One of my friends think relationships should build slowly, over months and months. I've always disagreed, but I watched a couple of my own relationships self-destruct after only a few months. To her credit, she never said "I told you so," but having my relationships end so quickly made me wonder... Is it better to go into a relationship cautiously, letting it build over time, or to just jump right in?My relationships could have lasted longer, had I insisted on taking things slowly. We would have proceeded with caution, thus dragging the whole thing out, possibly for years. Would that have been better?

Would I have been better off if it had gone on for four years rather than four months?There are dangers in jumping in. Many of my friends are cautious and go into relationships with all those walls up. Over time, the man must gradually break those walls down, brick by brick, until finally, if he's lucky, he gets to see what she's really like. That method keeps her from ever getting hurt. And many men I know do the same thing."If you move too fast, you'll ruin a good thing." How many times have I heard that? Is there truth in it? If it's really good...could you ruin it by not going at a snail's pace? I'm not sure I believe that.I do know that the issues that were present in my four-month relationship would have been present even if we'd taken things slowly.

We simply weren't the right fit. Yes, we moved quickly, but we also burned through everything in just a few months' time. Then we were able to go on with our lives and find people we did fit with...people who might not have still been available if we'd dawdled another eight months to a year.The problem is, in most relationships, you truly don't know at the beginning how things will turn out. Sure, there are warning signs, but aren't there always warning signs? So if you go into the relationship with your guard up, taking weeks and months and years to get to know him, does that prevent you from getting hurt any more?

I once wasted more 5 years of my life on someone who didn't know what he wanted. And at the end of that time I was infinitely resentful that so much time and effort had gone into this dead-end relationship. I would much prefer to have gotten everything out into the open in the first few months and burned through the relationship so I could mourn him and go on with my life. Because if there's one thing I learned from that, it's that taking it slowly does not make it hurt any less when it ends. In fact, investing a year in a relationship means it is going to hit you even harder when it does end. My experience was that four months of an intense, fast-moving relationship was much easier to get over than a year-long drag-fest.

Maybe it was just the habits that were created over all those long months? Whatever the case, I'd prefer to just jump in and find out if it's going to work or not.So...I'm completely open to opposing opinions. Is moving slowly the way to go? Or do you think maybe it's better to go into each relationship with an open mind and throw caution to the wind?