The 7 Deadly Sins of Falling in Like: Intro

You may have noticed this picture come up on the Practical Cookie Facebook Page (if you didn't see this come up go and like the page to stay up to date with Practical Cookie Posts). And yes, it's true, Guest Posts are coming to Practical Cookie - in fact, they are starting right now!

A few months ago, after girl troubles had got him down, one of my mates was chatting to a group of us about his list of 7 deadly sins that you can commit when falling in like with someone. We thought it would be awesome to share this list with the world and decided that Practical Cookie would be a good platform for this. About a week ago he sent me the text version and I'm going to be sharing these sins over the course of the next few days, so keep an eye out for them.

And now, as typed penned by the writer himself, an introduction to:

The Seven Deadly Sins of Falling in Like

None of us are shallow. No matter how we might look on the surface there is a great swirling sea of emotion within all of us that will never be fully understood, controlled or influenced. 
I don’t necessarily want to go down the road of what drove me to start trying to understand the sins, and put them down. All I will say is that it turned out simply to be an answer I found within myself, to a question we have all faced. It was a self-reflection on the definition of insanity, of repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different result. They are some of the most important ideas I could ever figure out. Now that I have finished writing them I am kind of embarrassed by them, much like it becomes embarrassing to carry on using fingers and toes when we’ve learned to count, but the truth remains that thinking about them in this way is a good short cut to knowledge usually gained through a lot of heart ache. Some people understand these intrinsically, and it is easy to scoff. Some get lucky, and it is easy to be grateful. For the rest of us though, understanding this idea is paramount to no longer thinking that the world is against us, only ourselves. That idea is hopeful.

It started when two friends mentioned it was unattractive for guys to look for sympathy. With a smile I, quietly inside, realised in that moment that I was definitely guilty, had been at least, in my own justifiably small way.
I finally began to understand where among the convoluted mess of lines, so trivial to the rest of the world, I had gone wrong. I realised that maybe it might also be possible that I was guilty of other things and bit by bit these things grew into a list. 

In the end it was a list of seven mistakes to avoid when you have met someone new and found yourself in-like. It is a survival guide for that moment when you tragically figure out they are on the fence about you, maybe even fairly far on the wrong side. Conversely and in hindsight, it is also a guide to maintaining our own cool when we are not in the right place and giving people a chance to make mistakes without crucifying them for it. The world does not have to be so black and white.
It won’t help win someone over who isn’t right, but avoiding the sins will, in theory, let a person stay in a place mentally where they will give the other a real, appreciable chance. And I think that is all any of us really want. 

So, without further ado, or oxford commas, the list...