Compatibility is All That Matters
Good dating advice usually has one unifying feature: it stresses that relationships should be entirely consent-based. That means that every part of a relationship is genuinely desired by all parties, and no party is coerced into engaging in any activity for the benefit of other(s). In theory, this is uncontroversial. Most people will recognize that they shouldn't coerce dating partners into unwanted activities.
There's a flipside, though, which is a little less intuitive. It's the idea that any relationship practice is ethical if all parties give unqualified consent. Assuming that all parties are free from coercion and have the capacity to give meaningful consent, there is nothing that's off-limits. A lot of bad dating advice overlooks this fact, offering prescriptive advice which assumes that people (or, more likely, all people of a single gender) want the same things. This sort of thinking tends to divide things up into "good" and "bad" behaviors, universalizing the preferences of the majority (or sometimes, just the preferences of the author).
But people are different, and they have different preferences. What's a dealbreaker for you might be a positive for me. Something I can't stand might be something you can't live without. Too often, we assume that our preferences are universal, and we condemn those who don't conform to them. The world is full of bitter exes who weren't treated the way they liked and assume that indicates something wrong with the other party rather than just a mismatch in preference. It's a way of disrespecting someone's autonomy to insist that your preferences are the right way to have a relationship, and that any other preferences are wrong.
At the same time, it's important that one's relationships are freely chosen, which means that while nothing is off limits, one must be honest and open about what to expect, and space must be given for a graceful rejection. There are wrong ways to have a relationship, and rights that cannot be waived. However, those rights are all about making sure that consent to the relationship is freely given and undiluted. As long as we are completely honest and noncoercive about what we are looking for and what to expect, then we are free to pursue whatever relationship(s) we desire.
The important thing, then, is compatibility. Rather than conforming to a set of rules that define "good relationships," our challenge is to write our own qualifications that define what's good for us. Then we find people who share our preferences and draw strong boundaries with people who don't. Upliftconnect.com offers some on-point advice about drawing boundaries:
If access to your heart, your email, your phone, and your physical being lives on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being complete inner circle access, those who are 10’s require what Brene Brown calls “a full jar of marbles.” In other words, they need to have earned your trust. If the jar of marbles gets half full because of betrayals of trust, access needs to go down — not necessarily all the way to 1, but maybe to 5 or 6. Maybe they don’t get to call you every day or sleep in your bed or spend Christmas morning with you.
That way, if someone isn’t treating you with impeccable respect, you simply limit access without making up a story about it. No point becoming the exploding doormat. That’s not enlightened either. Your heart stays wide open. The boundaries close up though. Unconditional love, absolute freedom, conditional access.
Then it’s not someone else’s job to treat you right. It’s your job to treat you right with appropriate boundaries that limit access based on whether or not someone is deserving of complete inner circle access.
In this way, you can allow people to be themselves and have their own relationship preferences, but you limit access to yourself only to people who share your preferences and live up to your expectations. It stops being about whether someone is a "good" or "bad" partner, and becomes about whether they are a good fit. When we focus on compatibility, we respect everyone's autonomy while still being able to protect ourselves and follow our own path.