Category Archives: Dating

Yet Another Life Lesson From Dating (or Finding Power When Not In Control)

Posted on November 16, 2018 | Comments Off on Yet Another Life Lesson From Dating (or Finding Power When Not In Control)

I don’t know why I’m learning so many life lessons from dating. Maybe it’s because that’s the main thing in my life that hasn’t been a part of it for as long so I’m discovering new things all the time. Maybe it’s because that’s the place I’m out of my comfort zone the most and that is pushing me to change and set my standards. Or maybe it’s just random and doesn’t mean anything. Whatever it is, I just keep learning more as I date. I am ready to find someone amazing and not keep learning from dating, but that’s not what seems to be in the cards for me right now.

Every so often, I feel like guys from my past come back into my life for some reason. These always happen in groups so when one guy from my past comes back into my life, I know it’s just a matter of time before another one comes along. And that has happened in the past week for me. One guy is just someone I lost contact with and it was nice to reconnect with him. Our communication was always through the app and when my account got banned I lost my conversation with him. So when we rematched and were able to start talking again, it was nice. Hopefully I’ll get to see him again soon and see if we still have fun.

The other guy is a guy that I didn’t have as nice of an ending with. I’m not going to go into specifics with it because it doesn’t matter, but we ended on a bad note and I figured I would never hear from him again nor did I want to. But he reached out to me, we talked a bit, and I don’t have as many negative feelings toward him. But he is seeing someone else right now and I am not going to be the other woman or someone he sees on the side. I understand that when you date someone, if you haven’t said you were exclusive that you should assume you aren’t the only person they are seeing. But if you have an understanding that you are exclusive with someone, seeing someone else is cheating.

I told him that I am not willing to be a secret or someone he cheats with. If he wants to go out with me again, then the person he is seeing now needs to know that they aren’t exclusive. My understanding is that she believes that they are, so he would need to have a real conversation about how he wants to be able to see other people. I don’t necessarily want to be with someone who is serious with someone else, even if they have an open relationship. But if he wants to try seeing me again to see if we could be together again, the only way to do that is if all parties involved know that they aren’t exclusive.

I let him know this and told him it is his choice. If he wants to see me again, he knows what I require. If he doesn’t want to have to have that talk, then he and I won’t see each other again. If he doesn’t want to have the talk but still wants to see me, it’s too bad. I’m not willing to do that. I guess it’s kind of an ultimatum, but I really didn’t see it that way. I saw it as setting my standards and letting him decide what he wants to do.

I was sharing this story with a friend of mine after I told this guy what options he had, and I was having a bit of a tough time explaining why I felt so powerful in what I did. I have no clue what the next step will be as the guy has to make the next choice. But I feel completely in control and have no regrets. My friend and I were talking around the idea and I was just trying to find the words to express what I was feeling.

The idea of “the ball is in his court” kept coming to my mind, but that didn’t seem right. That makes it feel like he has the power and the choice of what is next and that was not how I felt. So I came up with the idea of “the ball is in his court, but I was the one who served it to him there”. That felt perfect to me. Yes, he has the choice in what he wants to do next. But I am the one who presented the choices to him and there is no other option than those. If he doesn’t want to pick one, then we won’t see each other and that is fine with me. I am not going to go against my standards and I feel very secure and comfortable in that idea.

So many things were so clear to me once I came up with that idea. Even when I am not the one deciding the next step, that doesn’t mean I have to be powerless or helpless. I have ways to find power even in situations that I don’t completely control. After that idea was said out loud to my friend, a huge weight felt like it was lifted off of me. I don’t care as much about what this guy will decide next anymore. While it would be nice to see him again and see what we could be, I don’t want to see him if it isn’t in a situation I’m comfortable with.

I don’t know how I can apply this new mindset to other things in my life, but I want to figure it out. I know that rethinking when I have power and control is important and can be used in so many other situations I find myself in. I guess I just have to naturally let those situations find me and remember this idea so I can apply it in the moment.

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NaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book)

Posted on November 2, 2018 | Comments Off on NaNoWriMo Take 2 (or Still Working On The Same Book)

It’s November and just like last year I’m going to participate in National Novel Writing Month! Last year was the first year I did it and I used the month to work on my book on online dating. It was a great way for me to work on a project that seemed so overwhelming and scary. There is a goal to write a certain number of words over the course of the month, but I knew that I didn’t want to hold myself to that because this book is an ever-changing thing.

I got a lot done last year during NaNoWriMo and continued to work on my book every so often since then. I do try to add stories or at least notes after I have a date that I know needs to be in the book. I haven’t been working on it as seriously as I probably should have, but I also don’t feel a rush to finish it. I still wonder what the end or lesson of the book should be. I know it doesn’t need to end in something significant, but until I feel like I know what I want the reading to think at the end of the book I don’t know if it will ever be done.

Even though I haven’t been working on it that much, I know that I probably should have done more since many of my dates over the past 6 months haven’t really been written about beyond the notes I made. And for what feels like the millionth time, I have changed what I want the book to be like. I have gone back to my original plan to have each story a standalone story and to split the book up into good dates, bad dates (or just horrible guys online), and the cheaters I have encountered. I feel like it is a good way to organize things and makes the book more of a collection of stories versus something that needs a clear beginning, middle, and end.

I don’t know if NaNoWriMo is supposed to be for working on the same book year after year, but that’s what I’m using it for. When you sign up for the challenge each year, you are supposed to announce the book you are working on. I didn’t see an option to say that you are still working on the same book from the year before, so I named my book something that represents what’s happening for me.

I’m not planning on doing the different events that are happening during this month, so I’m not too concerned about if I am supposed to be working on the same book. And when I registered this year and it asked me to update my word count, I did put down how many words the book currently is at. So I look much more accomplished than I really am. But I am using this month as a tracking device for me. I love the idea of working with others to accomplish a goal, but I don’t think doing different challenges or trying to win swag for various reasons is right for me with what I’m trying to do. If I had a novel that I had an outline and grand idea for, maybe it would be different. But since this is the story of something that is currently happening to me, it’s not really fitting into getting it all done this month.

But even though my goals aren’t to challenge other people or to hit certain word counts, I do still have goals for this month. I do want to finish the stories of the guys I have gone out with that I know I will not be seeing again. Most of those are guys I went out with once or twice and I have no plans to communicate with them again. But there are still some stories that have not ended because things are still happening or changing, so with those stories I can’t really finish them. But I can make sure that those stories are as up to date as possible. I know that as things continue to change that I might have to edit my story, but I’d rather edit a story than have to write it all just because things aren’t over. And those changing stories are really just a small percentage. There are maybe 4 or 5 that I don’t think are totally over (not all of them are guys I’m still seeing, but their stories haven’t ended), and I have dozens of stories that are over. So those few can’t be an excuse for me to not work on the others.

I think the first time I did NaNoWriMo, I had much higher hopes for what I would be able to accomplish based on what other friends have done. But I’ve learned that my story isn’t the same as everyone else’s and I can’t stress to hit the targets that others are doing. I just need to be as consistent as possible and know that I am making progress. And maybe during this month I will find something out that makes me realize I have a way to end my story, but that’s not what I’m expecting to happen. But it would be nice to feel like this story is done and I can finish it.

But as long as I go out with guys that end up being super ridiculous stories, I’m going to write about them. Even if I never do anything with this book, I want to have these stories written down and saved. I might use them for a laugh in the future or inspiration for a script or another project. But I still think that one day turning this journey into a book would be a really fun thing to do and I’m keeping an open mind about it all!

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Staying Strong And Having Standards (or Still Learning From Dating)

Posted on October 26, 2018 | 1 comment

So many of the changes I’ve made in my life over the past few years seem to come from things I’ve dealt with in online dating. I’ve questioned if it’s a good thing that I’m discovering so much about myself through dating and how men see me, but I’m starting to think it’s a good thing. This isn’t just about dating, but dating makes it a different environment. I’ve always been a people pleaser, but I’ve notice that this can also allow for people to walk over me. And this wasn’t as clear to me before as it has become after a guy treated me that way. So I’m just thinking that dating has given me a new perspective to view behaviors in my life and how I react to them.

I do still have things to work on and those issues are much clearer to me now, but I feel like I have become a much more confident person recently once I stopped worrying as much about what men think of me. I’ve allowed myself to be rude when it was warranted. I never would have done that before because I didn’t want someone to think I wasn’t kind or nice. But there are times where it doesn’t matter what someone else thinks because you need to do what is going to give you the answers or life you need. I still won’t be mean out of nowhere and I do hesitate to reject a guy when I’m questioning some things. I will always err on the side of being nice, but when I need to stand up for myself I will do so.

I’ve had a few chances to do that this past week, both with guys that I had gone out with about a year ago. It’s weird how guys from my past seem to reach out around the same time, but it has happened that way more than once. With these guys, things ended for different reasons so while my feelings about them were both something I questioned I still had different feelings.

For one guy, it didn’t end that well. It doesn’t matter why it ended, but it was something that made me mad and I held on to that feeling longer than I should have. He reached out to me to say how he missed me and wanted to see me again. And I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I was willing to see him even though he didn’t treat me that well before. But of course, even before I could see him he ended up treating me with the same lack of respect that he had before. I did allow it last year and I guess he thought he could still treat me the same way. But I called him out on the behavior and I didn’t see him. If he reaches out to me again, I would love to say I would ignore him but I honestly don’t know. It seems like some people are harder to kick out of your life than others.

The second guy was someone who I went out with a few times. Things ended because we were in different places in our lives. He had a bit of an issue with follow through when making plans, which annoyed me, but nothing was that bad. It ended, but it didn’t feel like it was for any reason other than I didn’t want to waste my time if I wasn’t feeling totally certain about him. And with that feeling, someone could change my mind because the things that didn’t work are things that could easily be fixed.

With this guy, I was very clear about my stance on what I am looking for and that if he didn’t want the same I didn’t want to waste time. He said he wanted the same and we made plans to see each other. And based on all my past experience I shouldn’t have been surprised when again he lacked the follow through for making plans. And I’m more than happy to call him out on it if he reaches out again. If someone wants to date me, they have to make plans and do those. Or if they need to reschedule they need to let me know. They can’t just say that we will be seeing each other after work on a certain day and then never make plans even after I text to ask what we are doing. This is something that can be changed, but I also know that I can’t go into something wanting someone to change. They need to want the change for themselves.

In the past, I would be terrified to let either of these guys out of my life or to stand strong on what I want and what I deserve. I would have felt lucky that anyone was interested in me and would be doing whatever it takes to not be too much work for them to want to be with. I would not allow myself to have my own standards and conform to theirs because I wouldn’t feel like I had the right to want something different. This has been a very tough thing for me to overcome because I had heard that I didn’t deserve it for so many years. But I’m so glad that the automatic thinking that was in my head for a majority of my life is starting to chip away.

I have no clue if I will give either of these guys another chance, but I know for sure that if I do allow them one I will continue to be strong in what I want and deserve.

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Working On Rejection (or Why Can’t Dating Be Like Acting)

Posted on September 21, 2018 | Comments Off on Working On Rejection (or Why Can’t Dating Be Like Acting)

As an actor, you deal with rejection all the time. Actors get rejected for more jobs than they are offered. Every single day, I submit myself to various projects and my agents submit me as well. A majority of the time, I never hear back from those submissions so I was rejected for even an audition. And when I do get an audition, I don’t usually book the job. I don’t see that rejection as anything bad since everyone deals with it. And I know that not every part is right for me. My job when I audition is to do the best job I can in the room so the casting director wants to bring me back when there is another part I might be right for.

But even though I am very comfortable with rejection in my acting career and it doesn’t bother me one bit, I can’t say the same about dating. There are some times that I think everyone would agree that I am right to be upset over rejection or someone lying to me. I don’t think anyone expects someone to be ok with being hurt that way, especially when it’s someone who you cared about and you thought cared about you. I also know that those situations are sometimes inevitable and are a part of life. Dating has always had some rejection or heartache, that’s not just something that started with online dating.

And I guess ghosting could have been a thing before as well, but it seems like it really picked up with dating apps. I’ve had a couple of guys ghost me, but more recently there have been 2 that really got to me. One guy I had 2 dates with and then they were out-of-town (this was something we had discussed on our first date). From before our first date through their time out-of-town, we were texting at least once a day. We were making tentative plans for when they were back in LA. And once they were back, they stopped texting. They never unmatched with me on the app we matched on, but all communication stopped. I reached out one more time, they responded, but then ghosted me again. That really bugged me because there was nothing that made me feel like things weren’t going to move forward with another date. But I guess he didn’t care to see me again and he didn’t feel like he should say something to me.

And more recently, there was someone who seemed like a real great guy. We got along, could talk about a ton of different subjects without awkward silences, and he was planning creative dates for us. On our last date, something just didn’t seem right to me. I mentioned it hoping that would make things better (sometimes it’s better to bring up a weird feeling than ignore it and hope it goes away) and he said everything was fine but he was just tired from working long hours. That could have been it, but I still had a gut feeling that something was off and he wasn’t telling me. We made plans for the next day, and I haven’t heard from him since. I honestly have no clue what happened, but again I was ghosted by a guy who didn’t have the manners to end things like an adult.

Those ghosting situations are the standard ones because I had met these guys in person and we had been talking and dating. I don’t know what to call the guys who disappear before I even meet them since I don’t know if it’s really the same thing as ghosting. But a new trend I’ve been seeing is a guy who is messaging with me on whatever app we connect with (I don’t give out my number until I meet a guy in person to protect myself from scammers and catfish) and we make plans for a date. Sometimes everything is planned, sometimes it’s just the date and time and we are going to figure out a location later. And then the day of the date I go to the app to message them to either finalize plans or say that I’m excited to meet them, and they are no longer listed in my matches. They could have been scammers or had their accounts blocked, but more often than not they just unmatched with me.

I know that there are some guys on the apps who are in relationships that use dating apps to get an ego boost. They don’t consider it cheating if they never meet someone in person, but they message as if they wanted to meet up just to get the validation that a woman likes them. I think it’s stupid and if I ever figured out in advance that a guy was doing that with me I’d unmatch with them first. But of course, most of these guys give no clue that they are doing that so I just feel rejected because I had been excited about the date that won’t be happening.

I’ve gotten much better with dealing with dating rejection in the past year, but it’s still not easy for me. I think a lot of the rejection I struggle with comes from when I meet a guy (or am messaging with a guy) who seems genuine and kind. I don’t try to imagine what a future could be with them, but I think everyone thinks about stuff like that when they meet someone they are interested in. The rejection is almost more of feeling hurt that a potential future isn’t going to happen anymore. And while I have the same feeling with auditions (whenever I go out for a big role I have to stop myself from imagining how it could change my life), but I have had so much more practice with acting.

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Learning From Listening (or Another Great Podcast)

Posted on August 31, 2018 | Comments Off on Learning From Listening (or Another Great Podcast)

I’ve shared on here before that I’m a big podcast person. I don’t listen to the radio or to music that often so podcasts are the main thing that I do listen to. While I’m working, I’m almost always listening to one because I have so much downtime between customers. A bunch of the podcasts I listen to are fun or silly, but there are some more serious ones that I listen to as well.

I’m in a Facebook group that is almost like a support group for women who are dating. We share stories, get advice, and just be there for each other online when we need it. Sometimes I will end up posting a rant on there because I need to get it out and I know that at least one person in the group can relate and understand. And I always get amazing advice when I need it from the others. Sometimes, women in that group will share articles they think we will like or have recommendations for books that have helped them. And this week, someone also recommended a podcast.

It’s called Where Should We Begin and it is an unscripted series about couples working through their relationship. The episodes are audio recordings of appointments with Esther Perel, who is a therapist. The podcast takes a 3 hour appointment and condenses it down to under an hour and each episode focuses on one couple so they are standalone episodes. And they are edited down to keep certain details anonymous, but that doesn’t make it feel censored. These episodes are honest and can be a bit brutal to hear sometimes. But when a couple is working through an issue, being that brutal can be necessary. Sometimes the issue really is the issue they need to work through and sometimes that issue is covering for something else deeper that is causing the issue between them.

At first, I was a bit hesitant to listen since I’m not in a couple and I wasn’t sure how I felt about listening to someone else’s therapist session (all of the people on the podcast have consented to this so it’s not like they don’t know that their story is going to be shared with the world). But the woman who recommended it as well as others who commented that they love the podcast shared how listening to it has helped them in many ways. Sometimes it helps them avoid issues that can come up in dating or to work through an issue with someone they are on a date with. And sometimes the lessons learned can be applied to their work life or to their friends.

So I downloaded all the episodes in the first 2 seasons (the third season will be coming out on Audible in October but I don’t know when it will be available for Apple Podcasts) and I quickly went through all the episodes in the first season this week while working. It really has been interesting to listen to these therapy sessions and hearing bits and pieces of their stories that are so similar to mine or things that I connect with. While some of the problems these couples are working through are ones that I’m not familiar with, I can still learn about how to work through issues that I have with some of the tools that Esther Perel has them use. And while I do still feel like a bit of a voyeur listening in to someone else’s therapy session, it’s not as weird as I thought it would be. I don’t think I would ever want my therapy sessions recorded and shared, but that’s just me. These couples are happy to share their stories and it’s wonderful that we can all learn from them.

It’s weird to say that I’ve enjoyed listening to the episodes since they aren’t necessarily happy to listen to. I do like hearing how they can work through their issues, but it is a serious podcast and the issues they have are serious ones. And it is good to have a more serious podcast in my regular listening since I do listen to a lot of more frivolous ones. It’s like with my reading, I like to mix serious books with my fluff. I’m the same way with my podcasts. And I did try to alternate one episode of Where Should We Begin with one of my sillier ones as I listened through the first season.

I’ll probably start working through the second season next week or the week after (I have so many podcasts I listen to so I try to stay on top of them as they come out) and hopefully the third season is released not too long after they start in October on Audible. I don’t know if listening to this will help me in my future relationships, but I know that it can’t hurt. A lot of the issues they are working through are things that I have had in the back of my mind from time to time (mainly about cheating or lack of communication about being unhappy). And hearing these couples work through those issues has helped me realize that if I do end up having to worry about it in the future, there is a way to work through it and not have it end things if that’s not what is wanted.

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Posted in Dating, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

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Continuing To Work On My Book (or I Wonder How Many Versions I’ll Have Before I Finish It)

Posted on August 23, 2018 | 2 comments

I’ve shared on here before about how I am going to write a book about online dating. My stories have been so ridiculous and my friends have loved hearing about them. After posting so many of them online, people were encouraging me to put them in a book and I started to think about that idea. And I decided to go for it last year.

Since I had that idea, I’ve worked on it on and off for a while. The original idea of the book would be that it would be a collection of stories. Each guy would have their own standalone chapter or story and it would just be all the stories in one place. I was going to split it up by the guys that I met, the guys I matched with and unmatched with them for various reasons, and the cheaters that I caught online. Having them as standalone stories made them pretty easy to write and I got most of the stories done when I was working on it last November.

But when I finished that, I realized how short the book was. I knew it could get longer because I was still doing online dating and having stories to share, but it still concerned me if I wanted to do anything with the book. But I didn’t focus too much on it at the time. Then after I went through an upsetting situation with a guy, I reconnected with a few guys who I had met in the past. After that situation, I realized that having each guy as their own story didn’t make as much sense because reconnecting with the guys that I had met previously was very connected to the situation that happened to me.

So then I started working on a version of the story that was more of a chronological story of dating. I had the idea to break my story in the seasons of the year because that seemed to be some nice and natural break points in the story. I didn’t get that far into writing that version when I realized that this idea wasn’t making as much sense to me as it did before. So many of the crazy stories that I had weren’t necessary in telling the story and they were better as standalone stories. Also, I really don’t remember when certain weird situations happened because I never met those guys (so I never put dates with them in my calendar).

There was a bit of time where I wondered if I should bother continuing writing the book, but I quickly squashed that negative thought. Even if I don’t do anything with the book, it has been helpful for me. It gives me a place to write down thoughts and decompress after bad dates or after things end with a guy that I liked. I know that some of the things I am writing will have to be edited out if I ever publish it, but it’s a nice place to get things out when I need to do that. Also, it makes me have a better mindset about the really bad dates I’ve had. The past few bad dates have been not as horrible as they could have been because I was sitting there thinking how great of a story for the book this date would be. It’s been a great way to get through things that could be miserable otherwise.

So I started to rethink the book again and now I’m on the third version of the book. As much as I’d like to say this is the last version, who knows what will happen. As of right now, my book is split into 2 sections. The first section is a chronological story of the more significant guys that I’ve gone out with. These are guys I’ve dated for a while, guys who have helped me learn something about myself, or guys that ghosted me or broke my heart. They all deserve to have their stories told together because they work together and you can see how one thing leads into the other.

The second part of the book (which I’m guessing will end up being a longer part than the first) will be standalone stories of the crazies I’ve met. Some of these guys are guys that I messaged with and never met because they revealed their true colors before we made plans and other guys are ones that I went on my worst dates with. There are a few guys in there that aren’t horrible people but are better as a standalone story, but in general this section of the book isn’t flattering for any of the guys I met. These are the stories that you hear as warning stories on why online dating can be bad.

I’ve been slowly working on the book this time around. Even though this is the third version of it, I’ve never finished any of the versions. The advantage I have now is that most of the standalone stories have already been written although I am going to go back and edit and rewrite them. Plus I’ve already had a few new stories to add to that section that I need to work on. But I don’t really have a timeline for finishing it. In a way, I don’t know if it can be finished until I’m in a relationship because then I will always feel like there will be more stories to add.

There’s no rush since I really have no plans for this book. If I end up trying to sell it, awesome. If it just becomes a document on my computer, that’s fine too. But I do like having it as a goal to work on as well as something that has been a useful tool in surviving the online dating world.

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This Month Hasn’t Quite Gone The Way I Thought It Would (or Just Being Honest)

Posted on July 26, 2018 | 3 comments

I’ve never tried to only show the good parts of my life on here. I know some people only share the good and happy things on social media (and if I’m being honest I tend to share those much more often than anything negative or sad), but I’ve always tried to be honest and upfront about where I am and how I’m doing. And the honest truth is that this month has been exceptionally rough for me.

It hasn’t been due to one thing in particular and nothing has been really bad. But I’ve had enough little things that got to me that added up and have made things a bit of a struggle lately. I’m not depressed or at any risk of harming myself, but it does make me upset that I’m not feeling as happy as I should or that things that I know make me happy aren’t really doing that for me the way they did before. I will also say that I have an appointment with my therapist soon so I will be discussing this with her and making sure I’m doing all the things I should be doing for me.

Getting over being sick and dealing with feeling nauseous has been something I’ve dealt with for a while. My energy hasn’t been as high as it usually is and I am feeling more exhausted by things. I have been working on doing more things because I know that sometimes being bored and lazy can make your energy levels low, but it’s not easy. I also have been struggling with the heat waves we’ve had lately. I know that my body is really affected by the heat and I just have to go with the flow when that happens. I tell myself that when my clothes are fitting me when I know they should and it’s very hot out that it’s not that I gained weight. But it’s hard to get the voice out of my head that says that it’s my fault and not the weather’s.

I’ve also been feeling overwhelmed by online dating. I’m still having fun and have met some nice guys, but I’m ready to be done with it. I said before how I miss not caring and that’s one of the best ways to explain how I feel. I hate that I’m feeling hurt by some of the guys I’ve met. More often that not I’m just annoyed by some of the behavior I’m encountering (like guys who unmatch with me minutes before we are supposed to meet up) but there have been some guys who have ghosted me after one or two dates and it just gets to me. Nobody deserves to be ghosted and I wish these guys could be adult enough to say that they weren’t interested in seeing me again instead of having me wonder for a little bit what happened. I’ve reviewed some of these guys in my head and I don’t think that in most cases I’ve done anything wrong. But I’m trying to learn and also trying to limit how much time I spend on the various apps because it can just be too much at times.

And despite my best efforts, my self-care has been lacking this month. I’ve had some big ideas of things I wanted to do to make sure I was taking care of myself and they just didn’t happen. I’ve tried to get back into it this week as I’ve realized that this has been something I wasn’t doing, but it’s not easy to get back into a habit that was barely a habit when you dropped it. I’m going to start working on a schedule that I can add to my reminders app so that different self-care things aren’t forgotten even if my days get crazy and I feel overwhelmed again.

Like with so many things in my life, once I realized that this was happening and that this month was getting a bit more negative that I would like I was able to start working on turning things around. That was one of the things that motivated me to go to the movies with my friends this week. Even thought this month is almost over there is still time to turn it around and end the month on a much more positive note. I also know that having some down weeks can be a normal part of life and doesn’t mean that something is really wrong with me. It can feel like I’m in a deep hole when I’m in the middle of it, but when I make it through I know that it’s not usually as bad as it seemed before. I just need to get to the other side of this and get back to the happier life that I love to have.

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Sometimes I Miss Not Caring (or The Grass Is Always Greener)

Posted on July 13, 2018 | Comments Off on Sometimes I Miss Not Caring (or The Grass Is Always Greener)

It’s been interesting being one of the only single people in my group of friends. So many of my friends who are married or are in serious relationships have loved hearing about my online dating adventures. They live vicariously through me and usually they ask if they can swipe on the apps for me. I limit them to swiping on Bumble because on there the woman has to message the guy first. If I let them swipe on Tinder, that could lead to a creeper message I don’t want to see. I always will get gross and creepy messages, but I like to limit those if possible.

A lot of the time, I complain to those friends that I just want to meet someone so I can get off of the apps. I am having fun dating and it’s so different now compared to other times in my life, but I also am tired of meeting new guys and hoping something will happen. I’m tired of the bad dates and the stress before a first date wondering if it will be good or bad. I do think I’ve been lucky compared to other single people as I have had more good dates (or bad dates with good stories) than truly awful dates. And nothing too horrible has happened to me which is a risk every time I meet someone even though I meet them somewhere public and a friend always knows where I am and when I am home safe.

Whenever I complain, many of my friends in relationships say that being in a relationship isn’t necessarily easier than dating. I’m aware this is true and relationships take work, but it’s a different type of work than dating. Some of them miss being single and having freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want. But I know that even though some of them miss their single time, they love their significant other and are glad to have the love and companionship from them.

The grass is always greener no matter what the situation is. I want to be in a relationship and some of my relationship friends want to be single (or at least single for a day so they can do whatever they want). But the grass is also greener for me when I compare myself to my old self.

Prior to about a year and a half ago, I rarely dated. When I did date, I really didn’t care too much about it. I did have some nerves about things, but they were more muted than they are now. I never imagined a future with any of the guys I went out with and I never really cared if I never saw them again after the first date. You’d like having fewer dates would have made me care more about each one, but that wasn’t the case for me.

I am not totally sure why things were the way they were before, but I am curious if it has to do with being on hormonal birth control before. I know that any hormonal birth control can change your mood and how you feel certain emotions. So maybe for me it was muting my feelings about wanting a relationship and companionship. This is just a theory, but it seems to make sense with the timing of things. Either way, before about April of last year I didn’t really care about dating and now I do.

And even though I’m having fun (despite some of the sucky parts of dating I’ve experienced) and it’s nice to feel wanted and enjoy that feeling, I miss not caring. I miss when dating wasn’t something I thought about all the time and didn’t care about. I miss not wondering if a guy who I like likes me back or if he’s going to text me back. I’m trying to not stress about the little things, but I do. I miss feeling neutral about things and not getting my hopes up or feeling heartbroken.

I think even with the annoyance of caring about things, I do still prefer now over how things were before. I do want to get married and have kids and I have to date to do that. I am learning about myself through dating a bit and I’ve become much more confident and self-assured. And I have learned that I don’t have to be as tolerant of people treating me badly like I did before. I can stand up for myself and I’m not scared about being called a bitch for doing so. I guess in some way, learning to care about dating has made me not care about what some people think about me.

While my dating adventures have made for some interesting blog posts, I do hope that these are not going to happen for forever. I am trying to stay optimistic that there is someone out there for me and that we will connect somehow. Chances will be we meet on an app since that’s the only place I’m really meeting guys, but you never know. And I know that even when I meet someone who is right for me that I will still stress out about things. But hopefully that stress will be easier to deal with when it’s about one person and not that I’m stressing about who I’ve met, will be meeting, or wondering if I should be meeting.

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Getting Banned From Tinder (or No Regrets Calling Out A Cheater)

Posted on June 19, 2018 | Comments Off on Getting Banned From Tinder (or No Regrets Calling Out A Cheater)

The twists keep coming in my online dating adventures. But this one was one I never thought about and was shocked when it happened. As the title states, I got banned from Tinder. I still don’t feel like I did anything wrong, but I guess that’s not up to me to decide.

This story has a bit of back story in it. I actually briefly mentioned the guy this involves before. Right in the beginning of my online dating adventures, I matched with a guy and was chatting with him on Bumble. We had even started texting each other and I thought maybe we’d be meeting up soon. Our texts were pretty innocent and silly. We were talking about our jobs and the pets our families had. But the texting ended and I figured he moved on so I deleted his texts and didn’t think much about it.

Then several months later, we matched again on Bumble. By this point I had already dealt with finding several guys who lied about being single and I was much smarter about doing a bit of research on who I’m talking to. When we started chatting again, I did a quick search on him and discovered that he was a newlywed. He had only gotten married about 4 months before the first time we had talked to each other. I was disgusted by him and used his wife’s name in a message to him (I said something like, “does your wife so-and-so know you are on here”). He unmatched with me, but I took screenshots of the messages and sent them to his wife on Facebook.

This was almost a year ago and I really hadn’t thought much about him. On Bumble you can pay to see who swiped on you before you swipe on them, but I’ve never paid for it. Tinder has the same option and I’ve done it on Tinder just because I’ve found it’s easier to weed out who I’d actually want to meet (Bumble seems to have a higher ratio of quality guys). And when I was looking through who swiped on me on Tinder, I noticed this guy again! Clearly he either didn’t remember me or was swiping on every girl just to get a match. I was furious that he was still being a cheater and decided to match with him and message him.

In his bio, it said that he was looking for a hot and sexy girl. So I wrote to him how we had matched on Bumble previously and asked how he was. Then I used his wife’s name again and asked if she knew he was on Tinder looking for a hot and sexy girl. I might have been a bit aggressive by doing that, but I was angry. Within seconds he unmatched with me and then I got logged out of my Tinder account. I couldn’t figure out what happened so I decided to google the error code I was getting. And that’s when I discovered the error code meant my profile got banned.

I emailed their support to find out more, but this is all I got back.

I have looked at all the policies and the only thing I could even remotely think would fit would be that I sent a harassing and threatening message by using his wife’s name. I really don’t know and the support team said they couldn’t tell me what I did wrong and there was no more information that they could give beyond that I got banned.

I was pretty angry that this cheater got me banned, but I’m not mad that I did what I did. He needed to know that people can easily figure out that he’s married and that he should make sure he tells his wife (I did message her again after this, but since my messages are likely being filtered on FB I know she hasn’t seen them). As much as I would like to believe that they have an open marriage and she knows, his behavior would lead me to think otherwise.

Since my profile was banned, there is no way to go back and talk to anyone I matched on there unless we had already started texting. And at first that bugged me, but the more I’ve thought about it it’s probably a good thing. I had a few hundred matches on Tinder but was only really talking to 4 guys on there (2 of whom I’ve texted with so I could always text them if I wanted to talk to them again). There were maybe 100 or so guys I had matched with but never messaged for one reason or another. And over 100 guys that I started conversations with that died off or they never responded to my original message.

I’ve set it as a weekly goal several times that I wanted to do a purge of my current matches on the various apps, but it was tough to let go of a potential date. This forced me to do that and it feels pretty good so far. I did create a new account and started over, but I haven’t really been using it. But it’s there for if I want to. If I catch cheaters on there again, I might send them the message and then unmatched with them quickly before they can report me. But I’m not sure since I still believe I did nothing wrong.

Just like all the other crazy stories that happened in online dating, at least this one will make another interesting story for my book.

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Getting Some Answers (or Allowing Myself To Be A Bit Of A Bitch)

Posted on May 17, 2018 | 1 comment

I wrote last month about how I had some unfortunate situations in online dating.  I had been seeing someone on and off for a little while when I got a Facebook message from a random account telling me he had a girlfriend. I sent the guy a screenshot about it and asked him if he knew what this was about and at the time I wrote my last post I hadn’t heard from him.

It’s been about a month since I messaged him and I finally heard back from him yesterday. I don’t need to go into too many details, but he basically admitted that he did have a girlfriend (although they started dating after the last time he and I saw each other in person) and that he was wrong for not telling me. He doesn’t deserve anything from me, but I agreed to talk to him on the phone. He wanted to explain things but that wasn’t my intention with the call.

Ever since I got that random Facebook message, I had questions I wanted answered. And in the month since that message, I’ve tortured myself thinking about what the answers could be and this phone call was my opportunity to get those answers. So I prepared for the call almost how I prepare for phone interviews for jobs.

I wrote down every question I had for him. There were plenty of questions that I knew the answers would hurt me, but I needed to hear it from him and not just have my imagination run wild. And I needed him to hear what I felt about him because he didn’t deserve to just think that everything was ok with us. When I looked back at my questions I wrote before he and I spoke on the phone, I thought that maybe I was being too harsh and mean.

But then I stopped myself. Why shouldn’t I be harsh and mean? Someone who I cared about (and I thought cared about me) hurt me and I had a chance to get answers. I didn’t care anymore about what he thought about me so if he felt like I was being a bitch after asking these questions that was fine with me. This phone call wasn’t for him even though he felt like I was doing him a favor. This was for me to say my peace when I haven’t had that chance in the past.

And the call went pretty close to what I expected. I was screaming and saying some very tough things for him to hear. I was emotional and I didn’t care. I made him listen to me and I forced him to answer the questions I needed answers to. I didn’t get everything I wanted out of the call, but I got more than I had before and that was something I needed. It didn’t quite give me a sense of closure, but it gave me a sense of power when I had felt powerless the month prior.

He and I had some deep conversations when we had been together and he knew that I struggled with a family member telling me that I was never worthy of good things. And I got to tell him that even though I know it’s not the truth, he made me feel like it was true because he didn’t seem to respect me enough to tell me the truth. I only found out the truth from a random person. And while he claims he would have told me the truth soon, I doubt that.

The call lasted about 30 minutes and we agreed that there were still more things that needed to be said between us so there will probably be another conversation. He says he needs to have me forgive him (which I don’t know when or if I can do that) and I need him to admit to his mistakes so that I can regain some more power. I need to believe that this has nothing to do with me. And I know it doesn’t, but I don’t quite believe it yet.

You may be wondering why I’m telling you all this story. This was a huge step for me. In the past, I’ve been treated horribly by men and either let it slide or just ended things without explaining what I felt. This time, I had the chance to force someone to hear what I was feeling. And even with having that chance it was a step to actually take it and go through with it. It wasn’t easy hearing some of the things he had to say, but it would have been harder not hearing anything at all. And I have learned that sometimes one way of being hurt is easier to deal with than another way of being hurt.

There is no denying that I’m hurt (and he admitted that he didn’t realize how much this hurt me until he heard it in my voice) and I’m glad I’m acknowledging these feelings. I felt stupid to feel almost heartbroken over a guy that was never a serious relationship. But even without us being serious, we did care about each other and I felt betrayed by him. I have every right to have these feelings and I don’t think I was letting myself feel that way until this call. During the call I felt worse than I had in the past month, but after the call I finally felt something release from me. I’m still mad, but it’s not as bad as it was before.

After I got off this phone call, I was able to talk to a friend of mine. I needed to be talked down from how crazy I was feeling and just needed to vent and rant. And thankfully my friend totally understood that and didn’t try to interject with any advice. She just listened and told me to honor the feelings I was having. She reminded me that this was just the stupidity of one guy and it really had nothing to do with me. She told me that I deserve so much more than what I got and I needed to hear that. I needed to be reminded that what happened to me wasn’t representative of me in any way. This was just something that happened to me and it was only representative of the guy.

I know that this non-relationship can’t define who I am. It is just something that happened to me (and will make an interesting story in the book I’m writing) and I will be past this soon. And it reminded me yet again that I am so lucky to have the friends that I have and that even if I don’t have romantic love in my life that I have friendship love. And that love is more powerful and meaningful to me.

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