There are thousands of articles on the internet brimming with dating advice, though most often we turn to those in our lives for help. Consider the pros and cons of these in-real-life sources for dating and relationship advice to understand the best way they can help. Single friends will bring you chocolate or wine when you learn the guy you had so much hope for turns out to be a jerk. They are also wonderful people with full lives and make yours even better through their friendship.

They are also wonderful people with full lives and make yours even better through their friendship. Meaning, they won’t fall for the dreamy guy who smells awesome and melts you with his smile, and instead could offer you sound advice about how he treats you or observations about his character (or lack of it.) It’s been so long since your married friends last dated that they forgot how frustrating it can be and how much it helps to talk to a friend about it. Careful.

Learning to trust your own decisions is so empowering you’ll suddenly be able to embrace that dating is a process and more easily deal with rejection. When you allow yourself the room to make mistakes, choose to have fun with the experience, keep the faith that you’ll find Mr. Right for You, then dating becomes a lot less stressful. Recognize the times you were clueless, and the times that little voice in your head kept nudging you that something was up and you ignored it.

Take stock of the decisions you’ve made in your love life, good and bad, and own every single one of them. If you won’t listen to your instincts or know that you can trust them, you are most easily influenced by those who jump to conclusions or generally run their life using snap judgments. They have no idea what is really happening in your dating life and because you are so intimidated by the process or the idea of getting hurt, you decide others must know better than you do.