Dating is fun, actually?

I've gone on nine first dates this year. You're going to read it coz of the compelling nature of the dating industrial complex.

I never skip a "get ready with me before a date” TikTok, nor its counterpart, the post-date debrief shared with thousands (and sometimes millions) of viewers, as if we were all on an intimate FaceTime call. As Vox writes, we single gals have become like Carrie Bradshaw, sharing our dating horror stories with the camera, gleefully soaking up the attention that comes with it. More often than not, these stories are wild and unhinged, a testament to the behaviour of Bad Men (dating diaries on TikTok are often told by women), and, as Bustle puts it, dating apps are in their 'flop era'. I completely agree that dating apps are dreadful – everyone morphs into the same generic, sauceless creature (if I see one more pineapple-on-pizza debate or "unusual skills: getting my hoody back," I will scream). But the next stage, the offline stage, in my opinion, is the best part. It turns out, first dates are actually pretty fun?

Until this past year, I hadn’t dated much, but in 2024, I’ve been on a first date with nine different men (though I’m not sure five of them count, since they were at a halal chaperoned matchmaking event, where we did various activities before our ‘date’). None of them have worked out so far, but I’ve realised that I don’t actually care? While my intention is to find someone to settle down with, I seem to be content collecting these stories as entertaining dinner party anecdotes? (Remember the guy I matched with whose wedding celebrations I ended up going to? Or more recently, my New York harasser?)

After my ninth first date, I scribbled the following on my Notes page at 1 am last night, trying to make sense of who I am as a dater, a creative, and a person. Apologies if it’s a bit jumpy and scattered.

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In the words of Taylor Swift, maybe I’m the problem, it’s me. Because perhaps I don’t want a man at all. I want an audience. I want to be thought of as charming, delightful, and to hear questions like, ‘Where have you been all my life?’ or the slightly more clichéd, ‘How is a girl like you still single?’ I want to bask in the glory of being an enigma (I’m not that mysterious, you just haven’t asked me a single question, man).

I want to collect first-date stories like charms and share them at brunch with my girlfriends, who listen in horror from their cushy monogamous relationships. I want to be entertaining. I even want the soul-crushing sting of not being liked because it makes me feel alive and lean into my emotions, obsessively indulging in Atif Aslam and Arijit Singh songs.

I love telling men who are out of my league that they’re beautiful, and then ghosting them because I couldn’t bear to stand next to them (or have a conversation with them, because sorry, you’re dull – be ugly and grow a personality like the rest of us, babes). I do it for the plot. My mum met my dad on her wedding day! Do you know how sexy my autonomy is? All the freedom denied to my ancestors is now at my fingertips. I’m buzzing with agency! I’m dancing with choice!

And I don’t just like dating because of the ego boost and validation when someone likes you - men’s desire has cheap membership. Listen to them talk about themselves and be attractive to them, that’s all. Truthfully, men solely with desire in their eyes frighten me, I feel like a disposable object. In fact I want to ascend to the state of being a sexless thing for them where they say things like “I wasn’t attracted to her but, my, was she a character”. I don’t want to be lusted after, I want to be thought interesting (yes, I realise they are not mutually exclusive), even if they reject me because they find me ugly. Because I can’t control ugly but I can control interesting.

My mum met my dad on their wedding day! Even in the worst pits of dating hell, I am privileged. Every date reminds me of this. I know I get to go home, back to the place I fund entirely on my own, filled with things I’ve bought for myself, paid for through a career I painstakingly sought out. In the warm empathy of my friends, sisters, and cousins, I get to regale them with my Muzz Match miseries, as they share their commiserations. But it’s okay! I’d rather have stories for days than marry the wrong ‘un!

I want to be the good guy in the story who’s vindicated, because everyone knows I was in the right, and he shouldn’t have done those things! I want the delicious solidarity of other scorned women, bonding over our bruises, a feeling akin to sharing compliments with strangers in the girls’ bathroom.

Last night, on a first date, a guy told me he admired my writing prowess. I said that when I don’t write for a while, I feel the words swell inside me (I know, I’m insufferable), which keeps me up at night. He gave me a look of commendation, and I briefly saw myself through his eyes. He saw someone passionate, driven, and admired the commitment I’d made to my career. He doesn’t know I haven’t written anything I’m proud of in years. Or that I don’t create what I want to, because I can’t bear to create something people hate – or worse, something people don’t even think or care about. It’s much easier to bask in the potential of my unreleased work. He doesn’t know I’m lazy and scared.

I like dating because these men only see the glimpses of the best foot forward I put out. I don’t want them to know the entirety of me. I think that’s what marriage is. I want to be unknowable, spontaneous, untethered. Because when you’re mysterious and fleeting, you become an idea, an unreachable, unquenching concept – and who can compete with that? There will always be someone prettier, someone more interesting, but no one can compare to the idea of you. I think I can only be enjoyed in small doses. Maybe that’s a self-hatred thing (or maybe I think too highly of myself – narcissism, is that you??), but I enjoy myself in these moments with strangers. And when it inevitably doesn’t work out, it’s fine because I got to enjoy myself for a little while. Until the next one.

Maybe I’ve got Stockholm Syndrome with my singledom, convincing myself that it’s fine! I actually like it here! But, I think at the end of everything I want to be rescued by one man who appreciates all the frogs I had to kiss (figurative) to find him and doesn’t mind me for all my flaws. He doesn’t mind my entirety and I don’t mind his.

*Use Jo Little Women pic

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*Yes, my Notes page really said use Jo Little Women pic lol. She tells her sister who is about to marry: “You will be bored of him in two years, but we will be interesting forever”. I want to be interesting forever.

(I feel like i need to apologise for this post lol)