It feels like there is something so romantic about being single and your 20s. In TV shows, 20 year olds have all of these super attractive, single, confident friends who also know other single, confident, attractive people and you easily can date around.
Dating in your 20s is literally nothing like this.
There is nothing romantic about awkwardly meeting your friends’ friend or, even worse, going on a dating app and making small talk with a guy until you get to the point of asking yourself “Is he into me? Or does he just want to hook up?”
Another weird thing about your twenties is that you feel like you’re in crunch time. If you meet someone there is an automatic evaluation of “would I marry you?” If the answer is no, the probability of it making it past a few months is rare. We’re in a place where some friends are getting married, some are having kids and a few are on their second kid. So there isn’t this nice frivolous feeling of just dating and expecting no future.
Something I’ve personally realize about myself that also isn’t helpful is that I am not someone that falls fast. If I’ve known the guy less than 6 months there is almost no chance I’ll have any interest in them. It takes me a long time to realize I have feelings for someone. So, again, this can make things like dating apps or blind dates very difficult. But I recognize this isn’t an everyone issue. Is it an issue for you? Validate me.
So the question remains: how do you date, in this new age, in your 20s? The honest truth is I have no idea… but i’m not scared? It’s an odd feeling being at peace in my single-ness and at this time in my life where I should be dating around; I just simply don’t want to. I feel no panic and no pressure to find the one. I had a friend a few weeks back go through a break-up and she was like “I feel like you’re so ok with being single – how do I get to that?” I told her the thing I HATED hearing from other people:
Time.
It took me a lot of time to no longer obsess over the idea of dating or the idea of being single but instead focus on what was in front of me. It sounds simple but it took me so long to break it down into a mindset where my whole existence wasn’t focused around men. Why are we so dialed in on creating relationships with partners over ourselves? Cheesy I know…but can you answer the question? Are you obsessive over your relationship status or are you just chill and content? It takes A LOT to finally be ok being alone with yourself. I think it’s something that we learn as we move into more of this “adulthood” thing. We’ve spent our whole lives surrounded by family or friends and then suddenly we’re ejected into a life where you are now your own soul focus. Do you like hanging out with yourself? It’s such an interesting feeling when you can accept it all.
Am I so overly content in my single-ness that I may just literally stay single forever? I’m un-sure. That feels like a blog post for another time.
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