This is the second part in a series…go back and read Part 1 here.
I kept swiping and after a few weeks, I’d gone on 5 dates in total with several different people. I found myself feeling FOMO with my friends while I was on dates. I was more excited about hanging out with my new friends than I was about dating. Oftentimes, when dates ended early which they mostly did, I would then head out to hangout with my friends. And so less than 3 months into my journey of singleness, I started thinking that maybe I just wasn’t ready to date. My experience with dating wasn’t exciting like I remembered dating used to be. It didn’t feel fun. It felt like an obligation.
When I lived in Atlanta I went to Buckhead Church and it’s the only church I’ve ever been to that made space for singles…like a very large space for singles. They would have “Single Series” three times a year and each session would run for 3 weeks. Those three weeks, they would bring in speakers to talk about different topics geared towards singles. The following six weeks they’d host “Singles Gathering” where you’d join an interest group. There was no church part to these groups. Groups would be things like outdoor groups, restaurant groups, board game groups, etc. You’d meet with that group for 6 weeks in a row. They’d create Facebook groups for each group and people would post things like I want to go to the Braves’ game this weekend does anyone want to go…I suppose it worked like a meetup group. Really cool…really fun…really awesome but that’s an aside.
While I attended this church, the preacher, Andy Stanley, wrote a book The New Rules for Love, Sex and Dating. He did a series on the book for Singles Series. He has lots of great takeaways. I remember when sitting through one of the weeks, he talked about some things he suggested for people so they ended up in the right relationship. He has this story he tells called “The Right Person Myth” but the punch line is… “Are you who the person you’re looking for is looking for?” You can go look it up and watch the whole story here or pick up around the 18 minute mark to hear the story before the punch line around the 21 minute mark.
Are you who the person you’re looking for is looking for? -Andy Stanley
Another concept he was famous for talking about is the “One Year No Dating Challenge”. He suggests that if you are single you should take an entire year off of dating, that means no dating, no flirting, no entertaining attention from the opposite sex and you spend the whole year focused on improving yourself. I’m paraphrasing here, I maybe don’t have all the rules right but the point is you work on becoming the right person for whoever you’re looking for. I wasn’t single at the time I heard his talk and I was deep into a relationship that I thought was headed to marriage but I remember wishing I had tried that before I got married. I remember feeling conflicted realizing the relationship I wanted was what he described and the one I was in would never be that…but I deeply feared being alone and I didn’t believe the type of relationship I wanted existed out there. At the point in time I heard the sermon, I thought I had missed my chance to try this “One Year No Dating Challenge”…spoiler alert…I did not.
I considered doing a year no dating but I was 29 and if you’re 29 and you take a year off dating you’ll be 30 and you’ll not be married…and as I stated before as a woman that’s supposed to be your biggest fear. At this point in time, I was still bought into that culture so I worried about wasting precious time that I didn’t have. One year felt like a HUGE sacrifice and a HUGE commitment and like something I could never commit to so I decided on 100 days.
An excerpt from my journal, “I’ve committed to 100 days single. Honestly, I’m a little scared. Scared of what I’m not sure. The inevitable loneliness I know that’s going to hit me. The fear I’m going to miss out on the “one” because I wasn’t looking hard enough or trying hard enough. The fear I’m too old or there’s no one left. I’m going to die alone or I’m going to have to settle.”
You can hear it in just those lines…being alone is the worst thing that can happen to you, you have to work for love, it’s something you have to try hard at to find, if you get too old no one will love you. Those are the things society and people around you will tell you.
I still felt the hole in my life that I had always felt like a piece of me was missing or life just couldn’t be good unless I was in a relationship.
I deleted all dating apps. I ended things with everyone I’d gone on a date with and I started my 100 days no dating challenge. I was strict. No dating apps. No flirting. If a guy friend asked me to hangout I tried to always invite a third person. Normally, I didn’t tell someone I wasn’t dating but if they pressed the issue, I would tell them I’m doing a no dating challenge. I used to have a friend that would say if he drives and he pays it’s a date…and I added those rules into my friendships with guy friends too.
I want to stop right here and recognize that I started making hard choices right here. I chose to do the healthy thing in a world where we are told to outrun pain and jump to the next relationship. I chose to attempt to heal instead of putting that on someone else. I chose to not lead people on or use people for free dinners and validation. I chose to sit in the pain. I was still running…but I was running towards achievement and success and self-betterment instead of running into self-destruction or trying to numb the pain with drinking or the pursuit of validation from men. I won’t say I was self-aware enough to make a conscious decision like that…but I will say somehow that perhaps I did learn my lesson from the get-go and aimed to not repeat it in future relationships. I was still doing a lot of things wrong but this…this choice was right.
I will tell you…I’ve never had so many guys try to date me as the summer that I gave up dating. I focused on myself. I set lots of goals. I trained for a sprint triathlon. I set a goal to read 12 books. I started listening to every Single Series sermon that was left on the web before I moved to that church. I listened to podcasts. I started a devotional: 100 Days to Brave by Annie F. Downs (highly recommend). I started doing a gratitude journal. I journaled in general….which is really helping me remember the timeline of all these things now. I traveled SO MUCH. It was the first time I had summer break in years and I made the most of it. I went to the pool almost every day with my friends. I even ended up on a bachelor party one evening in Nashville…yes bachelor party…not bachelorette…literally one of the funniest and best nights of adventure. I was living my very best life during this time but I still felt the pain and the hurt and felt unchosen. I still felt the hole in my life that I had always felt like a piece of me was missing or life just couldn’t be good unless I was in a relationship.
To Be Continued…