Dating is hard

Why does it even bother me? So he rejected me. But I wasn’t even emotionally invested in him. But he was definitely a guy I was finally physically attracted to and seems to be a put-together guy. I think I was excited to date someone like that and not a broken man. But sadly he kindly rejected me. He said we were not a match.

But that triggered me. Did he reject me cuz I’m a bit overweight? Cuz I saw him looking me over. Did he reject me cuz I showed my authentic emotional side, showing that I get frustrated, that work has been hard? And then deep down, having an abandonment trauma, the voices of you’re not good enough started surfacing.

Logically it’s great that he told me early after just one date, and not get emotionally invested. In the full context of dating, after 2 years of off and on dating, in my golden years, this has been frustrating. I’m disheartened that I will actually find a guy who will love me for me, be able to hold space for emotions. But honestly everyone has feelings, but no one wants to talk about it. It feels like everyone should be putting their best self forward, but that’s a lie. Why do we all struggle with being authentic?

When I think back to my upbringing…we were never allowed to have feelings. “Suck it up!” “Don’t cry!” “Push forward!” All these well-intended sayings have such a detrimental affect on us when repeated over and over again to where we are today as a society – not being able to honor and hold space for feelings.

As humans we have 6 basic emotions according to Paul Ekman. They are sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust. These are as basic as learning to walk, needing to sleep, and having to eat to thrive. The messaging I get from society is that happiness and fear are ok but sadness needs to be fixed. Anger is not allowed. But why? So what happens to these feelings, they get suppressed and get added to the emotional baggage we all either consciously or unconsciously carry with us 24/7. Over the years, this emotional baggage will become too heavy to carry around or remained buried; it’ll rear its ugly head – and how up in one or more of these forms: substance abuse, depression, constantly keeping busy, inability to sleep, not being content despite all the work successes, hardship holding onto good relationships, simply just bonding with another human being, and being comfortable with people’s emotions – being able to hold space for the emotions, to be present with them to honor their emotions.

I started this to say dating is hard, but in the end giving the way I was raised and how I want to be seen authentically, I’m having a hard time seeing and accepting (and not judging) my authentic self. Dating is hard because I have to face that, work through that, and feel all my emotions. My environmental upbringing has taught and conditioned me that emotions are not acceptable, such that my lens is skewed. But also there are segments of society today that truly do not accept all emotions. We’re not taught how to accept emotions, how to express them in a healthy way, and how to honor them.

So what can we do?