Adventures in Online Dating: Gametime
My life doesn’t have to wait on me any longer.
Some songs really speak to me. Driving to meet my first bumble date (let’s call him Dean), some lyrics from a song I was listening to jumped out at me:
“While I’ve been waiting to live, my life’s been waiting on me…”
All of a sudden, hearing those lyrics, I’m convicted. I still have been waiting to fully live my life. I have worked so hard to consciously heal after my divorce, to say yes to new opportunities, and to regularly push the edge of my comfort zone when dealing with obstacles within me. And yet some of those obstacles are more difficult for me to move than others. This is one I’m especially tired of stumbling into.
For all of the ways that I have grown, getting to know myself better and taking baby steps to live a full, rich life, I am still reluctant to do certain things by myself and hesitant to invite someone to join me for those activities. It keeps me stuck, and from fully living the life I imagine for myself.
The fear of being dependent on someone else’s presence to fully live my life pushes a lot of buttons. I now recognize that my ex and I were locked into patterns of codependency, which led me to challenge a limiting belief of mine which links my own happiness to having a man to share life with. As independent and brave as that may seem, I’m starting to see this from a different angle. I may just have exchanged a fear of being without a partner for a fear of being with one. My resistance to dating, based in the fear of becoming codependent again, may be holding me back in other ways. I now see that experiences in dating may be just the thing to help me get rid of the stumbling block surrounding codependence and help me learn how to do things differently in the next relationship.
I’m ready to grow past this uncomfortable edge and say yes to dating, but no to dependence. I can redefine what I expect from and how I interact in relationships. I can spend time with new people and learn to invite them to experience things I’m interested in doing, rather than waiting for them to determine the direction and nature of our dates. Maybe this is how I get unstuck from all the patterns that have kept me watching from the sidelines of life, rather than fully living the life I want to live.
I'm not going to let the old patterns keep me stuck tonight.
Today, although a trip to the dermatologist left me with some pretty painful stitches to contend with, I am not going to let that stand in the way of my pickleball date with Dean. I may not be able to play, but I can still go. My life doesn't have to wait on me anymore. I am doing it, stitches be damned.
Pregame Prep
As I drive over to the pickleball place, I recommit myself to a few things:
Just be yourself, Bets. You don’t have to be anyone or anything different. Period. -- I know that I have managed to be myself in the texting that we have done and in the few phone conversations we‘ve had before actually meeting. But me bringing me out on a date is still new. I can do this.
This is not about meeting “The One.” This is about meeting someone new, getting out again after all the Covid craziness, and pushing the limits of my comfort zone (which during Covid got ever closer to being centered on my couch with my dog, TBH).
My goal is to keep an eye on how comfortable I feel around him and noticing if I fall into the familiar patterns of not saying something, not speaking up, or hiding parts of myself. I don’t need to fit in. I don’t require someone else’s approval. I just need to be myself. The only approval I need is my own.
Most importantly, I need to have fun and make memories - dating presents a great opportunity to do new things with new people, learning new things about others and myself.
Gametime
Walking in, I have my usual mild anxiety about walking into someplace alone, but I push forward, hoping that I can find him easily. I had texted him before getting in the car to drive there, asking him to let me know what court he would be on, but I hadn’t heard back, presumably because he is playing pickleball rather than on his phone (an admirable quality, so I can’t complain).
I scan the indoor courts and my memory of what his photos look like, hoping to God that he resembles his photo enough to find him. I pause along the back wall, thinking about leaving (not seriously, but it did cross my mind). I am feeling like that awkward middle schooler who doesn’t know where she is going to sit for lunch. Omg, I hate this feeling! I make a note to remember this feeling; I might want to rethink my part of the plan and get there first next time.
I take a deep breath, scanning the pickleball courts looking for someone who resembles him. As I near the very last one, the game ends and Dean walks toward me smiling. Whew! He does look like his photos and is as warm, friendly, and kind as he seemed to be on the phone when we talked last weekend. This is all going to be fine.
We proceeded through the evening, making easy conversation between games. He had thoughtfully asked the wife of a guy from his team with to come along, giving me someone to talk to while he was playing and providing me with the opportunity to see him interact with friends. After his court time was over, they left and we spent about an hour talking, getting to know each other, and of course sharing photos of our kids. I had fun, and I didn’t worry that I was doing things “all wrong” again. It was nice.
Postgame Analysis
An important part of dating is paying attention to what I like in a man. Since I’m no longer bound to the man I picked in my 20s, I have the opportunity to redefine my tastes and decide what “my type” is at this place in life. I What a gift that is! In the hour with Dean, I could recognize some qualities that I have always been attracted to as well as some that I value more now because of what my marriage taught me.
I felt comfortable with him, so as we talked I wasn’t anxious and was able to pay more attention to what he was saying and how he said it, as well as how I responded to him. This is a hard earned prize for work I’ve done to detach myself from needing someone’s approval. Damn…this feels goooood!
I was able to silence the voice in my head that tends to find things to overanalyze, worry about, or predict whether or not our lives do or don’t work together. Damn…this feels good, too. None of this means I ignored red flags or overlooked my own preferences. Been there, done that…and don’t care to repeat it, thank you very much. What’s different now is that I collected each observation, each piece of information, and simply filed it away. I don’t have to decide NOW if these things are deal breakers, nor do I have to pretend they don’t exist. This is ONE DATE, a learning experience, an experiment—and even if I would like go out with him again in the future, it doesn’t mean I am settling in to a relationship that hasn’t even begun. I’m not the same girl now that I was when dating before marriage. I’m more confident, older and wiser. I can trust myself more.
As Dean walked me to my car, I decided that I really would like to see him again. That is truly all I have to decide at the moment - do I want to see him again or not? The answer tonight is yes.
It’s a new experience to collect information without drawing conclusions (or trying not to), but it feels freeing to do it. Really freeing actually. I don’t have to pre-determine how the story will end before it even begins. I get to live it, moment by moment. Looks like online dating is going to teach me a lot of lessons that I couldn’t have learned any other way.
I’m ready.