Jess lanai

I’m currently trying to date.

What does that mean? I actively look for men to go on dates with.

So far I have not been very successful.

By unsuccessful I mean I have gone on no dates.

All I do is peruse the dating apps and smile a lot when I see hot men out in the wild.

Thus far neither of these methods have successfully gotten me dates.

My next move is to start looking for the group activities where perhaps it might be easier to be around men and get to know them without the pressure of having to get them on a date.

I find dating to be horrendously hard, awkward and confusing. It’s so much pressure. I don’t enjoy it.

But I’m trying to develop a new attitude towards dating in which I try to find it enjoyable and fun.

How does one develop a better attitude towards something as hellishly hard as dating?

I’ve done so in a few different ways.

Way number one is to make it funny.

Flirting with men is very funny.

They are either entirely clueless I’m attempting to flirt with them, or they get very flustered by it and run away.

On some rare occasions the men will actually flirt back to me but that’s when I get very flustered and run away.

I’ve been trying to figure out dating for a while.

I notice that most people are rather stiff about dating. They have very rigid ideas and rules. And yet when I look at them, I can find three or four reason they themselves are mostly undateable.

And most of it comes down to an underdeveloped maturity for their age.

People as a whole seem to be maturing much later in life.

Thirty is the new twenty.

I know for myself I was a wreck of a human being all through my twenties and only started to become dateable within the last couple years.

I’ve always been very cute and very fun but I was also nonfunctional, unstable and honestly a bit toxic as well.

Now I’m very far from perfect but I am a real almost fully functioning adult. Almost. I still have my weak points but those weak points are very manageable.

My point in stating all this is that most people in the dating field that are my age are like me. They are just starting to develop the skills that make them dateable.

Some of that is basic life skills like having a stable income and savings. Some of it basic dating skills like knowing how to interact with people.

Some of it is just basic confidence and self awareness skills that make a relationship tolerable.

Most of us are severely under developed in one or several of these areas for our age.

I think it’s something to adjust to in the sense that we need to give ourselves more room.

I used to feel very behind. But now I think I’m actually perfectly normal and going at a perfectly normal pace for the current environment.

The old standards of having everything together at thirty are out the window for most people.

We are in a different environment now. We’re facing things that are slowing us down and that is okay. Because I think there are hidden advantages to maturing slower as well.

Because the people I meet now that are my age and just starting to mature are fantastic people. They are a hundred times more adaptable than the people that got it together faster.

By more adaptable I mean smarter, funnier, more content, more able to handle challenges, more able to think for themselves, more versatile and less one dimensional.

I think it’s okay to move slower and make more mistakes is my ultimate point.

It is very possible of course that I am completely wrong. I’m just behind myself and am totally doomed in dating.

That I will forever run the wheel of trying to find a partner and without ever getting the real finding part.

But there’s not really much point in feeling doomed.

The feeling of doom has its purpose. Its purpose is to aid in killing motivation and give up on hopeless endeavors.

So I have to choose. Between allowing myself to give up or continuing to pursue. I can’t do both.

I can’t feel doomed and pine away. It’s super pointless.

So I’d rather go all in.

Just fully commit and take what comes with fully committing.

I do feel discouraged and hopeless now and then but I do try to discipline those feelings. I don’t give them free rein.

This doesn’t mean I force myself to think positively, it means I exercise my thought instead of diving into feeling.

An example of this might be that I look at it more logically. I realize that I am very pretty and I am very fun, it is likely I’ll meet a boyfriend someday.

Then I try to realize that I’m actually currently very happy in general. I don’t need a boyfriend right at this moment. I just get worried I’ll never get one. But I don’t really know whether or not I’ll get one. I can be okay with not knowing.

Then I start to think of things I haven’t tried yet.

This is a means to exercise the brain and the logic and not succumb instantly to bad feelings. Not to so quickly indulge despair simply because things are not convenient.

Because it’s one or the other. Keep going or give up.

I’m not trying to say I never let myself get afraid. But I want the fear to do something if I’m going to get afraid.

I want it to be a productive fear that helps my motivation. Not a fear that stops me dead.

What kind of man would I like to date?

I don’t have much of a picture.

The men I’ve liked in the past have just surprised me. They didn’t fit any image I just felt an huge attraction to them. Then I had fun with them. Then there was an emotional bond that happened.