After a while, I got fed up with pining after guys who didn’t want me. It was kind of pathetic—I’d make sad breakup playlists, sob-eat ice cream, and wonder why nobody loved me like I was in my own personal Bridget Jones movie. So I decided to try something new: instead of chasing guys who didn’t want me, why not try saying yes to guys who did?
- I thought I was being too picky. I had a list of qualities I was looking for in a guy—tall, smart, wickedly funny, feminist—and I thought maybe that was unrealistic. Maybe I was unwittingly writing off great guys because they didn’t satisfy a checklist. Plus, I was far from perfect—maybe finding a good guy meant lowering my standards so someone could actually meet them.
- First impressions aren’t everything. I’m definitely a snap-judgment kind of person—I can tell within five minutes whether I’m into someone or not—but I realized some of my best friendships started out kind of slowly and then grew into awesome relationships, so why not take the same approach to dating? Just because I wasn’t feeling it 30 minutes in didn’t mean something great couldn’t develop over time.
- I needed the ego boost. Not proud to admit this, but it was kind of a kick to feel like I was the one being chased instead of the other way around. After multiple broken hearts, I needed to re-remember that I was worth pursuing, and opening myself up to guys I would normally reject would help me do that.
- I was excited to explore. I’d pretty much been with the same type of guy all my life—like I said, I had a checklist and everyone I’d ever dated ticked most if not all of those boxes, making them basically carbon copies of each other. I was looking forward to stepping outside of my comfort zone—maybe I’d realize I was into a completely different type of guy than I thought!
- I kept myself in uncomfortable situations—and they stayed uncomfortable. Ok, so I stepped out of my comfort zone, but it turned out that it was just unpleasant. The guys I went on dates with were not my type, and they didn’t “grow on me” as the dates went on; things just stayed awkward. In any other situation, I would’ve pretended my nonexistent cat needed an emergency surgery and ducked the hell outta there. But because I had told myself that I was trying to “challenge” myself, I stayed—and suffered through some boring, unenjoyable, and downright terrible dates in the process.
- My gut was always right. Remember when I said I was trying not to make snap-judgments about people? Turns out my instincts were pretty much always spot-on. Goatee guy who seemed a little off? He was ridiculously racist and displayed some borderline psychopathic tendencies. The awkward guy I met at a bus stand? He was super handsy and it was creepy as hell. I realized that I’d been saying no to these guys for a reason—they sucked.
- I wasted my time. I didn’t expect every date to be sizzling, but I didn’t expect them to be this bad. Every single guy was mind-numbingly boring at best and made me consider changing my number at worst. I wasted hours getting ready, having dinner, and trying to make awkward conversation with these dudes when I could have been hanging with my girls, reading a book, sleeping—literally anything would have been a better use of my time.
- I kept having to explain myself to people. A lot of my friends (and even casual acquaintances) kept asking me why in the world I was out with these guys. Usually, I don’t care what people think of my dating life—I do what makes me happy, but in this situation, I didn’t even like the guys I was dating and I kept feeling like I had to defend myself and explain that I was “trying out this new dating strategy.” It was annoying and kind of embarrassing.
- My list of “must avoid” guys grew. I’ve always prided myself on being able to end relationships smoothly to the point where I can run into guys casually and still keep things friendly. But none of these guys handled rejection well, and a couple turned really nasty. Suddenly, I found myself avoiding certain places because I didn’t want to run the risk of an uncomfortable encounter. That was just drama I did not need to deal with.
- I realized I do know what I want. A lot of the motivation behind saying yes to every guy who asked me out was to shake up my standards, but in the end, I realized that my standards were there for a reason! I’m not this crazy unrealistic diva who wants a six-foot tall billionaire who’s a perfect gentleman, plays the piano like Beethoven, loves spicy food and is working on the cure for cancer. I just want someone special who fits what I’m looking for—and I’m pretty confident that I’ll find that person, so there’s no reason to give losers the time of day.
