The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast
The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast
Episode 20: Setting Healthy Dating Boundaries
In Episode 20 of The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast, Cristina Gonzalez discusses the importance of setting healthy boundaries in dating. Drawing from her own experiences, she emphasizes self-reflection, communication, and respect for both one's own boundaries and those of others. Cristina shares personal stories, such as avoiding physical contact on first dates and ensuring safety by meeting in public places, to illustrate how setting boundaries helped her date confidently. She also highlights the significance of listening to and respecting partners' boundaries, using her relationship with Ryan as an example. This episode aims to provide plus-size women with practical advice on creating a fun and fulfilling dating life while maintaining their comfort and safety.
00:00 Introduction to The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast
00:09 Cristina's Personal Dating Journey
00:49 Setting Healthy Dating Boundaries
01:51 Self-Reflection and Communicating Boundaries
02:04 Examples of Personal Boundaries
06:10 Respecting Others' Boundaries
06:39 Exclusive Dating: A Personal Experience
12:29 The Importance of Saying 'No'
13:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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You are listening to The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast Episode 20 Setting Healthy Dating Boundaries. Hi, I'm Cristina. After 10 years of dating, I was tired of attracting the wrong type of guys and thinking I had to lose weight to find love. I finally figured out how to date and I found the love I thought I would never find each week. I'll teach you dating advice, share dating stories and help you ditch the dating drama. My goal is to help you have fun and create the life you love. If you're ready to take your dating to another level, then listen up and let's go. Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 20 of The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast. I'm Cristina Gonzalez, and I help plus size women learn how to date confidently. Today we are going to talk about three ways to set healthy boundaries when you're dating. When I started dating, I didn't really have a lot of experience of what I wanted and what I didn't want. It took a while and I went through unpleasant dating experiences because I didn't know how to speak up for myself. I was just trying to be nice and ran into not the best of situations when it came to dating. I am a big believer in knowing what you want expressing it and talking about it. I am a recovering people pleaser and have always led my life making sure everybody else was happy not being a fuss and trying to just go with the flow and it's not always in your favor to go with the flow. Sometimes it's okay to put your foot down and tell people what you want, what you don't want, and what you like and what you don't like and that's okay. So the first thing is self reflection. Know what your boundaries are and communicate them. Boundaries aren't necessarily for other people. Boundaries are for you to keep you safe. So let's say some boundaries for me that I had was I don't want to kiss on a first date. I don't know you well enough. I'm happy to shake your hand, give you a hug, say thank you, do one of those little cheek to cheek side kisses. Anything beyond that is a little too personal for me. did I break my rules sometimes? Of course I did. Why? Because again, maybe I was a little too nice. Maybe I didn't want to say no. Maybe I wanted to break my own rule because I thought this person was really great and I wanted to give them a kiss. Okay. as long as you're happy with the decisions you're making, that's what's important. For me, to stay consistent and keep myself from getting into situations that I didn't want to get my emotions mixed up when they didn't have to. For example, if you kiss somebody and then you get all the feels and you're really excited, but they didn't feel the same way about you and something doesn't work out and you end up not talking to them. That's great to take that experience and feel those feelings. But for me, I liked to protect my feelings a little bit more and make sure that I was level headed. For me, that meant don't automatically go in with all your feelings and kiss on the first date and get all excited about things. I liked to approach things more subtly and make sure that I wasn't going all in, but that was my comfort level, so if you're an"all in" kind of gal, you do you. For me, what made me feel safe is to set the boundary of no real physical contacts like that. So that was just a little one, right? And another one would be when I go out to meet you for the first time, it's going to be in public. We're going to have coffee or go to dinner, something that's a little more controlled. I'm not exactly sure I want to go to the park with you on a first date. I'll go to a park with you on a first date if we go to a picnic or something, but I'm not gonna be running in the woods with you. That's not a good idea for me. I am not going to put myself in any situations where I would be isolated with a person, so that was a boundary for me. I wanted to make sure that I was always safe in public and I always had the opportunity to make sure there were other people there that could see if I was in any kind of danger or in distress. Those are some simple boundaries that I knew I wanted for myself and I was able to communicate them most of the time. For example, when people would give me suggestions to go on a date,"where do you want to go? do you want to go to the beach?""Sure.""Do you want to go here?""No, I would not prefer to go out of town with you.""No, I don't want to go to your apartment for the first time." I drove all the way to College Station one time to meet a friend. And he ended up being a friend. But anyways, he was like,"I'll send you my license. I'll send you a photo with my license. You can send it to a friend. I'm happy to directly send it to a friend. Here's my address." It made me feel a little bit more secure. But was it dumb? Probably. But again, to each their own, right? Whatever your comfort level is. I'm always the safety first kind of gal. I learned from my own mistakes. Thankfully in that situation, I ended up having a friend out of that. It wasn't necessarily somebody I would pursue a relationship with, but we both agreed to enjoy each other's company at a friendship level and so that was nice. So be able to communicate your boundaries and make sure that you're committing to whatever is comfortable for you. If you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, communicate that. Another thing would be to listen and respect the boundaries that other people have, If you're going to state your own boundaries it's fair to listen to theirs. Maybe they're the same boundaries and you're both at the right comfort level. Maybe you're not, but you should be mature enough to respect and listen to other people's boundaries. One example for me was with Ryan. We've been together for four years now, but when we first started dating, he was like,"when I'm getting to know you, I don't want to be talking to other people. I expect you to only talk to me when we're getting to know each other and dating." I thought that was absurd. You're not gonna tell me who I can talk to and who I can't talk to. I'm gonna talk to who I want to and if I want to talk to three dudes at one time and get to know all three and then decide which one I have the most common interest with and want to spend more time with and then ditch the other people, I'm gonna do it my way. Forget you, you can't tell me who I'm going to talk to. It was a big turnoff because, this guy's already controlling who I can talk to and I don't even know him. I've never even met him and he's here"demanding" that I talk to him and not give anybody else, the time of day, like,"who are you to be telling me that?" So I was super offended by it. But when I listened to him a little bit more, it made more sense and it did make me respect him a little more. And I agreed it was probably a good strategy to try. At that point, I had been single for nine and a half years, going on 10 years. I thought, He might be doing something right. I've been single doing my thing for nine and a half years, circle dating, getting to know multiple people at once. And why not try to focus on one person for a little bit? The worst thing that can happen is that I don't like them and say,"thank you, but no thank you." And we move on. Or he might say,"thank you, but no thank you," and move on. So what the hell, let's give it a try. And so I agreed. The reason I agreed was because he told me, I deserve to have someone exclusively pay attention to me and get to know me without distractions. If you want to get to know me and you're serious about the kind of relationship that you want and what I'm looking for, then you should be willing to understand that talking to each other exclusively for a little while to get to know each other can be important." I thought about it again, and I was like, okay, he might have something going, He might be right. Maybe it is distracting to spread my attention thin. Maybe it is okay for me to focus on someone and see what happens. There's nothing wrong with that angle. I was just thrown off by him telling me,"Oh, you shouldn't be talking to other people when you're talking to me." I was so offended at the fact that he was already telling me who I could and couldn't talk to. He wasn't being controlling, he was respecting himself and his boundary. Showing his worth by asking you to focus your attention on him for a while just to see if something can work."Give me a chance to talk to you and get to know you without distractions and if you don't like me, then stop talking to me." It wasn't a hard thing to grasp, but I didn't understand that perspective So eventually it worked because we've been together for four years. I totally see the value in focusing on one person at a time. And again, if the other person doesn't agree and the other person's like,"you're not going to tell me who to talk to," then they're not your person. Because they're not going to even take the time to consider your side of the story ever and see different perspectives. They're going to just be narrow, continuing to be set in their ways. The ability to relax and see other people's perspectives and consider it is a big step into maturity and dating because it might be worth trying. So I was really happy that I agreed to give him some time and personalize my time with him so I could see if it was worth moving on or not. I respected him a lot that he wanted to show value and focus on me in return, right? So it goes two ways. He wasn't going to be distracted talking to other people and he was gonna give me the time and the respect to get to know me exclusively and make decisions for him. It was just a beautiful thing and really nice to be able to focus. Trust me, it was not all rainbows and daisies. Me and Ryan definitely had our disagreements and our ups and downs. We didn't have the same perspectives in life at the time. We didn't have the same values. Through our life experiences. There were definitely ups and downs and serious conversations that we had to have in understanding each other. But that was the way that we were able to set the expectation by talking to each other at that simple dating level exclusively and getting to know each other. That way we were able to focus our attention and talk straight about what we wanted, what we were looking for, what we agreed with, what we were and were not willing to tolerate. It was just a really different way of dating. And I really appreciated that style and learning how to date exclusively, yet not seriously. Another thing is just being able to say,"no." If you're talking to somebody and they are going to cross your boundary, or you're not feeling comfortable, you can say,"no," and that's it. You don't owe anybody anything. You don't owe them an explanation. If you're not willing to do something,"no, I'm good. No, I don't want to kiss on a first date. I don't have physical contact with people on a first date." They don't understand and they give you a hard time? You're showing that you don't give me enough respect and you're fighting about some damn kiss. If you want to see this electricity and see our chemistry and whatever the fuck, then take me on a second date. Talk to me a little bit more and get to know me a little bit more. Respect me a little bit more where I'm comfortable. Respect my comfort level enough to just wait for a kiss. What is the big deal? It's not that the kiss is stupid. It's just the point of giving somebody enough space and respect and consider what they want. Consider their needs and be respectful of that. And that's what's most important."No," is a complete sentence and just don't be afraid to use that. So those are just a few things that help you create healthy boundaries when you are dating. Hopefully these skills will help you know what you want, become more decisive and see that you have choices. You get to have a say in who you meet who you talk to and who you want to have a relationship or partnership with just as well as they do. It's a compliment of both of you and you work together to make it work. If you're not a match, that's okay too. Take into consideration some of these boundaries and these tips so that you can use and create your own boundaries so you can start dating in a different way. Thank you guys so much for listening and I will talk to you next week.