After having moved across the country twice, in a short period of time, I have decided I needed to reduce my quantities of books. I have been in the process of donating books to the library when I can, and to friends, or anyone that will drop by my house, and wants to pick up a book. Thankfully the library takes magazines, they sell them to raise money to buy books for the library. I am still needing to weed down on the books that I have. The love of reading won’t stop, but the quantity of books needs to slow down.

Epp suggests that we don’t get too involved too soon. He does this on a couple of different levels. Suggesting that 3 months is far too soon to make any serious kind of decision when it comes to where to go in a relationship meaning marriage, moving in together, or any other life changing decision. Within three months both parties are still on good behavior and not showing their true self. Within a year you will see patterns emerge, and by the end of two years the tone has been set for the relationship, and you will know how you two work together.

Another aspect of the relationship and moving too fast was his breakdown of trust, intimacy, and commitment. He clearly states not too move to far into one of these three areas, and leave the other two behind. This creates a warped relationship, and this will leave to many problems. If relationships become too intimate too quickly this may leave one partner thinking they have a serious commitment of the other person, and they do not have a serious commitment at all.

Another one of my favorite chapters of the book has to deal with how someone treats others; this could mean the waitress, their mother, their best friend. When you read advice sites everyone says this, but no one explains why this works. People tend to behave in certain patterns. Arguments, happy moments, we all tend to behave in certain ways. For example perhaps someone needs to sulk a bit before they will engage in an argument, or perhaps name calling is the norm for them. The person involved will have tough moments with you, and he will behave at his best and his worst with you. You need to be able to handle this person’s worst moments.

This information is in just a few of the book’s chapters. As you can see the book is packed with advice that is practical. Many dating advice books are often a couple of trite sayings here and there, and thrown together in a book. John Van Epp far exceeds dating book expectations and gives a book that you can pick up and read many times, gaining a new perspective.