If you’re interested in this question, it’s quite possible that someone (a partner or friend) has disappointed you and, yet again, you feel disappointed. A lot of us pride ourselves on not settling for less than we feel we deserve but does that mean that we end up too ‘picky’?

Having high expectations is often seen as a negative, as if you’re selfish, unbending or someone who takes too much. There’s always a context to this though and it may be that you have reasonable requests but a manipulative person twists these, making out that you’re needy or expecting too much from them. Still, if you often feel alone and misunderstood, it’s a good time to look at your needs and how they fit into your relationships.

There might be subconscious insecurities going on which lead you to have a long list of criteria that other people have to meet. This can lead to you being overly critical of people and if there was a need that wasn’t met in your childhood, this can be projected into your adult relationships. This shows up in your choice of partners or friends – subconsciously you want them to make up the shortfall that you experienced as a child. This is a negative self-fulfilling prophecy because it’s unlikely that anyone will be able to fulfil this for you.

Having done some soul-searching and you think that this might be the case, it’s time to try to look at things in a different way. This doesn’t mean lowering your standards so that you’re often put-upon and disrespected, but having less expectations of others might well prove a positive experience for you and them!

Try to forgive people when you feel let down by them – everyone is busy with their own lives and don’t always sense what we need at a particular time. If they’re usually there for you, recognise that they too are human and have their ‘off days’

Let yourself be more vulnerable without letting people take advantage of you. This doesn’t mean that someone has to ‘fix’ things for you, more that you’re open about some of your feelings and thoughts.

Think about the intimacy in your relationships and ask yourself if there could be more mutual sharing of confidences and feelings – open up and encourage the other person to open up too.

Do your best and hope that other people will too but try to be flexible if they can’t sometimes.

If you do all of the above and mostly it works well plus you can honestly say that you don’t expect too much, then stick with your relationship-expectations and don’t settle for less than you really want.

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