What I Learnt As A 30-Something Dating For The First Time
help! I feel like an alien and I just want to share a pizza with someone on a Friday night!
It's been a little over a year since my last first date (*omg boooooyfriend!!!!*) and rereading my awkward and often overly emotional diary posts, I like to think I’ve had ample time between the panicked ‘DO YOU THINK THIS LOOKS OK??’ Whatsapps’ and strutting out of a tube/into a restaurant with Bejeweled in my ears before sheepishly scanning everyone wondering ‘is that them?!’ to reflect on everything The Dating Chapter! taught me- and taught me, it did!
On paper, the idea of going on dates felt and can feel really exciting. I was bought up on a strict 5 group diet of Sex and The City, The Holiday, When Harry Met Sally, Notting Hill and Mamma Mia 2- so truly, the prospect of meeting someone was bound to be exciting. Maybe we’d meet in Daunt Books, meeting eyes over the table book tower of travel writing! Or perhaps I’d book a Greek island jaunt during my first summer of single, only to be whisked onto a strangers sailboat for an afternoon at sea (you never know!) The mental rose-tinted possibilities were endless, but the true fact of the matter looking me straight in the eyes was: Hinge or Bumble.
Now, I’ve had numerous moments in my life where I have felt largely out of my depth- including but not limited to:
Working in a restaurant with the expectation of carrying numerous double stacked plates on my forearms (weak) and pouring from very full carafes of wine when I literally have the worst coordination and no upper body strength.
Having to perform with my dance school in year 7 and always being about half a beat behind everyone else (this I am still working on).
Being on a podcast about books with really intelligent/well read people and my (normally semi-decent) vocabulary frittering down to merely ‘oh it was gooood’ and ‘really good!!’.
… and then going on my first ever first date at 29, being a parent with a weird life shared online and having never met anyone through an app. How hard can it be?
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