'Put Yourself Out There!' Is Annoying Dating Advice

Last night at dinner my girlfriend and I were trading our latest war stories from the front lines of the dating hellscape. As is the plight of many single women whose friends have settled down, we get plenty of unsolicited advice about how we can meet Mr. Right.

One of the most common pieces of advice is “Put yourself out there!”

What does that even mean?

We aren’t shut-ins. We don’t have bed sores from sitting on our couches eating Cheetos for weekends on end. We’re fashionable, educated, funny, we shower and smell nice. Even when we’re hitting Circle K for Cheetos and a sour apple Monster.

All the celebrities live in/visit my little hometown so you never know who you’ll run into. (Please be Aaron Taylor-Wood next!🤞)

We leave our homes to go to work, dinner, parties, bars… you know, the places where 90% of our partnered friends met their significant others.

However, this isn’t what these friends mean when they say “put yourself out there.” That kind of “out there” isn’t working as well as it used to.

We compared notes. When we go to dinner, parties, bars, we aren’t often approached by men. We don’t exude an eau de desperation. The only people really desperate for us to settle down are our friends and family.

Is it a #MeToo movement fear? Have they gotten used to being pursued by desperate women so they’re waiting for the rest of us to line up? Should we stop talking about serial killers so loudly in public?

The kind of “out there” these friends mean goes beyond just being out in a public space.

Putting yourself out there these days means online dating, taking a class because someone like-minded and good-looking might also share your interest in learning Finnish, and asking everyone you know to set you up with anyone else they know who is single.

“Putting yourself out there” no longer means being open to meeting someone awesome in simple ways — the ways 90% of these couples met.

It means putting “FIND MATE” at the top of your priority list and participating in every stunt imaginable to find them.

We aren’t opposed to these stunts. I’ve online dated. I’ve been set up. Hell, I once went to a meeting of the Surfrider Foundation because I thought I might meet a hot surfer dude who could teach me to shred gnarly tubes. (Didn’t happen. Kinda embarrassing now.)

At some point, it feels like these things won’t be enough anymore. That “putting yourself out there” will mean somehow doing even more and the thought of that is exhausting.

It’s nice to have friends who care enough about you that they want to see you enjoy the same happiness they have with their spouse/significant other/whatever. But advising single people to “put yourself out there” is maybe not the way to do that.

Do you have better advice for those looking for love?

Please share! PLEASE.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***