This is the place to put shower thoughts, your vents/rants about dating, requests for quick advice, serious (and sometimes not) questions and anything else that might not warrant a post of its own.
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Last mistake for 2025??? Yay or nay?
Bookstore holiday party on Thursday might be an oasis in the desert. Or I’ll be youngest person there by at least 10 years.
Ran into a familiar face at the climbing gym yesterday. She’s very cute and easy to talk to. Tbh idk if she’s single or even straight, but I know she does a lot of art for the gym’s promotional stuff. The last gym newsletter linked her website and I bought a shirt that I would be legitimately interested in even if I didn’t know her and wanted to support local. Hopefully she doesn’t think that’s weird that I bought something from her after like the 2nd time we talked.
I am letting myself be set up with a potential long-distance (to start) relationship. He has siblings in the area that I know through church and sports, and I get along really well with them. His sister set him up with a friend of mine first; she decided not to pursue anything more with him, but thought he was a great guy and realized that I would have a lot more in common with him than she did. The way she phrased it was that there was a lot that she could admire about him, but I could match him. I’m excited and nervous and trying not to set myself up for disappointment. It’s been a long time since I’ve found anyone to be excited about.
Am I being insecure or should this be a legitimate concern?
I’ve been dating this woman exclusively for the past month. We’ve been on about 10 dates/hangouts and I think it’s going well so far. My only concern is that she is divorced, from a 10 year relationship. What I am concerned about is that they divorced a little over a year ago and I’m cautious if she is completely healed and emotionally available for a new long term relationship and if I could possible be a rebound. Her Facebook is also full of photos of her and her ex husband. I don’t care too much about social media but it just makes me cautious again if this is a sign that someone hasn’t completely moved on from her recent relationship.
On the contrary, from what I have gathered from the past month is that she seems like she has moved on. She doesn’t show any of the obvious signs like frequently mentioning him, holding onto old items, comparing me, etc.
Had my first real stumble/conflict over the weekend with my girlfriend of 3 months. She’s quite avoidant and her impulse is to ignore/run from problems rather than discuss them, whereas my impulse is to immediately talk through and resolve them (thanks, 2.5 years of consistent therapy). I found that her reaction really triggered some core wounding in me around hypervigilance and feeling like I’m being punished for infractions that are outside of my knowledge/control. Things have been going fairly well up to this point and this is the first time where I’ve really felt like this relationship might not be something I want to continue, which is a strange feeling. This is my first relationship after a 15 year marriage and a year of singleness. It’s very hard to find the line between “every relationship has problems to work through” and “this is self abandonment.” I don’t want to bail at the first sign of trouble, but I’m also not looking for another project with another emotionally unavailable person. She seems like she’s over the conflict, but I’m just feeling really sad and unsettled about the whole thing.
My most secure relationships have been with my best friends.
My oldest friend and I didn’t speak for over a year after she got angry with me (for something that was more to do with an internal struggle she was having than with me), but I never once wondered if the friendship was over. I just thought *I’m not able to give her what she needs right now.* I trusted that, with time, the relationship would eventually repair itself and we could come back together when she was ready,band we did.
I have another friend that I haven’t seen in person for eight years. We still talk every few days. I don’t worry if she gets busy, or goes silent for a bit. I know she’ll always come back to the conversation.
I have no idea how to love romantically this way. I don’t know why it’s so much harder for me to love a man and still hold him loosely. Maybe it’s because of the reciprocity and trust that’s been built up within these longstanding friendships, but there isn’t a way to manufacture that in a new romantic relationship. I don’t trust that if I hold loosely to a man, he’ll come back. I think all of my relationship habits have just been me proving that to myself (someone yesterday mentioned inner-child work… my inner child just wants someone to notice her).
It’s also one of the big reasons that I’m not sure I can date successfully through the apps. Foundation-building is sacred to me. What is love, if not friendship caught fire?
I’m trying to practice being zen that my life has gone, and might yet go in a different direction that I wanted it to. I’m not doing this with perfect equanimity (as this morning’s drive to work suggests), but I am trying to notice and be aware that every lonely moment is an opportunity to appreciate untapped potential experiences and to be grateful for my friends. No man I’ve dated since being divorced has ever brought me coffee because he just thought about me, but my friend paid for my dinner the other night just to be nice, my coworker brought me some clothes she thought I might like, and my boss gave me treats to give to my kids. My life is full of loving people, even if there isn’t one, singular person who stays with me throughout. So no, love doesn’t look exactly how I pictured it, but it’s still present. I just have to work on adjusting my focus.
Meeting one of my old professors for coffee today; hoping he might have some thoughts on where to take my career.