"The Date to Mate trap is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. OK, so it doesn't quite fit, but it's close enough." David Steele, author of Conscious Dating, Finding the Love of Your Life in Today's World.

The Date to Mate Trap is one that is easy to fall into when you are looking for a serious relationship and not just dating for fun. I have a client who called me over the weekend, very upset with the man she has been seeing for just over 3 weeks. "We went to a party on Saturday and it just didn't feel right. He said he was tired and wanted to leave around 11. He's been staying over the last few times we've been out and this time he said no he was going home! I was really upset because I was expecting him to stay over. But there are other things that bother me too. He just isn't opening himself up to me the way I want. He's not interested in my work, which is very important to me and he's not interested in any kind of spirituality either. I feel like I have to drag stuff out of him. The conversation is so superficial. I'm really frustrated with this relationship!"

She had clearly fallen into the Date to Mate Trap! The Date to Mate Trap happens when you meet someone and within a short period of time, 2-3 weeks, become a couple. You start sleeping together and it becomes almost assumed that you will spend weekends together and connect several times in between. In other words, it's like a relationship!

But the problem is you don't really know this person well enough yet for a real relationship to have developed naturally. Because you want a committed relationship, you get into one with everyone you go out with who you like, or have some things in common. This can result in needing to solve unsolveable problems. An unsolveable problem is when one of your requirements or needs cannot be met in this relationship. Yet you have already, prematurely, decided to make this relationship work. This results in a lot of frustration for both people and usually leads to relationship failure.

In my Soulmate Success Training, I help you identify your requirements, needs and wants very clearly. When you uncover what's usually hidden, that is, what are those things that really allow you to be your best self and feel loved and cared for in a relationship, when you know that, you can then use that information to test a potential partner while you are dating, before you actually get into an relationship. Then you will not be tempted to try and form a relationship with everyone you go out with to see if it works. You have a method, a system that allows you to date consciously and avoid the heartache and frustration of trying to make a relationship work.

Karen, my client, had taken Soulmate Success Training, so I asked her which one of her requirements was she ignoring in an effort to make this relationship work. She was stunned! She hadn't realized that she was doing that! I also asked her how she had managed to let herself get carried away so quickly after only a few weeks. It turned out that the Chemistry Trap was playing here too.

As we talked, Karen began to see that John did not fit all her requirements. He fit most of them and many of her needs and quite a few of her wants, which were just icing on the cake, but without all her requirements in place she was running up against some unsolveable problems which were causing her a lot of anguish.

Now that she saw what was happening, it was easy to decide what to do. She realized that John was not a fit long term. She could date him for fun, which means not be exclusive and probably forego the sleepovers, or she could let him go and move on, thereby being available for the one who would fit all her requirements. Either way she knew she had to talk with him and let him know what was going on for her. That's what being a conscious dater is all about. The other person is not wrong for not being able to meet your requirements and needs and you are not wrong for having those particular requirements and needs. It just isn't a fit.