It’s the question that you dread most as a single AF woman: “How’s your love life?” You’re tempted to shrug and change the subject, but your reaction might be worth thinking about. If you truly hate talking about your dating life, then you probably don’t love the journey that you’re on to find a partner. You don’t actually have to hate dating as much as you do. When dating feels impossible, here’s what you should tell yourself:
- You only need to meet one person. Back in the pre-online dating days, if you were single, it was because you hadn’t met anyone in your daily life that caught your interest. In these swipe happy times, you have no excuse not to date—and date a lot. Here’s the truth, though: whenever you feel overwhelmed AF about all of the potential guys that you could go out with, remember that you need to only meet one guy. You’re looking for someone special who you click with and who fits into your life. One guy. That’s it.
- Everyone hates it just as much as you do. Start a conversation about dating with any of your single or coupled up friends and they will groan in response. They’ll tell you about their worst date ever or just wax poetic about how ridiculous dating is today. Can it really be that bad if everyone feels the exact same way? You should definitely find that comforting.
- If you give up, you’ll never get to the end goal. Would you decide to stay unemployed just because you were sick of going on job interviews and didn’t want to do it anymore? No, of course not. You would keep going until you got a job. It’s totally the same thing with dating. You can’t give up, so you might as well stop telling yourself how much you hate dating and get on with it. You really don’t have any other choice.
- You’re actually learning something. You might say that the only thing you’re learning is how much you hate dating, and while your hatred is totally valid, it’s not the whole story. You’re figuring out who you want to date and who you want to totally steer clear of. You might realize that you can’t deal with someone with a certain job or that you can’t date a guy who is unemployed or in school. Give yourself some credit.
- You don’t really have anything to complain about. Sorry, but going on some bad first dates is totally a #firstworldproblem. If you have food, shelter, friends, family, a job, and your health, then who cares if you don’t love making small talk with strangers?
- You can’t take a shortcut. You’re not special. It’s not like you can snap your fingers and get a boyfriend. You won’t be able to delete your dating apps right away or be able to skip the whole first date thing, so you might as well continue doing what you’re doing.
- A break will do you good. Who said that you had to keep dating… and dating… and dating? Take a break for a few weeks or even a month. You might feel like you’re throwing your entire life away and wasting time. But if you don’t feel like you can keep going, you owe it to yourself to take a step back and recharge. There’s nothing wrong with that.
- You’re not alone. What should you do the next time that you just can’t even think about going on another first date or heading online to message someone? Text your BFF and meet her for some drinks. At the very least, she’ll cheer you up and give you some renewed optimism. At the most, she’ll give you some awesome advice. After all, she’s your best friend for a reason.
- You need to see dating as a bunch of small steps. If dating was always horrible, then no one would even think about finding love, and everyone would be single. That’s obviously not the case. Things really aren’t as awful as you think that they are. Whenever dating feels totally impossible, remember that it’s really just a series of small steps. You make a date, you go on the date, you see if you get along, you make another date, and so on. No big deal, right?
- You’re making it too complicated. Are you constantly worried about making a good first impression? Downloading 10 new dating apps each week? Racking your brain for the most original dating ideas ever? Sorry but you’re basically ruining your dating life. Chill out, simplify things, and stick with the classic drinks date. And definitely don’t use more than one or two apps if you value your sanity.
- You never know when your luck will change. People always say “it gets worse before it gets better.” That can totally happen to you. Today you could be down in the dumps about all your crappy dates and tomorrow, you could go out with a guy that you really get along with. You never know when your luck will change so you might as well keep going. Why not give yourself the chance to meet him?
