I Don't Want to Date. I Want to Meet Someone

How did you meet your partner?

Do you even have a partner? Because these days, that's not even a given anymore.

I myself feel completely alienated from the whole marriage market. At least, that’s an outdated term by now, isn’t it? That should tell you just how far removed this whole subject is from my life!

And that's exactly why YouTube videos titled things like "Why Modern Dating Feels Harder Than Ever" and "Why Dating Today Is Nearly Impossible & How to Find True Love" catch my attention.

I’ve been single for years now.

For the past twenty years, I spent my life with Harry. It was a platonic “relationship”—a very unequal one, actually—and for me, purely a matter of practicality. Harry came along, helped me with all sorts of things, and at the time that made life a lot easier for me as a single mother. It may sound harsh, but in romantic terms, Harry simply doesn’t count for me. He never had that meaning in my life. That doesn’t mean the purely human need for a romantic partner wasn’t still there. And although it still is, I’ve pretty much given up hope.

I think that’s why I enjoy watching videos with titles like the ones mentioned above. After all, they confirm that I’m not the only one. And for once, that’s actually rather comforting. Because I’ve always felt somehow abnormal in this respect. When I was still young—late twenties, and long before there were dating apps—my best friend once asked me, “Diana, what is wrong with you? Friends of mine who are in exactly the same situation as you have been remarried for ages. Why haven’t you?” And years later, people would still regularly ask me, especially male colleagues, “Diana, how come you don’t have a boyfriend?” My honest answer back then was, “I wish I knew.”

But when I actually listen to those videos I mentioned above, I discover that they’re not about me at all. Because they’re always about dating through apps, and I’ve barely engaged with that world. Of course I’ve ventured into it now and then, but I can’t say I enjoy it.

For starters, I find it really hard to write a description of myself and what I have to offer. Even harder is pinning down what I'm looking for in a partner and a relationship. Because I can easily imagine running into someone out in the wild, someone I fall for, and thinking: I never could have predicted beforehand that I'd ever fall for someone like you. Because honestly, that's happened to me more than once in my life. Not that it always led to a relationship — usually it didn't, of course. Still, I mention it to show that having a preconceived idea of the "ideal partner," or even the "ideal relationship," isn't necessarily how it works for me. In fact, preferably not.

And then there’s the fact that I simply cannot fall for a photograph with a description. Or is it a description with a photograph? Either way, it leaves me cold. Because most men—and most women, for that matter—just aren’t particularly photogenic, nor are they usually such gifted and witty writers that I’m going to be blown away by their sparkling prose. Not that mine is all that sparkling either, but a little piece of writing that’s genuinely well done can actually get to me. Which, incidentally, is no guarantee of success. I learned that the hard way back when dating sites were still in their infancy and I once—yes, indeed—fell head over heels for someone’s writing on one of them. In real life, however, that same poet turned out to be a complete dud.

No, I want to meet someone out in the wild. Because I’m attracted to someone’s presence, the way they move, the way they carry themselves in a social setting, their smile, their hands, their scent, their sense of humor and intelligence—not to some static, posed little photograph accompanied by a carefully considered description, or not-so-carefully considered one.

And that is why I’ve given up hope.

Because—even if I may already have been somewhat abnormal in the past for entirely different reasons (think daddy issues)—now I’m definitely abnormal because of my peculiar preference for natural, spontaneous encounters. Nobody does that anymore since dating apps came along. At least, I heard a young woman complaining about exactly this in one of those videos, saying: "Men don't approach women anymore." I’m so glad she said it, because I was beginning to wonder: Is it me, or does this just not happen anymore in general? Her conclusion is that maybe she should start approaching men herself. But apparently they’re unapproachable: walking along with their baseball caps on, staring at the ground, earbuds in.

Hopeless. 😒

Approaching men myself — I used to do that sometimes, and I have bad experiences with it. Apparently men take it to mean you're just after a quick hookup, and there's no correcting that false assumption once it's made. So I've learned not to approach men myself anymore.

The host of the video in question does advise his viewers to get out of the house, because if you stay on the couch, you’re not going to meet anyone. But I could argue that simply “meeting” people isn’t enough. Because men no longer approach women, and as a woman, you simply can’t afford to approach a man yourself for the reasons mentioned above.

And then there’s that other video I mentioned at the beginning. In it, a dating expert gives tips for avoiding the most common problems with dating apps. If I understood her correctly, they basically boil down to being aware of the impression you’re creating of yourself, remaining realistic about what you want in a potential partner, showing at least a little empathy toward the people you connect with, and not trying to juggle too many people at once out of FOMO, because then you ultimately end up with no one.

And meanwhile I’m thinking: How hard can it be?

When I was young, we'd head to the bar, knock back a few beers — which boosted spontaneity and courage, and numbed the pain if that turned out to be necessary — and we'd just go for it! Sometimes that was fun. Really fun. And sometimes you ended up with a hangover.

People sometimes claim that men no longer approach women because they’re afraid of being rejected, and that doing it online is somehow less painful. You’re more anonymous that way, too, so the risk of public humiliation is much smaller.

But I think there’s a much bigger problem at play by now. If fewer and fewer men—and these days, almost none—approach women in everyday life, then the one man who still does may quickly be considered “weird” (and that’s the least of it), but perhaps worse, “pervy” or even “crossing a line.”

Because just as I, as a woman, may have had unpleasant experiences when approaching men, I can very well imagine that men, in turn, don’t want to risk unpleasant consequences when approaching women.

So then it’s the dating app or…

nothing.

Photo: S O C I A L . C U T