Don’t get me wrong. I have met plenty of men at work, in bars, and on a train, but none of them turned into real dates. We would meet “for coffee” or “for drinks”, “for lunch” or to “just hang out” and it has always been sooooo casual. They would squeeze me into their schedule and I would squeeze them between my work and my gym. It seems that both, myself and the guys I would meet didn’t want to (1) appear too interested and (2) didn’t want to miss out on all the other things we wanted to do in exchange for an extremely remote probability that there will be mutual interest strong enough for us to want to see each other again.
I surely would trade a month of yoga and my quarterly bonus at work for a real date – the one I would be anxious about and excited to go to. The one I would have to work to pick the right outfit for. And the kind of date, where neither I nor the guy would have something scheduled for right after. Is it really that much to ask this day and age? Are we really that much more jaded than the previous generations. The author of this site suggests that this lack of real dates is a result of dating fatigue. I couldn’t think of a term that would express any better how I feel about dating and my encounters with men over the past few years.
As you already see, I am not blaming men or the society for not having gone out on a real date in so long. I am not sure who to blame. Being self-critical by nature, I have being trying to find at least a partial solution to this in myself, but with no success so far. It’s just strange that the more people we meet, the harder it is to find love. Shouldn’t it be a “numbers game” and shouldn’t it be the other way around? I always thought that having options is empowering in every aspect of life, so why is having options when it comes to meeting and dating guys is anything but empowering? I do not have an exact answer to these questions, but I do know one thing – I want to want and I want to be wanted. I want to be euphoric when things go well with the guy I am really into, and I want to cry when we fight. I want to miss him when he is away and I want to know that he misses me just as badly. I want to be cured of this dating fatigue once and for all.
Even if I don’t find all that any time soon, I certainly don’t want any more 30 minute coffee dates and rushed lunches with guys, where I can’t even tell whether it’s something that’s supposed to resemble a date or it’s like a meal between two co-workers. You must be thinking – “She is just looking for love; aren’t we all?” And you are probably right… – by Joyce, 34, Northern California.
