Someone asked me to write a blogpost about dating…and, I am a woman of the people, so here we are. I am scared that a future potential lover may read this…but…hopefully if they do…it only makes them like me more??? I’m also scared that someone from these twenty first dates will read this and think they were just a number or part of some big plan (you weren’t!!). Oh well. 

Spoiler: dating isn’t really working out for me right now, so I can’t imagine this makes it any worse?

Sadly, this is not a spinoff of the amazing movie “50 First Dates” with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. I have not met someone lovely, incredible, and kind who has been in an awful car accident and now suffers from short-term memory loss but for some reason seems to remember me. I’m not that lucky 😂

Instead, a while back my friend had told me that she was trying to do “twenty dates in her twenties.” Guess what? She met the guy she will probably end up marrying at number 9 (or 7?, regardless, it was less than 10). So I told her that I was going to give it a shot. Unfortunately…I’m still not that lucky. It’s going to take a lot more than 20 first dates to find my future spouse. But, I did it! And I did it all within ~1.5 years 😂 Too easy.

I told some of my other friend groups about this “challenge” and they told me that it sounded like it could be the title of a book. Which, yes, I agree. However, I think to write a book about this, the experience would have had to be a lot more exciting, a lot more impactful, a lot more inspiring. And it’s just not. Maybe once I finally do find my forever person, I could write a book about this…but for now I’ll just write a blog post.

One of my soccer teammates asked me what the biggest takeaway from this experience was and I said, “dating sucks and men are stupid.” (Sorry men). I remember last Fall I’d thought to myself, “the experience of women dating in their twenties is just waiting for the men their age to grow up and mature”. I still think that.

They weren’t all duds though, I actually feel very lucky because I feel like I’ve never had a bad date. Though at the same time, I feel bad for women everywhere, because I feel like the only reason I feel that way is because I’ve never felt like my safety was threatened…but, I guess, yay for that?

No but for real, I’ve had lots of fun dates…some of my friends I worked with told me that I should look at dating as a way to try new restaurants and bars on someone else’s dime 😂 They’re not wrong…I always say that I’m a feminist, but I still believe in chivalry. And I’ve tried a lot of great bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and gotten to meet some pretty cool folks too. Plus it’s a good way to practice talking about my research to people outside of the field??

Tbh, dating is weird, it’s hard, and I don’t really like it. Taking time out of my own precious schedule to meet a stranger…and so far, every person I’ve liked doesn’t like me as much, or vice versa. It’s so bad for my confidence 😂 Because I think I’m a pretty cool person…but all of this makes me think that maybe I’m not?

Anyway, when my friend had asked me to write a blogpost about dating because they love hearing about other people’s experiences, I responded “Hahaha I have half written this one 😂 it’s not inspiring.” They responded, “Is anybody’s dating history ‘inspiring?’ 😂😭” I died reading that, because, like…so true bestie. But, sometimes it feels really hard. Especially when a lot of the friends around you are in relationships. (Which I am so happy for them, and I love each and every one of their partners…but when is it my turn?)

It’s actually kind of funny for me to ask that last question considering I have been in a long term relationship before, I have been on the other side, and I have had people ask me, “How do you know you’ve met the one?” And I responded, “I don’t know…when you know, you just know!” I did not know.

No bad blood though. Just a young girl in love. A young girl who honestly didn’t really know who she was yet or who she would become. (That young girl is me, if you didn’t catch that,…though I still don’t know who I will become). Since that relationship, I’ve become the person that people say has shown them that they can be happy after a big break up too 😂😂😂 I’m pretty sure I’m the reason someone ended their engagement with their partner of six years. So…be careful talking to me about relationships 😅 (kidding).

Dating is weird, especially these days, because so much of it occurs online first. And it’s weird because the first time you are meeting someone, there’s pressure for there to be a romantic connection. And I feel like, because of that, you miss out on getting to build a friendship with that person first. When I went on my first date with a girl I kept thinking to myself, “This is exactly how I would talk with one of my girlfriends.” It really confused me, especially because bisexual people are sooooo often questioned about their sexuality, told that they are “just doing it for attention”, or that being bi is just “the step someone takes before coming out as gay”. Imma stop right there and tell you all that that is NOT true. Believe it or not, people can be attracted to people of multiple genders. And that attraction can be romantic, sexual, both, neither. So, miss me with that homophobic and biphobic bullshit.

Anyway, back to my story. It really confused me. I had the most lovely time with this girl, my cheeks were so sore from smiling so much. I genuinely felt like I was talking to a friend. But I felt the pressure to feel like it should feel like more. I then went away on vacation. Then when I returned, she was away on vacation. We ended up running into each other one weekend at the Public Market and I asked if we could get coffee as just friends. We were both anxious: me because I was so confused about my feelings, her because she’d met a guy she was getting serious with and didn’t know how to communicate that with me (I was her first ever date from a dating app, so we were both in new territory). We got coffee and talked about all of this. Including the bit about how online dating is weird because it seems like you’re either going to date or never speak again…but sometimes you like the person’s company and maybe do just want to be friends! But it feels weird! We hate it.

So, here we are, 20+ first dates later…feeling a little hopeless. But also hopeful that I’ll just get slapped in the face with the sweetest love to ever walk this earth. We shall see.

I guess I should try to end this post with some inspiration… Even though I still haven’t found my person, I’m still happy I did the “twenty first dates in my twenties.” I did meet some cool people, eat some good food, and drink some yummy drinks. I’ve been introduced to a lot of great music, I fell in love with watching basketball again, and I was taught how to salsa dance! And I’m happy because, through all of this, I’ve continued to stay true to myself and to my beliefs. I shockingly have not let anyone hurt me yet!! That’s huge for this ever-romantic Pisces who just wants to be loved!! I keep putting myself out there, and that’s all I can do. So yay.