So… you know how when you get a virus or a lump and you start searching online for any and all medical advice and somehow fall down the WedMD rabbit hole and suddenly realize that you have stage 4 brain cancer and have 2 weeks left to live? Well!! The same thing happens when you start researching “dating” in your mid 30’s. These are a few of the headlines I found:
- After 35, you don’t get to be picky.
- Why I’m okay being single.
- Do men really want to date women in their 40’s?
- The dating pool at 30: (insert photo of mostly empty pool with green sludge floating in the bottom).
- 9 mistakes you make in your 30’s
- Larger dating pool means less thoughtful mate choices
- Dating in your 30’s: The Ticking Clock
The struggle is real. I’ve been dating for less than 2 months. Specifically I’ve gone on exactly 6 dates which was enough for me to realize that it’s excruciating!! I would gladly throw in the towel but I paid $150 to fall in love and therefore feel this extraordinary sense of obligation to “see it through” because it worked for so and so.
Every one couples up in their 20’s, I did, and is mostly still happily married in their 30’s (SPOILER ALERT: I never got married, I got single). Essentially I have to wait until my 40’s to start meeting age appropriate divorcees who are recently single again. “Oh you’ll die when you see how dating has evolved from 2o years ago” says me in 10 years while explaining the now forgotten Tinder app. The 30’s dating pool is Moses wandering through the desert for 40 days and 40 nights chasing one mirage after another. When you get up close you realize he’s 25. Or unavailable. Or married. Or crazy. Which has me wondering, what the hell do people think about me and why I’m single??
LOL!! Just kidding. I don’t care. I’m sure most people either think, 1) gah dating most be horrible, how sad to be all alone, or 2) SHIT, I’d give anything to be single again and do whatever I want and sleep in for once and eat in quiet. This is the greener grass theory.
Truthfully, I try NOT to drive my friends crazy with this, this, this…I don’t know, lack of attachment mostly because they’re all either planning their nurseries or their weddings and if they aren’t planning that, they’re changing diapers and going to bed pretending to have a headache. Or they’re out doing the same things I’m doing: online dating or waking up after a night of too many whiskies and not enough food.
Why do we do it? Why do we drive ourselves crazy trying to fit into any box, be it the single box or the married box? Each, depending on the day and the person, have their ups and downs. But we put this countless pressure on ourselves to be taken (not in the Liam Neeson sense…or maybe in the Liam Neeson sense??) or loved and at the end of the day there are many people waking up next to someone still feeling lonely. Attachment doesn’t always mean love.
I decided to online date because, in truth, I want to have babies. All the babies!! And of course I want to find my lobster. But dating, I have discovered, does not make me happy. It does not fill any “void” or sense of loneliness or sense of togetherness or accomplishment. I do not feel power or strength from being a single person who dates. SO… I guess with that said, I’m going to do me. You do you, girl!!
Love! Death! GLITTER!!! 