Dating Is Hard. Get Over It.

Dating is hard work.

You have to put yourself out there. You have to risk rejection. You have to invest time and often money. Sometimes, you will invest time and money, and you won’t even get a rejection. You’ll just get ghosted.

Welcome to the real world. It’s not all lucky charms and chocolate chip cookies.

It kind of sucks. That is the nature of most interpersonal relationships, and I’m tired of the collective agreement that as a culture we should just sit around and complain about how we can’t find partners.

This defeatist attitude plagues a lot of people, especially guys. I will not stand for it.

This is why.

Dating is hard for everyone.

The early stages of dating are absolutely terrible.

You never know if you’re going to get ghosted, ignored, or rejected out of the blue.

One time, I went on a date with an absolutely beautiful girl at a juice bar, and we had a nice time. On the next day, I went to the coffee shop next door to the juice bar for an afternoon pick me up, and this girl was sitting there on a date with another guy. She was having a much better time with him than she did with me. Our awkward eye contact gave me the all the clarity I needed.

We didn’t talk again after that interaction.

I had thought it was going well, and I clearly was wrong.

A few weeks ago, I talked on the phone with a girl I met on a dating app, and we made plans to get a smoothie this week. She said “I’ll text you tomorrow!” and then we said goodnight.

She never texted me and I never heard from her again.

Dating is hard. Dating is mostly rejection, spending money, and making awkward small talk with someone you don’t know. Connections are hard to make.

I get that it kind of sucks, but do you really have a better idea?

If you don’t want to invest in relationships, don’t invest in them.

I read an article the other day that made me laugh because the writer was so dead right. I can’t find it anymore, but the premise of the article was that if you’re not going to invest in your dates, there’s no point in going on them.

Dating is an investment, and cheap investments have cheap rewards.

This isn’t just true with dating, this is true with all relationships that you have in your life.

Sure, not all relationships require you to wine and dine (I’m definitely not wining and dining with my buddies from Jiu-Jitsu any time soon), but you do have to make an effort in all your relationships. If you stop making effort, the relationships will fizzle out.

Relationships have risks, and if you don’t want to take the risks, don’t have the relationship.

You can sit at home and live a safe life with no rejection, no financial investment, and no risk, and you will most likely be miserable.

Don’t whine about danger from the safety of your risk-free environment.

If you’re scared to lose, don’t play the game. If that pisses you off, it’s probably because you’re insecure, and not because dating is broken. I hate being the bearer of tough love, but that’s the only solution I have to this dating problem.

The world will not bend to your anxieties and insecurities.

“The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation” — Henry David Thoreau

I’ve lost a lot of friends this year.

One thing that I started doing last fall was treating my friendships similarly to the way that I treat my romantic relationships.

In the past, I used to put my romantic relationships on a pedestal above everything else, and I saw my friendships as relationships that were stable, but dull.

One day in around October of last year, I realized that most of my friends weren’t all that invested in spending time with me.

I had this painful realization that many of my friends liked being around me and liked being associated with me, but they didn’t like spending time with me. I was remaining friends with these people not because I liked them, but because I was afraid of being alone.

I didn’t like that about myself.

So, I got comfortable being alone.

My last serious relationship ended basically because my girlfriend went on vacation with a man who had a history of predatory behavior, and she lied to me about it.

She told me that I just didn’t understand her “energy”, and I was upset. The situation made me feel lost, heartbroken, betrayed, angry, and sad all at once.

This situation made me look at my entire dating history, and I slowly began to realize that I had a pretty significant history of “trauma-bonding” along with codependent relationships.

This was kind of a tough realization for me, and I needed to take a break from dating. I was so shaken up about the whole thing that I literally could not look at women from a romantic point of view for quite some time.

I wasn’t angry with women, but I was terrified by the idea of having another romantic relationship.

But when this happened, I didn’t write a whiny article about how “dating is so hard”. I didn’t blame women, the culture, or even my own personal shortcomings for my problems. I focused less on rage and more on me. I just tried to get better and make myself feel more secure.

I decided that I never wanted to feel codependent again.

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Closing Thoughts

Saying “dating is hard” is not a unique perspective.

What are you going to do about it?

Dating is a nightmare, but dating is not nearly the most difficult part of the human experience, and it’s problematic and overly dramatic to think that is.

Yes, it’s hard to find a partner. It’s hard to coexist with people. It’s hard to overcome your anxiety and put yourself out there to women that you’re attracted to. It’s hard.

But, so is getting a good career. So is being healthy. So is having healthy family relationships.

Honestly, trying to have any sort of emotional connection with my parents is one of the hardest parts of my entire life.

I’d rather go on 50,000 first dates than talk to my mom and dad about my feelings. I’m working on it, not whining about it online for money.

My point is that quitting dating doesn’t change anything besides the fact that you are guaranteed to not date anyone. Whining about how hard dating is doesn’t make dating easier. It doesn’t make the world a better place.

Words have power, and by spewing hate and negativity, that power can change people’s lives in all the worst ways. Use your words for good. Offer perspective. Offer advice.

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I believe that the way to make dating easier is to understand dating as a game, learn the rules of the game, and then work to become good at the game within its rules.

That, however, is an article for another day.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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