the meaning of life? having a little crush

and just like that, i'm in my carrie bradshaw era

Over the last year, I’ve gone on first dates with numerous men who’ve asked me why I don’t use my dating life for content. As if they are completely forgetting that THEY would be the content. It’s almost sweet how naive they are, thinking any such content would paint them in a halfway decent light. Sorry boys. My dating stories, and there have been plenty, are for the group chat.

I’m not really covering any new ground here when I say dating is, more often than not, hard and exhausting and a tremendous amount of effort. It can make you the most insecure version of yourself. You spend a month or three (give or take, usually take) getting to know someone. You let your guard down. You hope this person will be the one that gets you off the god forsaken apps, only for them to disappoint in an increasingly predictable way.

But that serotonin spike when someone you’re excited about texts you to ask how your weekend was or to share something that made them think of you? Truly unmatched. Life affirming, if you will. No matter how many times men let me down, I will never stop chasing that high. I live for that throw-your-phone-on-the-bed pace-around-the-room feeling.

In the past, whenever a potential something blows up in my face, or somehow even worse, just sort of dissolves into the air, I’ve been left with the same feeling. UGH! now I have to start over! After my last little two month dating stint ended, I texted a friend to explain how incredibly unaffected I felt by the whole thing. “He was nice until he wasn’t. Then he was nothing,” I sent. And she told me I had to write that down since it sounded like an Emily Henry quote, and I have simply never received a kinder compliment.

Last week, another friend told me that I’m no longer allowed to complain about “having to start over,” paraphrasing her words here, given how quickly I get new dates lined up and how easily I start to get excited about someone new.

And oh did we laugh. Because she’s right. While I remain so hopeful I’ll find the right person for me, I’d rather be on my own and filled with intense joy over the potential for something incredible, than with the wrong person who wreaks daily havoc on my nervous system. My therapist likes to remind me that right next to anxiety is excitement. And I for one would rather be an excited bitch than an anxious one.

This is more personal than anything I’ve written or put on the internet in some time so if you liked it, please let me know and share with a friend. And if you didn’t, we can both just pretend it never happened. Okay, as always you can find me on Instagram and TikTok.