I’ve been thinking about the question of how you meet people a lot lately.
Half of the people I’ve dated I’ve known for awhile before we started dating, whether that be through work, or school, or hobbies. The other half are people I met off-chance and hit it off with. In both cases, it felt more like I knew that person in some capacity before we started dating, because we didn’t meet and the intention wasn’t immediately the possibility of a relationship of some sort (or was it?). Now that I’ve been frequenting the Tinder, I’m curious about how you date someone you’ve never met before? We’ve covered topics like: do I really want to be dating? And how am I going to know if I like them romantically? But we’ve never covered the ‘how do you even get to know someone from a strictly dating perspective?’
Am I self-sabotaging romance? For a very long time I was fully honest and confident that the answer to this question was yes. When I was twenty-one and finally had coverage for the braces I was supposed to get when I was 14, I got them because “then no one will want to kiss me, so I definitely won’t fall in love with anyone. A year from now I will be free to move overseas with nothing holding me back.” It technically worked, but I feel like I’ve been self-sabotaging a LOT longer. I always, always, ALWAYS went to formal events with my girl friends in high school. And, self professed that I would never want to go with any of the guys (bi me just coming out to play, or me just trying to avoid the disappointment of no one asking?). Even when I did date in university, I always keep people at an arms length. I was convinced I wasn’t in the right place to have that committed kind of relationship. So I was always self-sabotaging romance, but it wasn’t always intentional. 