What do courting partners need to know about each other?

How smart is your dating and courtship process?
If you're interested in finding a life's partner, I'm going to assume you're dating or courting with this question in mind. So, how smart is your dating or courtship process? Smart Romance is all about getting the really important information--no guesswork--through experiences as a team that are fun, rewarding, and intensely practical.

So, what is the "really important information?" What are the things we all want and need to know about the person we're dating and about our relationship before we make a commitment that might spell "painful surprise" in the distant future? Let me suggest a helpful concept that I'll continue discussing through future blogs.

Life Skills
At least average competence at a variety of basic skills makes for a significantly more stable and happier long-term relationship. "Life skills" are made up of disciplines and attitudes we cultivate on the way toward adulthood. As we get good at them we use them to make us successful at the routine tasks involved in daily living. For example, making and maintaining valuable friendships is one life skill. Some people are better at this than other people, but we all need to develop an average level of competence at this. We want people we can depend on to be "in our corner" for us when we need them--and we want to show we can be there for them, too.

• How good are you at making and maintaining valuable friendships? How do you know?
  
• How good is your partner at making and maintaining valuable friendships?
• Do you make enduring enough connections with your friends that you can depend on their availability--and you're there for them--when the need arises?

You probably think you're pretty good at this life skill. I've found it's best to have more than your own personal opinion when it comes to measuring your own skills. We all have blind spots since we generally have a pretty high estimation of our abilities. So, I highly recommend you ask the people who are around you, your family and friends and colleagues, what they think of your ability to make and maintain enduring friendships. Ask each of them, "How would you rate my level of competency at making and maintaining enduring friendships on a scale from 0 to 10?"
I think you'll find this a valuable experience. Test yourself.

Can you think of some other important life skills? Stay tuned...There's more coming.