In your 20s, you navigate through crushes and heartbreaks without much guidance. Once you're older, you wish you would have had the insight and advice from someone who's been there before. Here are some dating tips to make your dating life a little bit easier before it's too late.
1. Find new places to meet people
Change up your routine and explore new hangouts. Be open to meet people wherever you go. Bars and clubs seem like an easy place to connect, but you're more likely to find a compatible mate when alcohol isn't involved.
2. Don't settle after one or two dates
You don't have to pick someone right away. Go on several dates to learn what you like and don't like in a potential mate. Make fun your first priority and love will follow. Choose someone who enjoys the same things and shares your interests. If you settle, you're leaving your perfect match still out there. Relationships are not marriages. Be less tolerant for heartache and move on.
3. Get you to know yourself
Don't be so focused on finding love that you totally forget about growing up and loving yourself. Spend your 20s finding out who your are as a person. This will make all future relationships better, because you'll who and what you want. The only way to have a healthy relationship with someone else is to have a strong sense of self and know what you bring to the table.
5. Learn from every dating experience
Every date teaches us a lot of life lessons: your deal breakers, sacrifices you're willing to make, what you like about yourself. Learn from every experience and find someone who will encourage you to grow as a person.
6. Potential soulmates are all around you
A soulmate could be your best friend, a person from a dating app or stranger behind you in line. Recognize that soulmates come in many different forms and don't always start out romantically.
7. Don't try to get all of your needs from one person
One person will never be everything you need. That's why you have friends, family and hobbies. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, including you.
8. Never compare your relationship to others
Don't be fooled by what you see on social media. People don't post what they don't want you to know. So if you compare your budding romance to others, you're not being fair to yourself. Your relationship doesn't need to progress at the same speed as anyone else's -- or even your own previous relationships.
9. Don't rush your relationship
There is no right time frame to say those three little words. Some people might wait a few months to say "I love you." Some even wait a few years. Enjoy your relationship for what it is without rushing it. If you feel that you're ready to take your relationship to the next level, take baby steps first. Talk about the future or tell the other person how strongly you feel. Once said, it can't be taken back. Another important aspect of any relationship that shouldn't be rushed? Sex. Everything is much less complicated when you aren't sleeping together.
10. Learn to love your freedom
It's really fun to be single in your 20s. You'll never get your youth back, so don't waste your them focused on a partner. Put the focus on your career and having fun with your besties instead.
If you are in your 20s and want true love someday, start dating like a grown-up now, and you are more likely to end up with "the one" when the time is right.