There is a huge difference between getting to know someone versus leading your date on.

When you first starting to get to know your date everything is new and it’s important to go in with an open mind to see if there is compatibility and chemistry there. However, after a few dates you typically know where your feelings fall towards that person and if there will be a future.

Whether it is for an ego boost or because you are lonely, leading a person on is not fair and certainly not helping you to be fully available to meet someone you’re actually interested in!

Here are 4 signs that you are leading your date on:

1. You initiate dates based on loneliness or boredom: Spending time with your date is not initiated from a place of you really wanting to spend time with that particular person but from a place of loneliness and boredom. Get a hobby, call a friend but don’t play with an innocent parties heart and head.
2. You have little to no attraction to them: A level of attraction is important to budding relationships. If after a few dates you still don’t have a building attraction to your date, yet you still continue to hang out with them, this is a clear sign you are leading them on. They deserve to have someone in their lives that feels reciprocal attraction towards them.
3. You don’t see a future, yet you continue to ask your date out: Whether you like your dates company or not, if they are not aware of your feelings about the future, you are leading them on.
4. You are just waiting for someone “better” to come along: At the end of the day, you are really just buying your time until someone you’re truly interested in comes into the picture. How horrible is that? How would you feel if you were in your dates shoes?

If you’re leading your date on, it’s important to stop immediately, communicate with them and set them free to meet someone who truly wants to be with them. Let them know how you feel, who knows, they may be content to continue hanging out on a strictly platonic basis – you can never have too many friends.

Obviously, not everyone you meet will be someone you’re attracted to, just as not everyone who meets you will be attracted to you.  Attraction is chemical, biological, it’s innate, it cannot be turned on or off at will.  When only one half of a couple feels attraction they can be blinded to the fact that the feeling is not mutual, and the longer the ‘relationship’ continues, the less likely they are to think otherwise, and the harder they’re hit when their mate finds someone else.

I realize some people have trouble ‘letting someone down,’ so they continue to accept dates from someone they’re not attracted to.  Their hearts might be in the right place, but the results are the same, there’s a word for this; tease.

Do you want to be known as a tease?  Despite the name, it’s not cute.  Being a tease becomes a part of your reputation if you do it often enough, and then you are looked upon with contempt and avoided at all costs.

Leading anyone on is extremely cruel, disrespectful and completely avoidable.  Follow the Golden Rule; Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Karma has an uncanny ability to let people reap what they sow. If you want a healthy relationship, complete with respect, commitment and integrity, you have to espouse those qualities yourself.