What’s Going On in My Dating Life?
Not much, but that’s kind of the point.
Hi friend,
Today’s post is a bit of a special edition… because it’s sponsored by Hinge! #HingePartner
If you’re like, #hingepartner? I thought you were on a dating break? You're right, I totally am. After going through a rough breakup and moving across the country, dating is pretty much the last thing on my mind.
I'm using this fragile, transitory time to focus on building better habits and making art that feels more aligned with who I am now. When I do start dating again, I want to show up as the most grounded, authentic version of myself possible, so that I’m more likely to attract a match that actually fits.
My 20-something self would be shocked at how nonchalant my almost-40 self feels about dating. Back then, I was desperate to meet someone, and I went on so many bad dates because of it. The thought of dating compulsively like I did in my 20s makes me want to crawl into a hide-y hole and never come out.
In today’s newsletter, I’m reflecting on the role dating has played in my life and how my relationship to it has changed over the years. Because honestly, where I’m at now feels like a completely different planet from where I started. If you’re in a place where you want to approach dating with more clarity, less pressure, and a stronger sense of self, I think this will resonate.
A few years ago, I was sitting on the couch of my Brooklyn apartment, spiraling to a friend about my latest dating disaster. By then, my pattern had become disturbingly predictable: I’d go on one to five dates, get just enough attention to feel hopeful, then spiral into fixation as the slow fade inevitably began. The more distant they became, the more powerless and hopelessly obsessed I felt.
She took a sip of her iced coffee and hit me with a question I wasn’t remotely prepared for: “Outside of dating, do you feel happy with your life?”
I froze for a second, then blurted out, “Yeah! I mean... of course I do. My life is amazing. There’s so much I love. It’s just...I want someone to share it with.”
Looking back, I can see how panicked the question made me. I was clinging to the idea that I was happy with my life circumstances, even as everything in my body said otherwise.
On a deeper, less conscious level, I was miserable. I was battling chronic pain, drowning in sensory overload, and surrounded by people who drained me. But at the time, I couldn’t admit any of that, not even to myself. I told myself I wanted a partner, but what I really wanted was to be saved. And spoiler alert: that is not how healthy adult partnership works.
She proceeded to tell me a story about a woman she knew who, like me, had spent years dating in the city without much success. She was sick to death of wasting her time on endless first dates and living with that constant, low-grade ache of always wondering when she’d find her person.
So she stopped. She decided life was too short not to live exactly how she wanted. She bought a house deep in the woods, adopted several cats, planted a garden, and started decorating with wild abandon. Swingy chairs hanging from the ceiling, that sort of thing.
She knew that moving to the middle of nowhere and embracing solitude would probably tank her chances of meeting someone, but at that point she was too exhausted to care. She wasn’t willing to put her life on hold anymore. Her number one goal was to make her life as full and joyful as possible, with or without a partner.
And of course a year later, she met someone. A few years after that, they were married.
Something about that story stuck with me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It lodged itself deep in my brain and never left.
Years of therapy later, when I was finally able to admit that, oh wait, I actually wasn’t happy with a lot of things in my life, I kept thinking about that woman and the way she chose herself. I thought about her often as I wondered if I had the guts to change my own life, including leaving both New York City and the unsatisfying relationship I was in at the time.
Her story helped guide me when I dropped my life on the East Coast and moved across the country to a city that just felt more like me. I told myself this was it. I was finally going to start living life on my terms.
Of course, the irony is that even across the country, I found myself in a different version of the same situation I thought I’d outgrown. I had restructured so much of my life, but the truth was I still wasn’t happy.
I was living in Portland, feeling deeply isolated, yet gritting my teeth and telling myself, “This is what doing it your way looks like.” It just wasn’t it, and I couldn’t keep lying to myself about that.
So when I decided to move back to New York (this time in a very different way), I did it with one intention: to prove to myself that I have the freedom to keep trying. Because with each so-called failure, I get a little closer.
I was happier in Portland than I was in New York City, and I’m happier in Upstate New York than I was in either. Every move has taught me something. Every version of my life has brought me closer to one that actually feels right.
I want to keep giving myself permission to chase that feeling.
These days, sitting in my little cottage in the woods, I feel closer than ever to the woman in my friend’s story. She represents something I didn’t know I was allowed to want: a life built not around waiting for love, but around living fully, on my own terms.
Reading No Ordinary Love, an anthology of real love stories released by Hinge right here on Substack, filled me with the same feeling I get when I think about the lady in the woods.
In Baggage Claim, Caitlin and Tian aren’t searching for someone to complete them. They’re both deeply engaged in their own lives. When they meet on Hinge, the relationship doesn’t overwrite their individual stories. It enters as an addition, not the main plot. Neither of them contorts themselves to make it work. They just keep living the lives they want to live while finding a way to make love fit within that.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that love often shows up when people start choosing themselves. At least, that’s the way I want my story to go.
xoVC