New relationships are hard. Every relationship requires calibration, getting to know each other, exploring, making mistakes, amending for those mistakes, finding the moment for important conversations, discovering delightful compatibilities by accident, and in general trying to make sense of each other. 

Previous generations had to go through this process once or twice over their lifetime. Restrictions in transportations meant you could only meet people within a certain distance, and you probably met those via joint friends or shared activities. Before Tinder, OKCupid and weekend trips, local culture and shared backgrounds ended up matching people that were likely to have similar world views and expectations. 

Now we have OKCupid, Tinder, long-distance relationships (LDR), summer flings turned serious, dating events in a new city you just moved to. Suddenly, you can meet all those interesting people from all walks of life. You are supposed to choose your partner(s) by yourself, hoping that short-term infatuation can be turned into something more long term. Hopefully, you won’t discover any dealbreakers, incompatibilities six months from now - having to start from scratch because of something you could have figured out much earlier. 

Your user manual helps you to establish real-life compatibility ahead of diving into your relationship. It helps you to talk about all those major and minor priorities in your life in a structured way before getting in head over heels. This means you can adjust expectations, find compromises if needed and short-circuit the process of assessing how well your current ways of life align. 

If you are already in one (or more) relationship(s), the manual can help you to fine-tune your interactions and help you to elevate the trust between you and your partner(s). 

You now have two choices. You can start with a preliminary exercise, or you can dive right into the next lessons to start working on the manual itself. 

Most chapters include examples from real manual. I recommend reading those after writing down your own thoughts as additional inspiration. There is no right or wrong way to write your user manual. You do you.

Exercise: User Manual Opportunities

Think back to your past relationships - anything that lasted more than a week. Which topics would you have liked to talk about at the very beginning? Which topics did you avoid (consciously or unconsciously)? Which topics were you not even aware of - but would have helped if you talked those through at an earlier stage?

• Your daily schedule and how much time you can spend together
• The amount of time you spend with your friends
• Hobbies you’d like to keep to yourself
• Your last STI (sexually transmitted infections) test results
• How you like to spend time with your partner
• Your budget for activities
• Having kids or not having kids
• Defining when is the right time to move in together/get married/…
• Presenting another person to friends/family as partner/friend/…
• Things you like to do in bed - and things you don’t. 
• Any dealbreakers that you would like to have known about before
• …...