November 19, 2024 • 14 mins
In Episode 20 of The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast, Cristina Gonzalez discusses the importance of setting healthy boundaries in dating. Drawing from her own experiences, she emphasizes self-reflection, communication, and respect for both one's own boundaries and those of others. Cristina shares personal stories, such as avoiding physical contact on first dates and ensuring safety by meeting in public places, to illustrate how setting boundaries helped her date confidently. She also highlights the significance of listening to and respecting partners' boundaries, using her relationship with Ryan as an example. This episode aims to provide plus-size women with practical advice on creating a fun and fulfilling dating life while maintaining their comfort and safety.
00:00 Introduction to The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast
00:09 Cristina's Personal Dating Journey
00:49 Setting Healthy Dating Boundaries
01:51 Self-Reflection and Communicating Boundaries
02:04 Examples of Personal Boundaries
06:10 Respecting Others' Boundaries
06:39 Exclusive Dating: A Personal Experience
12:29 The Importance of Saying 'No'
13:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Consultation Call: https://calendly.com/cristinacoaches/discovery-session
FREE Curvy Girl Dating Checklist: https://thecurvygirldatingcoach.myflodesk.com/datingchecklist
Website: https://www.thecurvygirldatingcoach.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Cristina (00:00):
You are listening to The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast
Episode 20 Setting HealthyDating Boundaries.
Hi, I'm Cristina.
After 10 years of dating, I wastired of attracting the wrong
type of guys and thinking I hadto lose weight to find love.
I finally figured out how todate and I found the love I
thought I would never find eachweek.
(00:22):
I'll teach you dating advice,share dating stories and help
you ditch the dating drama.
My goal is to help you have funand create the life you love.
If you're ready to take yourdating to another level, then
listen up and let's go.
Hello, everyone.
Welcome to episode 20 of TheCurvy Girl Dating Podcast.
(00:43):
I'm Cristina Gonzalez, and Ihelp plus size women learn how
to date confidently.
Today we are going to talk aboutthree ways to set healthy
boundaries when you're dating.
When I started dating, I didn'treally have a lot of experience
of what I wanted and what Ididn't want.
(01:04):
It took a while and I wentthrough unpleasant dating
experiences because I didn'tknow how to speak up for myself.
I was just trying to be nice andran into not the best of
situations when it came todating.
I am a big believer in knowingwhat you want expressing it and
(01:24):
talking about it.
I am a recovering people pleaserand have always led my life
making sure everybody else washappy not being a fuss and
trying to just go with the flowand it's not always in your
favor to go with the flow.
Sometimes it's okay to put yourfoot down and tell people what
(01:45):
you want, what you don't want,and what you like and what you
don't like and that's okay.
So the first thing is selfreflection.
Know what your boundaries areand communicate them.
Boundaries aren't necessarilyfor other people.
Boundaries are for you to keepyou safe.
So let's say some boundaries forme that I had was I don't want
(02:11):
to kiss on a first date.
I don't know you well enough.
I'm happy to shake your hand,give you a hug, say thank you,
do one of those little cheek tocheek side kisses.
Anything beyond that is a littletoo personal for me.
did I break my rules sometimes?
Of course I did.
Why?
Because again, maybe I was alittle too nice.
(02:33):
Maybe I didn't want to say no.
Maybe I wanted to break my ownrule because I thought this
person was really great and Iwanted to give them a kiss.
Okay.
as long as you're happy with thedecisions you're making, that's
what's important.
For me, to stay consistent andkeep myself from getting into
(02:53):
situations that I didn't want toget my emotions mixed up when
they didn't have to.
For example, if you kisssomebody and then you get all
the feels and you're reallyexcited, but they didn't feel
the same way about you andsomething doesn't work out and
you end up not talking to them.
That's great to take thatexperience and feel those
(03:17):
feelings.
But for me, I liked to protectmy feelings a little bit more
and make sure that I was levelheaded.
For me, that meant don'tautomatically go in with all
your feelings and kiss on thefirst date and get all excited
about things.
I liked to approach things moresubtly and make sure that I
(03:42):
wasn't going all in, but thatwas my comfort level, so if
you're an"all in" kind of gal,you do you.
For me, what made me feel safeis to set the boundary of no
real physical contacts likethat.
So that was just a little one,right?
And another one would be when Igo out to meet you for the first
(04:04):
time, it's going to be inpublic.
We're going to have coffee or goto dinner, something that's a
little more controlled.
I'm not exactly sure I want togo to the park with you on a
first date.
I'll go to a park with you on afirst date if we go to a picnic
or something, but I'm not gonnabe running in the woods with
you.
That's not a good idea for me.
(04:25):
I am not going to put myself inany situations where I would be
isolated with a person, so thatwas a boundary for me.
I wanted to make sure that I wasalways safe in public and I
always had the opportunity tomake sure there were other
people there that could see if Iwas in any kind of danger or in
(04:45):
distress.
Those are some simple boundariesthat I knew I wanted for myself
and I was able to communicatethem most of the time.
For example, when people wouldgive me suggestions to go on a
date,"where do you want to go?
do you want to go to the beach?""Sure.""Do you want to go here?"
"No, I would not prefer to goout of town with you.""No, I
(05:08):
don't want to go to yourapartment for the first time." I
drove all the way to CollegeStation one time to meet a
friend.
And he ended up being a friend.
But anyways, he was like,"I'llsend you my license.
I'll send you a photo with mylicense.
You can send it to a friend.
I'm happy to directly send it toa friend.
(05:29):
Here's my address." It made mefeel a little bit more secure.
But was it dumb?
Probably.
But again, to each their own,right?
Whatever your comfort level is.
I'm always the safety first kindof gal.
I learned from my own mistakes.
Thankfully in that situation, Iended up having a friend out of
(05:49):
that.
It wasn't necessarily somebody Iwould pursue a relationship
with, but we both agreed toenjoy each other's company at a
friendship level and so that wasnice.
So be able to communicate yourboundaries and make sure that
you're committing to whatever iscomfortable for you.
If you feel uncomfortable orunsafe, communicate that.
(06:11):
Another thing would be to listenand respect the boundaries that
other people have, If you'regoing to state your own
boundaries it's fair to listento theirs.
Maybe they're the sameboundaries and you're both at
the right comfort level.
Maybe you're not, but you shouldbe mature enough to respect and
(06:35):
listen to other people'sboundaries.
One example for me was withRyan.
We've been together for fouryears now, but when we first
started dating, he was like,"when I'm getting to know you, I
don't want to be talking toother people.
I expect you to only talk to mewhen we're getting to know each
other and dating." I thoughtthat was absurd.
(06:57):
You're not gonna tell me who Ican talk to and who I can't talk
to.
I'm gonna talk to who I want toand if I want to talk to three
dudes at one time and get toknow all three and then decide
which one I have the most commoninterest with and want to spend
more time with and then ditchthe other people, I'm gonna do
it my way.
Forget you, you can't tell mewho I'm going to talk to.
(07:18):
It was a big turnoff because,this guy's already controlling
who I can talk to and I don'teven know him.
I've never even met him and he'shere"demanding" that I talk to
him and not give anybody else,the time of day, like,"who are
you to be telling me that?" So Iwas super offended by it.
But when I listened to him alittle bit more, it made more
(07:40):
sense and it did make me respecthim a little more.
And I agreed it was probably agood strategy to try.
At that point, I had been singlefor nine and a half years, going
on 10 years.
I thought, He might be doingsomething right.
I've been single doing my thingfor nine and a half years,
(08:01):
circle dating, getting to knowmultiple people at once.
And why not try to focus on oneperson for a little bit?
The worst thing that can happenis that I don't like them and
say,"thank you, but no thankyou." And we move on.
Or he might say,"thank you, butno thank you," and move on.
So what the hell, let's give ita try.
(08:23):
And so I agreed.
The reason I agreed was becausehe told me, I deserve to have
someone exclusively payattention to me and get to know
me without distractions.
If you want to get to know meand you're serious about the
(08:44):
kind of relationship that youwant and what I'm looking for,
then you should be willing tounderstand that talking to each
other exclusively for a littlewhile to get to know each other
can be important." I thoughtabout it again, and I was like,
okay, he might have somethinggoing, He might be right.
(09:06):
Maybe it is distracting tospread my attention thin.
Maybe it is okay for me to focuson someone and see what happens.
There's nothing wrong with thatangle.
I was just thrown off by himtelling me,"Oh, you shouldn't be
(09:27):
talking to other people whenyou're talking to me." I was so
offended at the fact that he wasalready telling me who I could
and couldn't talk to.
He wasn't being controlling, hewas respecting himself and his
boundary.
Showing his worth by asking youto focus your attention on him
for a while just to see ifsomething can work.
(09:50):
"Give me a chance to talk to youand get to know you without
distractions and if you don'tlike me, then stop talking to
me." It wasn't a hard thing tograsp, but I didn't understand
that perspective So eventuallyit worked because we've been
together for four years.
I totally see the value infocusing on one person at a
(10:16):
time.
And again, if the other persondoesn't agree and the other
person's like,"you're not goingto tell me who to talk to," then
they're not your person.
Because they're not going toeven take the time to consider
your side of the story ever andsee different perspectives.
They're going to just be narrow,continuing to be set in their
(10:37):
ways.
The ability to relax and seeother people's perspectives and
consider it is a big step intomaturity and dating because it
might be worth trying.
So I was really happy that Iagreed to give him some time and
(10:59):
personalize my time with him soI could see if it was worth
moving on or not.
I respected him a lot that hewanted to show value and focus
on me in return, right?
So it goes two ways.
He wasn't going to be distractedtalking to other people and he
was gonna give me the time andthe respect to get to know me
(11:24):
exclusively and make decisionsfor him.
It was just a beautiful thingand really nice to be able to
focus.
Trust me, it was not allrainbows and daisies.
Me and Ryan definitely had ourdisagreements and our ups and
downs.
We didn't have the sameperspectives in life at the
time.
We didn't have the same values.
(11:44):
Through our life experiences.
There were definitely ups anddowns and serious conversations
that we had to have inunderstanding each other.
But that was the way that wewere able to set the expectation
by talking to each other at thatsimple dating level exclusively
(12:06):
and getting to know each other.
That way we were able to focusour attention and talk straight
about what we wanted, what wewere looking for, what we agreed
with, what we were and were notwilling to tolerate.
It was just a really differentway of dating.
And I really appreciated thatstyle and learning how to date
exclusively, yet not seriously.
(12:29):
Another thing is just being ableto say,"no." If you're talking
to somebody and they are goingto cross your boundary, or
you're not feeling comfortable,you can say,"no," and that's it.
You don't owe anybody anything.
You don't owe them anexplanation.
If you're not willing to dosomething,"no, I'm good.
(12:49):
No, I don't want to kiss on afirst date.
I don't have physical contactwith people on a first date."
They don't understand and theygive you a hard time?
You're showing that you don'tgive me enough respect and
you're fighting about some damnkiss.
If you want to see thiselectricity and see our
chemistry and whatever the fuck,then take me on a second date.
(13:13):
Talk to me a little bit more andget to know me a little bit
more.
Respect me a little bit morewhere I'm comfortable.
Respect my comfort level enoughto just wait for a kiss.
What is the big deal?
It's not that the kiss isstupid.
It's just the point of givingsomebody enough space and
(13:35):
respect and consider what theywant.
Consider their needs and berespectful of that.
And that's what's mostimportant.
"No," is a complete sentence andjust don't be afraid to use
that.
So those are just a few thingsthat help you create healthy
boundaries when you are dating.
(13:56):
Hopefully these skills will helpyou know what you want, become
more decisive and see that youhave choices.
You get to have a say in who youmeet who you talk to and who you
want to have a relationship orpartnership with just as well as
they do.
It's a compliment of both of youand you work together to make it
(14:20):
work.
If you're not a match, that'sokay too.
Take into consideration some ofthese boundaries and these tips
so that you can use and createyour own boundaries so you can
start dating in a different way.
Thank you guys so much forlistening and I will talk to you
next week.
You are listening to The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast
Episode 20 Setting HealthyDating Boundaries.
Hi, I'm Cristina.
After 10 years of dating, I wastired of attracting the wrong
type of guys and thinking I hadto lose weight to find love.
I finally figured out how todate and I found the love I
thought I would never find eachweek.
(00:22):
I'll teach you dating advice,share dating stories and help
you ditch the dating drama.
My goal is to help you have funand create the life you love.
If you're ready to take yourdating to another level, then
listen up and let's go.
Hello, everyone.
Welcome to episode 20 of TheCurvy Girl Dating Podcast.
(00:43):
I'm Cristina Gonzalez, and Ihelp plus size women learn how
to date confidently.
Today we are going to talk aboutthree ways to set healthy
boundaries when you're dating.
When I started dating, I didn'treally have a lot of experience
of what I wanted and what Ididn't want.
(01:04):
It took a while and I wentthrough unpleasant dating
experiences because I didn'tknow how to speak up for myself.
I was just trying to be nice andran into not the best of
situations when it came todating.
I am a big believer in knowingwhat you want expressing it and
(01:24):
talking about it.
I am a recovering people pleaserand have always led my life
making sure everybody else washappy not being a fuss and
trying to just go with the flowand it's not always in your
favor to go with the flow.
Sometimes it's okay to put yourfoot down and tell people what
(01:45):
you want, what you don't want,and what you like and what you
don't like and that's okay.
So the first thing is selfreflection.
Know what your boundaries areand communicate them.
Boundaries aren't necessarilyfor other people.
Boundaries are for you to keepyou safe.
So let's say some boundaries forme that I had was I don't want
(02:11):
to kiss on a first date.
I don't know you well enough.
I'm happy to shake your hand,give you a hug, say thank you,
do one of those little cheek tocheek side kisses.
Anything beyond that is a littletoo personal for me.
did I break my rules sometimes?
Of course I did.
Why?
Because again, maybe I was alittle too nice.
(02:33):
Maybe I didn't want to say no.
Maybe I wanted to break my ownrule because I thought this
person was really great and Iwanted to give them a kiss.
Okay.
as long as you're happy with thedecisions you're making, that's
what's important.
For me, to stay consistent andkeep myself from getting into
(02:53):
situations that I didn't want toget my emotions mixed up when
they didn't have to.
For example, if you kisssomebody and then you get all
the feels and you're reallyexcited, but they didn't feel
the same way about you andsomething doesn't work out and
you end up not talking to them.
That's great to take thatexperience and feel those
(03:17):
feelings.
But for me, I liked to protectmy feelings a little bit more
and make sure that I was levelheaded.
For me, that meant don'tautomatically go in with all
your feelings and kiss on thefirst date and get all excited
about things.
I liked to approach things moresubtly and make sure that I
(03:42):
wasn't going all in, but thatwas my comfort level, so if
you're an"all in" kind of gal,you do you.
For me, what made me feel safeis to set the boundary of no
real physical contacts likethat.
So that was just a little one,right?
And another one would be when Igo out to meet you for the first
(04:04):
time, it's going to be inpublic.
We're going to have coffee or goto dinner, something that's a
little more controlled.
I'm not exactly sure I want togo to the park with you on a
first date.
I'll go to a park with you on afirst date if we go to a picnic
or something, but I'm not gonnabe running in the woods with
you.
That's not a good idea for me.
(04:25):
I am not going to put myself inany situations where I would be
isolated with a person, so thatwas a boundary for me.
I wanted to make sure that I wasalways safe in public and I
always had the opportunity tomake sure there were other
people there that could see if Iwas in any kind of danger or in
(04:45):
distress.
Those are some simple boundariesthat I knew I wanted for myself
and I was able to communicatethem most of the time.
For example, when people wouldgive me suggestions to go on a
date,"where do you want to go?
do you want to go to the beach?""Sure.""Do you want to go here?"
"No, I would not prefer to goout of town with you.""No, I
(05:08):
don't want to go to yourapartment for the first time." I
drove all the way to CollegeStation one time to meet a
friend.
And he ended up being a friend.
But anyways, he was like,"I'llsend you my license.
I'll send you a photo with mylicense.
You can send it to a friend.
I'm happy to directly send it toa friend.
(05:29):
Here's my address." It made mefeel a little bit more secure.
But was it dumb?
Probably.
But again, to each their own,right?
Whatever your comfort level is.
I'm always the safety first kindof gal.
I learned from my own mistakes.
Thankfully in that situation, Iended up having a friend out of
(05:49):
that.
It wasn't necessarily somebody Iwould pursue a relationship
with, but we both agreed toenjoy each other's company at a
friendship level and so that wasnice.
So be able to communicate yourboundaries and make sure that
you're committing to whatever iscomfortable for you.
If you feel uncomfortable orunsafe, communicate that.
(06:11):
Another thing would be to listenand respect the boundaries that
other people have, If you'regoing to state your own
boundaries it's fair to listento theirs.
Maybe they're the sameboundaries and you're both at
the right comfort level.
Maybe you're not, but you shouldbe mature enough to respect and
(06:35):
listen to other people'sboundaries.
One example for me was withRyan.
We've been together for fouryears now, but when we first
started dating, he was like,"when I'm getting to know you, I
don't want to be talking toother people.
I expect you to only talk to mewhen we're getting to know each
other and dating." I thoughtthat was absurd.
(06:57):
You're not gonna tell me who Ican talk to and who I can't talk
to.
I'm gonna talk to who I want toand if I want to talk to three
dudes at one time and get toknow all three and then decide
which one I have the most commoninterest with and want to spend
more time with and then ditchthe other people, I'm gonna do
it my way.
Forget you, you can't tell mewho I'm going to talk to.
(07:18):
It was a big turnoff because,this guy's already controlling
who I can talk to and I don'teven know him.
I've never even met him and he'shere"demanding" that I talk to
him and not give anybody else,the time of day, like,"who are
you to be telling me that?" So Iwas super offended by it.
But when I listened to him alittle bit more, it made more
(07:40):
sense and it did make me respecthim a little more.
And I agreed it was probably agood strategy to try.
At that point, I had been singlefor nine and a half years, going
on 10 years.
I thought, He might be doingsomething right.
I've been single doing my thingfor nine and a half years,
(08:01):
circle dating, getting to knowmultiple people at once.
And why not try to focus on oneperson for a little bit?
The worst thing that can happenis that I don't like them and
say,"thank you, but no thankyou." And we move on.
Or he might say,"thank you, butno thank you," and move on.
So what the hell, let's give ita try.
(08:23):
And so I agreed.
The reason I agreed was becausehe told me, I deserve to have
someone exclusively payattention to me and get to know
me without distractions.
If you want to get to know meand you're serious about the
(08:44):
kind of relationship that youwant and what I'm looking for,
then you should be willing tounderstand that talking to each
other exclusively for a littlewhile to get to know each other
can be important." I thoughtabout it again, and I was like,
okay, he might have somethinggoing, He might be right.
(09:06):
Maybe it is distracting tospread my attention thin.
Maybe it is okay for me to focuson someone and see what happens.
There's nothing wrong with thatangle.
I was just thrown off by himtelling me,"Oh, you shouldn't be
(09:27):
talking to other people whenyou're talking to me." I was so
offended at the fact that he wasalready telling me who I could
and couldn't talk to.
He wasn't being controlling, hewas respecting himself and his
boundary.
Showing his worth by asking youto focus your attention on him
for a while just to see ifsomething can work.
(09:50):
"Give me a chance to talk to youand get to know you without
distractions and if you don'tlike me, then stop talking to
me." It wasn't a hard thing tograsp, but I didn't understand
that perspective So eventuallyit worked because we've been
together for four years.
I totally see the value infocusing on one person at a
(10:16):
time.
And again, if the other persondoesn't agree and the other
person's like,"you're not goingto tell me who to talk to," then
they're not your person.
Because they're not going toeven take the time to consider
your side of the story ever andsee different perspectives.
They're going to just be narrow,continuing to be set in their
(10:37):
ways.
The ability to relax and seeother people's perspectives and
consider it is a big step intomaturity and dating because it
might be worth trying.
So I was really happy that Iagreed to give him some time and
(10:59):
personalize my time with him soI could see if it was worth
moving on or not.
I respected him a lot that hewanted to show value and focus
on me in return, right?
So it goes two ways.
He wasn't going to be distractedtalking to other people and he
was gonna give me the time andthe respect to get to know me
(11:24):
exclusively and make decisionsfor him.
It was just a beautiful thingand really nice to be able to
focus.
Trust me, it was not allrainbows and daisies.
Me and Ryan definitely had ourdisagreements and our ups and
downs.
We didn't have the sameperspectives in life at the
time.
We didn't have the same values.
(11:44):
Through our life experiences.
There were definitely ups anddowns and serious conversations
that we had to have inunderstanding each other.
But that was the way that wewere able to set the expectation
by talking to each other at thatsimple dating level exclusively
(12:06):
and getting to know each other.
That way we were able to focusour attention and talk straight
about what we wanted, what wewere looking for, what we agreed
with, what we were and were notwilling to tolerate.
It was just a really differentway of dating.
And I really appreciated thatstyle and learning how to date
exclusively, yet not seriously.
(12:29):
Another thing is just being ableto say,"no." If you're talking
to somebody and they are goingto cross your boundary, or
you're not feeling comfortable,you can say,"no," and that's it.
You don't owe anybody anything.
You don't owe them anexplanation.
If you're not willing to dosomething,"no, I'm good.
(12:49):
No, I don't want to kiss on afirst date.
I don't have physical contactwith people on a first date."
They don't understand and theygive you a hard time?
You're showing that you don'tgive me enough respect and
you're fighting about some damnkiss.
If you want to see thiselectricity and see our
chemistry and whatever the fuck,then take me on a second date.
(13:13):
Talk to me a little bit more andget to know me a little bit
more.
Respect me a little bit morewhere I'm comfortable.
Respect my comfort level enoughto just wait for a kiss.
What is the big deal?
It's not that the kiss isstupid.
It's just the point of givingsomebody enough space and
(13:35):
respect and consider what theywant.
Consider their needs and berespectful of that.
And that's what's mostimportant.
"No," is a complete sentence andjust don't be afraid to use
that.
So those are just a few thingsthat help you create healthy
boundaries when you are dating.
(13:56):
Hopefully these skills will helpyou know what you want, become
more decisive and see that youhave choices.
You get to have a say in who youmeet who you talk to and who you
want to have a relationship orpartnership with just as well as
they do.
It's a compliment of both of youand you work together to make it
(14:20):
work.
If you're not a match, that'sokay too.
Take into consideration some ofthese boundaries and these tips
so that you can use and createyour own boundaries so you can
start dating in a different way.
Thank you guys so much forlistening and I will talk to you
next week.
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