“People don’t seem to want to commit anymore,” a friend told me recently. “Everybody is assuming the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. They are constantly looking for the next best thing. It’s like people are addicted to dating but are too scared to make a commitment to one person.” While I do not agree with all my friend’s statements, I can understand why my friend came to that observation. In this post modern age we have significantly more choices available to us than ever before. This is especially true when it comes to dating and relationships. But is causal dating surpassing commitment?
What is casual dating? For men, casual dating is all about scoring and incurring sexual encounters. For women, casual dating is about getting something from a man, whether that is emotional or material. If we are to liken casual dating to a food and diet casual dating is like constantly eating high sugar candy. Sure, the candy tastes great and can even provide a temporary emotional and physical lift. But, as we all know, candy provides zero nutritional benefit and does little to actually alleviate real hunger and it can actually be harmful to a person’s health if they consume candy and treats with high amounts of sugar regularly over a period of time. Casual dating provides a temporary high, but it leaves a person still longing within for something they cannot quite put their finger on.
And casual dating is rising in popularity. We see this reflected in the media with films and books such as “He’s Just Not That into You” and “What Men Really Want.” The most frequently asked questions of dating and relationship coaches have to do with breaking free from the cycle of dating and finding commitment. If casual dating is so unfulfilling in the long term then why do people keep partaking in it? The answer involves several factors. Our influences about relationships and commitment may have begun even before we were old enough to start dating. With the enormous increase of divorce over the past decades many individuals were unable to see success with their parents. It created a fear of commitment and a negative belief that commitment causes a person to get hurt. Casual dating is used as a way to protect our soft side, to prevent being hurt. In the long run, casual dating does exactly that. A person who cannot overcome the addiction of casual dating will eventually hurt themselves because they have pushed away opportunity after opportunity to not only have an amazing relationship with another person, but also with themselves. They push away healing and limit themselves to mediocrity in love.
An even larger factor is we now live in a society that constantly seeks quick fixes and easy solutions to all our problems and desires. We have fast food, high speed Internet service with just a finger tap on your cell phone screen, and business services that regularly market themselves as being fast and convenient. As a society we have become so conditioned to this easy and fast access that we expect the same in our love life. We want the perfect relationship quickly and want is to come about easily. What many do not understand is love takes time to develop. It takes six months of consistent training to develop a muscle in the body. The same is true of love.
My advice to those who want to break free of the dating cycle and find a committed relationship is to stop casual dating entirely. Casual dating is like trying to drive a car while pushing on the gas and brake pedals at the same time. When it comes to business and our professional life we spend at least two to four years in college studying. We take great attention and care to our resumes. And if a person owns their own business they spend countless hours making their business the very best it can be while reaching as much of its target audience as possible. Why are we not putting this same effort and devotion into our love lives? Each of us should take time to develop that magnetism and personal power required to find that ideal partner. All of us crave love and it is why it so easy to fall into the trap of casual dating. But each of us also deserves to discover our personal best and find that love within so that you can attract the kind of relationship you long for.
This does not mean that you should avoid dating entirely. In fact, dating and matchmaking websites can actually be helpful once you have taken the time to develop personally to erase the bad programming and create new blueprints within yourself. It is imperative that you put in the work on yourself first before approaching any new dating or relationship situation. Yoga is all about working on yourself first so that you can be the best you, not only to find that ideal relationship, but especially for yourself and your inner bliss and peace.
"It is about learning to love from the inside out. Yes a big part of the book is about Yoga, but the core message of it , is learning to and how to love yourself on the inside. It emphasizes so much on focusing on yourself, that is such a refreshing perspective on relationships.” Paulina D, San Diego, CA
"The core message of the book is before you unite with someone try to unite with yourself. It is learning about yourself, finding yourself and then if you choose to you can find love on the outside . The book gives ways to do just that in simple step by step way.” 
"Yoga is a life long process and the goal of life is self exploration. The book inspires me to make myself whole, integrated, to feel complete unto myself. Once I do that , I will attract a holistic, integrated person who is a totality of himself, which is how a relationship is supposed to be.” 
"Yoga is love, love is Yoga. It is not a relationship book, it is not just a love book, it is a lifestyle book. It is educational, informative, a message that everybody can apply. It teaches you how to be a better person, so that you don’t just find the love of your life but learn to have better relationships with everyone.” 