Before You Swipe

If I were to ask any of my single friends how the dating life is going, most of them would roll their eyes at me and tell me how much they hate it. And in response I’d nod my head. Because I’ve been there. I’ve chalked it up to it being 2020 and having to swipe left or right on an app to meet someone is the fault of it all. That it’s not at all ‘like it used to be’. But after a few failures and a ton of growth, I’m in a completely new space about the whole thing. A lot of lessons have been learned at the expense of myself and at the expense of others. And I share them down below. The more I reflect on these newfound understandings, the less apprehensive I become towards the idea of dating, even if it begins with a superficial swipe.

Happiness Starts with You

You are setting yourself up to be disappointed if you expect someone else to bring you happiness, or for someone else to ‘complete you’. Happiness and fulfillment are things that need to be achieved before we enter the dating world; by ourselves and for ourselves. If we can’t find it within us, we are never going to find it in another. And an amazing thing happens when we take responsibility for our own happiness; we inevitably take responsibility for our unhappiness too. And there’s a lot of power in that. Because unhappiness points to unmet needs. To blame someone for our misery, is to hold them responsible for meeting our needs. Something only, we can do.

The Single Life is a Necessary Life

Being on our own allows us to fully explore who we are and who we are not; what we like and what we don’t like, without the judgment or influence of another. It gives us the space to heal from past relationships, so we don’t bring that baggage into the next one. And when we learn how to stand on our own two feet, we learn how to meet our own needs. By exploring life on our own terms, it allows us to create a life that we love. Because we should already be in love with our own life by the time we start dating. The addition of someone in your life should be an enhancement to your world, not a replacement. Instead of wasting energy on seeking the man (or woman) of your dreams, seek instead the life of your dreams. That way, your person will be able to find you.

Know What You’re Looking For

When we’re confident in who we are and what we want out of life, it makes it much easier to imagine who we want to spend it with. Whether it’s a temporary fling or a long-term thing, you need to know what it is, so you can communicate it. If you don’t, at some point, there will be a fork in the road, and you’ll be forced to either abandon your journey to stay with this person, or you’ll have to abandon this person to stay on your journey. By being honest with yourself about what you want, you get to be honest about the type of person who will be able to compliment it.

Lost Without a Map

I used to date with this open concept of just seeing where it goes. It took me a while to realize, that I needed to already know where I want it to go before choosing who to get serious with. I stopped going with the flow and started coming up with fundamentals that I wanted in a partner, fundamentals that complimented my own life. Things like a healthy lifestyle, a relationship with God, and a vision for a family. If they didn’t meet these standards, it was up to me to let them know sooner rather than later that it wasn’t going to work out. When you continue on a path that doesn’t lead to you to where you want to go, you end up in places you never should be.

It’s a Marathon, Not a Race

It’s necessary to give people the time and space to reveal who they are. To see if their actions line up with their words. When we don’t give people the space to fully express themselves, we fill in the boxes for them, and are disappointed when they don’t live up to the expectations of our imagination. When we take our time in getting to know someone, we allow ourselves the opportunity of figuring out how we feel. Because dating should be less about wondering what the other person thinks about us and more about how we feel about them. How we feel about ourselves with them. How we feel with them. Anything that grows strong and tall, takes time and attention. Something that’s easy to forget during a time when everything we want, gets delivered in an instant.

A Lesson, Not a Loss

Lack of compatibility, more than anything else, is typically the cause of why it doesn’t work out. There’s no need for animosity, anger, or bitterness. There’s no need for the feeling of defeat. We don’t get angry when the square doesn’t fit inside of the triangle, and we don’t force it to fit because we know the damage it will cause. Dating is the same. And if you can take away a new discovery about yourself or the kind of person you see yourself with, there’s truly no loss in it. Only a lesson. Dating often exposes things in one another that we sometimes fail to see on our own. Take what you must from the experience, and boldly carry on in your journey.

There’s no doubt that dating is a challenge. But it doesn’t have to feel impossible. It doesn’t have to cause us to roll our eyes or prompt us to adopt 27 dogs because we’ve given up on finding human companionship. If we can build a life that we’re proud of, a life that we love, then everything after that is extra, not necessary. When it doesn’t work out, you don’t have to worry about the walls around you crumbling to your feet. Dating becomes a lot more fun without that sort of pressure. Those who are supposed to be in our life will come, and those who are not meant to stay in our life will go. If we can manage not to lose ourselves in the midst of it all, we will truly never be alone.