I’m dating again and I’ve been reminded how much I HATE!!!! the early stages esp with app dating. I’m talking the first 1-5 dates. Once I know them a bit, I’m fine. I honestly find being in a relationship so much easier than early stage dating. But it’s the real first stages of getting to know them I find honestly borderline upsetting at times.
1) I hate the pressure to be physical, especially from online dating. It takes me a while to warm up to people and I hate that if you don’t kiss, have sex, whatever by xyz date people start making assumptions about how much you like them and everything. Just that elephant in the room lurking over every interaction.. I hate it. And I hate when I have to say things like ‘I’m not comfortable rn with that’ you then have to manage all this emotional blowback. Even if they’re fine with it the anticipation of how they may react makes me dread the entire situation. Like sometimes I’m like, I’ve met you two times in my whole life can we chill!
2) hate the time commitment. I’m a busy person, I hate how I either have to cut activities with friends or use up rare alone time to fill with dates instead. I hate people who want to text all day every day when we barely know eachother. Again, once I know these people better and have some connection with them I LOVE talking to them. But I hate it in the early 1-3 date stage
3) I hate that I often find people soo boring and I can’t decide if it’s because I’m the problem of if we just aren’t compatible. I hate that I find it really hard to discern how to tell if someone’s not for me or if I need to give someone more of a chance. And then in the meantime while I’m just mulling this over, the pressure on point 1 and 2 is building 😭
Anyways that’s my rant… / looking for advice if anyone has any on making any of this fun or how to approach these above issues if people have them. Urgh