Talk about the blind dating the blind, every time I try to write anything about dating or one of the teenage girls I work with at camp asks me a question about boys and dating, I feel like the blind leading the blind. For real. My dating track record is short and a little bit… dull. It is an unfortunate side effect of being a difficult to please introvert who does not actually need another human within a mile of me so long as I have an adequate supply of food and decent book or show to watch. That does not stop me from giving advice.
There is a lot about dating that is actually pretty straightforward. If you pay attention to yourself and what you want, and also pay attention to the way others behave, it is pretty easy to figure out what you would do in any given hypothetical situation.
Of course, this introduction is unimportant. All I am doing is calling into question my right to give any advice. It doesn’t matter. These are the rules that I use in dating that I disguise as advice any time anybody dares to ask the blind girl for directions.
Rule #1
If a guy gives you anxiety, whether it is in the way they pursue you or just in something about who they are, you should not date them.
As a person with a pretty high level of existential anxiety I can tell you, life is too short for anxiety. Sherlock Holmes would say that your anxiety is your intuition and that you should never disregard your intuition because it is your subconscious processing data faster than your conscious can. Your subconscious does that all the time, makes quick calculations and tells you what to do. That’s how reflexes work.
Rule #2
If you are not excited about a person, you should not date them.
I just fell in love with a book titled “By the Book” in which a 16 year old girl uses classic literature to give her friends dating advice. Talk about the blind leading the blind, but you should read the book to find out more (I literally read it in a day and wanted to read it again as soon as I was finished.). There comes a point in the book where the heroine decides to ask someone about feelings and crushes and he tells her that developing feelings, choosing someone to date, is about a lot of different things. He tells her that there is the attraction piece, whatever it is about the person who makes you want to cross a room to speak to them. Then as you get to know them you start to notice little things, like the fact that seeing them makes your day better.
Here’s the thing, if seeing someone does not make your day better, if you are not excited about spending time with someone, you should not date them. It is not fair to another person to let them have feelings for you. More important, it is not fair to you to waste your time with someone that doesn’t make you feel good. You should be excited about the person you are dating and they should be excited about you.
Rule #3
You shouldn’t kiss someone unless you mean it.
Okay, I have edited this rule for a broader audience. For me personally, I will not kiss someone unless they are the only person I am kissing, and I am the only person they are kissing. I adhere to this for a lot of reasons. Most important, I believe as a Christian that sex is special and that you should not “awaken desire until the time is right.”
Another reason, for me personally, is touch is extremely valuable to me. If I kiss someone or even hug someone, I mean it. The thing is, if you mean everything you do and share it with someone who does not mean it, that hurts.
Rule #4
Just because a friend wants you to date someone does not mean you have to.
In high school I suffered from a condition known as a friend who wanted me to be in love. It was like every time she looked at me she saw a gaping head wound and finding me a boyfriend was what would save me from bleeding to death. Please remember that just because somebody wants you to be dating someone, either a specific person or just wants you to be dating in general, doesn’t mean that you have to be. I have always lived in my own timeline, enjoying the beat of my own drum, so I have always been okay with the fact that I am not on the same arbitrary timeline as most of the people in my life. It is okay to not date or to do whatever you want on your own timeline because it is your life.
Rule #5
(Five seems to be the appropriate number of rules, I don’t want to lose you to your smartphone attention span. Don’t worry, I have a short attention span too.)
If timing is bad, there is nothing you can do about it. That does not mean timing will always be bad.
You know what is weird? The fact that everyone else in my life has a life. When you actually think about it, it is strange to think about the collective consciousnesses of the world. Which means that sometimes you will meet someone who you are excited about, who gives you no anxiety, who you mean it when you are with them, and their timeline and yours just aren’t lining up. If that happens, there is nothing you can do to fix it, that does not mean that it will always be bad timing and it is okay.
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