I (21M) did my fair share of dating in high school, then when I went off for college I realized I needed some time to figure things out before dating could be on my mind again. Cut to 2.5 years later then I’ve been going to the gym for around a year and a half, got a new hairstyle, improved my wardrobe, and most importantly became much more confident and understanding about what I want. I had downloaded dating apps on and off a few times over that span, but nothing ever really came from it.
Towards the start of this year, I decided I actually wanted to put myself out there and that I was ready for a relationship. It’s been a pretty brutal experience, I mostly used dating apps but due to living in a small city and most people in their early twenties not using the apps to find a serious relationship they were more of a time sink than anything. I got a handful of first dates from them, I’d say around half made it to the second date and the furthest I got was dating this one girl for almost 2 months that cut things off because of past relationship issues. I only met one girl in person, it was at a club last month and we went on two dates before I realized the connection wasn’t really there and ended things. This was also pretty much my first time approaching someone.
Pretty much right after ending things with her I realized that the apps were doing me more harm than good, so I deleted them and my plan is to eventually meet someone in person. The issue with that is that my life doesn’t exactly put me in the best position to meet people. I’ve pretty much always stuck around my same group of friends, I’m in engineering which is a heavily male dominate degree, and besides that I pretty much go to the gym.
Dating apps were good in the sense that I had opportunities to meet people that I just never would’ve ran into otherwise, but after they ran their course even that went away and I was left swiping on the same few faces. Now that I’ve given up on them, it feels a bit discouraging as to me finding someone in person was more luck and also having a strong social life than anything. With the apps it felt like I could take some initiative to find someone by swiping daily, now it seems like I just need to sit around and hope I stumble across someone which could happen tomorrow or years down the line. I think I need to get my mind off of it, learn to spot an opportunity, and then if it happens it happens, but it sucks being in a spot where I feel fully ready for a relationship but not being able to control when it happens.