Sunday 29 September 2013

Why I'm not dating right now

I just want to start this post by saying that I realise that it's my own well...reticence? Maybe?....that is in some ways stopping me, I just want to preface with that as I'm sure some of this won't make sense to some people.
Alrighty, reasons I'm not dating:

1. I've never dated before. I haven't a clue where to start. What do I wear? Where do we go? Worst of all what do I talk about? I suck at small talk. How do I know if I want to see someone again? What if they like me but I don't like them? Or visa versa? I mean I get that that happens all the time but it's still gotta be an emotional strain. What if rumours are spread about me being a weird awkward person? Hence ruining any future chances I might have. What if I happen to accidentally agree to meet someone who I know in real life? Only happens if online dating of course.

2.I live in an area that's a 35 minute drive to the nearest town (where everyone knows everyone) or more likely an hours drive to the nearest big city. This is difficult as I don't drive. I could ask them to pick me up, but that seems unfair to me and then there's the fact that I'd have to explain to my mother. Um no thankyou. Ditto if I ask her for a lift.

3. Joining online dating means I have to put pics of myself on the net. I hate pics of myself for a start but worse what if someone I know sees them? Or even worse someone my mum knows. Also there are so many rules with pics, they mustn't be selfies, or just you face, or without friends or with friends-so confusing! What if I get no interest? What if I get all the wrong kind of interest? How do I tell if it's safe to meet someone? What if they want to talk on the phone first? I'll never get anywhere if thats the case, my phone manner is shocking.

4. Fear. Probably the biggest one. What if I try and fail? At least as it is I can still conceivably think it could work fine because I haven't tried. This is really counter productive obviously. Being scared to meet somebody, anybody new, it's hard to explain how much this freaks me out, I'd love to just snap my fingers and get over it but I can't. And hanging out with someone who's terrified of you likely isn't going to be a good time.

5. The fear it may actually work. That I'll have to account for myself to someone. That I'll have to explain to my mum and family that I have a boyfriend, I cringe just thinking of it. That they will/won't want to get married when I do. That they'll want kids straight away or not at all. That they won't like the way I dress or cook or whatever.

6. I edited the post to add these 2 that I forgot: Fear of admitting my inexperience (I've never even kissed someone), what should I do? Makeup a story? Like I haven't kissed anyone since I was 16 so don't expect me to be any good! Be honest? Say nothing? And if I get called out then what? It's embarrassing to think about having to admit this to someone.

7. If I do finally get to that all important point how will I feel? Will I be good enough? Will they like my body? Will they enjoy teaching me? Will I be comfortable exposing myself like that to someone?

So as I said it may not make a whole lotta sense. But there it is.
Vanessa
PS Is it just me or is the blogasphere being pretty quiet lately?

12 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting this - I think it's really interesting! In my early 20s I was stuck in some of these ways too - especially 1, 4 and 6. On the other hand, I think I was helped by living in a big city (this is partly why I moved to London from a smaller city.)

    I want to write more but I have to go to work soon (it's 8am here) but I'm interested to try to "solve" some of these points, if that doesn't seem too intrusive! I know the list may look daunting, but the mathematician in me says: This is good progress - we've got the challenges listed out - now all we have to do is work out how to address them. The hardest thing is when it's not even clear what the obstacles are, so you've made some important steps just in thinking about them!

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    1. Yeah I think living in a bigger city helps, so does being away from family I think-it's so easy when you have a built in TV and dinner companion, you just aren't as inclined to seek out companionship. I'd really love to spend a bit of time either working abroad or on exchange, as I've mentioned in my posts, it's a long way off if ever though :( I am learning to drive though. And hating every minute of it ;)
      Feel free to advise all you like :)
      Vanessa
      PS once again I managed to post a new comment instead of reply......

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    2. Learning to drive could be really helpful - then you can go on dates in the big city an hour away, which sounds much easier than having a small pool of people who all know each other. I mean, it sounds easier to me because I've only ever dated in London.

      I know that it can all sound scary and overwhelming. What worked for me was to try to break it into steps. I didn't imagine the whole process all at once. It's a bit like a little child learning to walk - it doesn't instantly get told about how it'll need to be able to walk for miles or maybe run for miles or whatever. It just tries to take one step, and then maybe a few steps, and then maybe to walk across a room, and so on.

      Also, the child doesn't get left on its own to figure it all out - it has help and support along the way. I think that this could be helpful here too. We all need some help and support sometimes. I think it would be cool for you to have a team - call it Team Vanessa or whatever you like. I'll volunteer to be on Team Vanessa, if you're up for that. Maybe Yoda friend and some other blog readers can join too? We'll all have our own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, I know what it's like to overcome a slow start to dating, but I know very little about things like fashion; based on earlier posts in your blog it sounds like you're a lot better in that department!

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    3. Yeah learning to drive is important, if I want to go to school or need to drive someone for a doctors appointment I need to be able to drive, I hate every second of it though :(
      Small steps are definitely the way to go, I have a hard time with it as I'm impatient at the best of times and I like to look ahead-then I feel like I'll never get there and head back to the start-a vicious circle! I need to learn to break big goals up into little goals.
      I like that idea, if you want to be team me I'm all for it :) Anyone else feel free to join in!
      I wouldn't say I'm better at it, but I have been spending a bit of time lately thinking about who I am, who I want to be and how to mesh it all together.
      Vanessa

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    4. I'm glad you like the team idea! I know it can be all too easy to look at all of the challenges in front of you and not even want to start, but hopefully your team can encourage you to keep looking for small steps to take, and gradually you'll find that you've made progress towards your goals.

      With that in mind, let's look at what you might do starting from where you are. Don't worry yet about what to do on a date, or in a relationship - those steps are further down the line. The social anxiety thing might be an earlier thing to tackle. I'm curious: was there ever a time when you were anxious about "chatting" via blog comments over the internet? You seem fine doing that now - you only just "met" me but it doesn't seem to be an issue. If it was originally difficult, how did you get through that? Maybe the same process can work in other areas.

      I'm also curious about your mother. Do stop me if I'm asking too much or anything, but is it possible that you might be able to move towards telling her about more of this? Your post seems to mention "fear of my mother knowing things" several times. What if you just told her: "hey mum, I'm thinking I'd like to go on some dates. I might even try that online thing that lots of people are doing these days. Wanna help take a nice photo or two of me?" What's the worst that could happen? You're her daughter and she'll want you to be happy, right?

      Oh, one other thing I wanted to mention: if you do start dating someone, you don't owe them an explanation about lack of experience or anything. You can just be vague - "it's been a long time" or whatever. Nice guys won't push you for answers. If a guy is really pushy then he's not the right guy. If you met someone you liked, you wouldn't deliberately make them uncomfortable - you'd want them to feel at ease with you, right? The same goes for a guy who likes you and wants to see you again - he'll want you to feel good around him. And any guy who's right for you is not going to mind that you haven't had sex - see Eleanor Rigby's recent example. Some guys have issues with women who've had a lot of sex (which is hypocritical, but that's another story) but most guys don't mind little or none. It would be like a guy worrying that a woman wouldn't like him if he didn't have sex with her on the first date - it just doesn't work that way round!

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    5. Yes it can!
      No strangely enough I have no problem with online communication-I mean sometimes I can be a bit slow or not very detailed-but I never feel nervous about it. I look forward to it even. Here's a good example I emailed a lady who makes dresses-no nerves at all. If I'd had to ring her? No go. I only really talk to people I know on the phone, and even then I get a bit sweaty and pace. I've read that continued exposure is the only way to get better-that doesn't seem to work for me, once I had to fill in for a few weeks on market stall, so I was selling things, handling money and talking to customers, but it didn't make it better at all :(
      I close with my mother, but I feel I need some part of myself to myself if that makes sense. I don't want her to be my confident in this particular instance-I know it would worry her that it's worrying me and I don't want to add any stress to her at all. If I did meet someone then I'd tell her and introduce them for sure. I'm not ashamed exactly, I guess I just don't want her to think I'm preoccupied with that kind of thing-she's mentioned me getting married in the past in passing (like 'if you get married you'll want x' for example) so I know she's not against it. But she does have strong opinions in the negative for online daring and also girls 'chasing' boys. So no probably not a place I'd feel happy going with her.
      Thanks for that. Sad about the double standard but at least, for once, it's in my favour I guess.
      Vanessa

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    6. It's interesting that the continued exposure to interacting with people on the market stall didn't seem to make it better. I'll bear that in mind, because a lot of my suggestions otherwise might have been "keep doing such-and-such until it feels fine and then do the next step..." Maybe instead of lots of quick online dates you'd be more suited to chatting online with just the occasional potential guy, but for much longer and in more depth, and then maybe meeting if you've got comfortable enough with them in particular. I think this was more how Eleanor Rigby did things too

      Anyway, I've got some more thoughts but I don't want to turn this post into too much of a comment marathon, so maybe I should wait for a new post before I add more!

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    7. You can always email me if you want :)
      Vanessa

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  2. I can relate to your post and to every point except 2. I'm from a city but I am still clueless about dating. I've only ever dated 1 guy (technically 2 but its a long story), and that was ages ago, when I was younger and much more naive (hence a little less practical and critical of myself). I'm an extremely cynical about online dating. Funny isn't it? I want to meeting people, find that someone and all that jazz ,but cannot seem to bring myself to become more active in my social life or in the dating scene. I personally just feel stuck and resigned to fate sometimes. Hopefully we both manage to figure/work something out.

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    1. Yeah the good ole 'leave me alone I'm lonely' conundrum. I get it trust me :)
      And I too hope we figure it out.
      Vanessa

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  3. Our biggest obstacle is inexperience. I believe most things on your list are relatable to most people with various backgrounds.

    What holds back a lot of people in our situation is fear of the unknown and not having sucessful outcomes to look forward to and strive for. The rational in my mind is that it's not worth the rejection and heartbreak. I have no positive or significant experieces to counter it. No matter how unhappy or alone I feel, it's familiar. Until a greater need supersedes this block, I'm stuck.

    Do you think you'll try online dating in the future?

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    1. In some ways true, for me I think my irrational fear of meeting strangers is worse, there are a lot of people out there who get excited about first dates-I just can't even imagine. But yes once that obstacle is passed the inexperience leaves you wondering which way is up in a situation where others have a good knowledge base-even telling if someone is interested is hard, do they even want to kiss you? How do you let them know you'd like them to? OMG what do I do if they do actually kiss me etc
      Fear is just about the most powerful motivator I think.
      I would try online dating if I was in a bigger city or abroad, even if was just for a little bit to see if anyone was interested. There seems to be a lot more people meeting online nowadays.
      Vanessa

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