50 Things That Happen When You Are Dating An Entrepreneur

Every relationship has its own challenges and unique experiences. While many of these relations are similar, dating an entrepreneur has a whole new dimension attached to it.

The traits on an entrepreneur are unique, they don’t fit in the “normal” norm, nor is the relation “stereotype”. While some things you love about them, the others you learn to live along with.

If you’re dating an entrepreneur, or planning to date on, spoiler alert – check out this list. If you’re able to adjust with these “things”, go ahead and date them.

1. It’s difficult to explain to your relatives what your partner does for living in a few sentences.
2. You suddenly wake up in the middle of the night (or staying awake for light sleepers) to your partner typing furiously besides you in bed.
3. Even if their bank account has enough money to buy a house, they’ll be using cabs or a simple scooter. (Worse they seldom care about it)
4. Often your entrepreneurs’ daily commute includes relocating from bed to couch to desk and repeating it.
5. All the freebies, books, material that they bring to the house keeps you wondering what to do with it.
6. They work hard. Weekends or weekdays, every day is a work day for them.
7. You lose the track of the number of networking events you’ve attended with them.
8. You’ll be famous and people remember you as “the girlfriend/boyfriend” of so and so. People know your name and face.
9. With more than 3-4 lunch and dinner meetings your entrepreneur attends, you’ll have to remember them before making your “romantic” plans.
10. You’ll end up doing all sorts of random jobs such as writing or editing their content, entering data, becoming their financial manager and ordering grocery supplies.
11. Amid all the multiple projects they work on simultaneously, you might have to remind them about you.
12. Their attention is short spanned, as long as a project interests them and keeps them engaged.
13. They’ll spend more time with their co-founders and team than they will with you.
14. They are so busy sometimes that they’d live on coffee and have no time to shower for days.
15. They cannot unplug, even on vacations. Oftentimes convincing them to take a vacation is a task in itself.
16. You’ll end up being the office party planner.
17. The often go into this zone while working where they block out every surrounding thing. (Including you)
18. Before making a decision they go over and over it for a million times, but once their mind is set, they’re 100% into it.
19. Every time you are tagged with them on Facebook, the post and 5-6 different people sending you a friend request.
20. Their laptop bag has all sorts of crazy things – toothbrush, cords for every device you’d think off, chocolates and earphones.
21. You’ve seen movies like “Social Network”, “Wolf of Wall-Street” and “Pirates of Silicon Valley” a million times and can quote the whole movie.
22. Their phones are permanently attached to their ear. The only way to pull them for a date is by sending them a Google Calendar Invite.
23. Your partner lives on the dreams of business, deals and projects. You’ll have to bring them down for the much needed reality checks.
24. Your partner will be unpredictable. While one moment they’re elated about raising a funding round while declining signups might make them go crazy. Learn to adjust with their mood.
25. You might end up realizing that your partner was so busy with work that they haven’t eaten a single meal. Candle light dinners are not-so-frequent, they dine while working.
26. Since they attend hundreds of conferences and seminars, their collection includes hundreds of badges of all sorts.
27. They’ll convince you to invest everything you own in their project.
28. They’re experts at outsourcing.
29. Words such as bootstrapping, pitching, series A,B,C and VC’s are familiar to you, you hear them every now and then.
30. They strike up a conversation with everyone when you go out. They are forever into the networking mode.
31. They are helpers, quickly jumping in to give advice to fellow entrepreneurs and everyone in general.
32. They will talk to you about business when they need a fresh ear to listen to them. Many times you won’t understand the business they talk about, but you’ll listen nonetheless
33. They prefer jeans to suits. Your partner might prefer having you choose their formal dress for events.
34. Scouting for new business ideas is their guilty pleasure.
35. They think 5-10 years in advance, they’re focused on the future and quick to spot trends.
36. They are constantly looking for new ways to make money.
37. They’re the most passionate and hardworking people you’ve come across.
38. You’ll end up taking dinners on roadsides and lesser-expensive cafes to save money.
39. They’ll have sleepless nights because their brain won’t stop working about new ideas to grow their business.
40. Your partner will rehearse important sales, investor pitches and presentations countless times in front of you.
41. Most times you’ll end up dining with your entrepreneur at his office with his team and co-founders.
42. They’re constantly approached by other companies for side projects and for consulting and you’ve to remind them to not spread too thin.
43. Often in the middle of the night they’ll come up with an idea and rush to their desk to work.
44. Your entrepreneur will be as strongly bonded to the cofounders as to you.
45. If a particular thing in business is bothering them, they’ll end up venting out on you to get it off their chest.
46. Failure is an intricate part of their life, you’ll have to double up as their motivator while they’re going through a rough patch.
47. They’ll constantly push you to become better version of yourself. They’re naturals at identifying strengths and weaknesses.
48. They’re learners, be it acquiring new skills or improving existing ones. You’ll never find them in inertia.
49. Your entrepreneur lives life on edge. They risk their time, security, money and so much more to follow their dreams. Their life is an extraordinary journey, are you willing to be a part of this risqué brigade?
50. Thankfully, you’re not forgotten. They’ll often surprise you with your favorite flowers or treat. They’ll be more than thankful for being so considerate and flexible.

If half of these signs are acceptable, you should date an entrepreneur. For those already in a relationship, read this list and chuckle. The ride is going to be bumpy, but one thing I vouch for, the journey will be enjoyable.

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