and their social security number for a background check.

This brings me to why I think it’s important not to just fall into the trap of jumping on the bandwagon of trending topics like intentional dating and adopting others' definitions of what that means.

You need to sit down and ask yourself what it means for me to date with intention.

This can change at every stage of life and should be practical for whatever season of life you’re currently in.

Dating should feel like the opposite of work. It should be a fun and enjoyable experience, a great way to meet new people and learn about yourself.

Also, not everyone you date has to be looked at as a potential person you’re going to marry.

And you’re not broken or wrong if dating with intent looks different for you than those around you, because everyone’s dating journey is unique and different.

Don’t rush into things. Focus on enjoying the time you spend on the date and the lessons you can learn from every dating experience or person you date. 

Choosing Yourself Is the Real Dating Strategy

If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this dating advice, it’s this:

The most fulfilling relationships aren’t built on chasing, proving, or shrinking yourself to fit someone else’s expectations. They’re built on self-knowledge, self-respect, and the courage to walk away from what doesn’t honor you.

When you know yourself deeply, your needs, your boundaries, your desires, dating stops feeling like a gamble and starts feeling intentional, grounded, and even enjoyable. You begin to attract partners who reflect your self-worth, respect your boundaries, and provide emotional safety rather than confusion or chaos.

Every date, every connection, every heartbreak teaches you something valuable about what you need and what you deserve. None of it is wasted — it’s all information guiding you closer to the love you want to experience, starting with the relationship you have with yourself.

And if you’re ready to go further, to rebuild your confidence, reconnect with your desire, and create relationships that feel as good as they look, my courses, stories, and community at Lala’s Bedtime Tales were created with you in mind.

Remember:

You’re not behind. You’re not broken.
You’re learning how to choose yourself, and that’s where everything changes.

The most important dating advice a woman will ever be given is to choose self-worth, self-respect, and healthier romantic relationships. Lala's Bedtime Tales’ mission is to provide a safe, judgment-free space to educate you about sexual health & wellness. The Sexual Health & Wellness corner will feature monthly articles dedicated to continuing education on living a positive, sexually healthy lifestyle. Subscribe to Lala's Bedtime Tales Newsletter and follow @LalasBedtimeTales on social media to never miss any sexual education to help you live the healthiest life possible. Also, check out Lala's Bedtime Tales Podcast and Lala's Oh So Exclusive Patreon account for even more content! If you’re browsing for sexy pleasure products or cute giftable items, then check out Lala’s Pleasure Shop.

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