Everyone loves a dating post eh?! Especially people who don’t have to do it. Yes, you people revel in living vicariously through us. Of course you do; no one would actively choose to crawl through the metaphorical crocodile-infested swamp that is dating in your 30’s.
So here starts a series of posts discussing the trials and tribulations of dating, starting with the reasons people love to hear about Other People Dating:
- People that are happily (and sometimes somewhat smugly) paired up with someone love the tales of woe because they’re secretly, or more likely, openly glad they don’t have to go through this crap (I was this person once, OH how I laughed).
- Some people think dating is massively glamorous, fun and exciting, and that you spend your time chatting with incredibly interesting people in beautiful restaurants and going on those perfect dates where you skip hand in hand through a cornfield in the sun and don’t want the illusion to be shattered.
- Some people are in unhappy relationships, and dream of escaping and diving into the swamp with the crocodiles because it’s better to what they have, they’re just not quite ready yet.
- There’s some drama llamas out there who just love a bit of gossip and scandal to make their day ten times more interesting. Because let’s face it, it IS more interesting than what you had for tea last night or what TV is on at the weekend).
- The eternal romantics love to hear a successful dating story (hopefully including cornfields and flowers).
- Everyone loves to hear stories about people, whether it’s people being lovely (Good Dates) or people being weird (Bad Dates).
- People in long term relationships want a break from feeling annoyed that their partner has left their pants on the floor next to the washing basket for the seventy-fifth-bloody-day running and love to listen to stories involving bunches of flowers and sweet romantic gestures or sordid steamy tales. Of course, they’re also thinking smugly about how that’s how it started for them too, and that of course it won’t last and soon you too will be talking about pants on the floor in a bad way, not a sexy romantic way because that’s where they’ve ended up in a fit of passion.
- There’s nothing like a Bad Dating story to make you feel better about yourself and grateful for your lot.
- Everyone loves a good Weird Dating story to either feel a) normal (although, what is that anyway?) or b) that they’re not alone in the world.
I guess the truth is that it’s a bit of all of this. It is fun, can be exciting and on the whole is pretty interesting and so, in anticipation of hopefully a Good Date, on the nights where what you really want to be doing is staying in watching Snakes on a Plane under a blanket with a pot of yoghurt you find yourself fluffing up your hair, wondering what clothes to wear that don’t need ironing and make you look slimmer and how little make up you can get away with because you can’t be arsed to take it all off again in a few hours.
Then there’s the nights where you do sit in watching Snakes on a Plane under a blanket with a pot of yoghurt because you can’t be arsed to go out because the last date was a Weird Date, leaving you questioning yourself and the whole human race, vowing to never have another social interaction ever again.
So, in some upcoming posts, I’ll be writing about some of the following FUN dating topics:
- Friendzoned
- Too much alcohol
- The Just After One Thing
- Worst dates ever (you’ll never get that time back)
- The ‘WTF’ episodes
- The Stalker Danger
- Other People’s Perceptions of dating vs The Truth
- Unrequited Love (but they’ll still sleep with you)
- The Completely Different Person on Social Media or Texts
- The Rebound
I might write about the nice side of dating, but let’s face it, that’s less fun or interesting ay? Maybe when I run out of material for the above.
If you have any gems of a dating story, PLEASE send it to me. No names will be mentioned, I promise! Either comment below or contact me here.
The Paps Life 