“I’m sick of looking these men in the face when I know I am wasting my time and being used for my company.”
She confessed that for the past six months she has been on a bare minimum of two dates a week – and more regularly than not she had been on a date every other day.
“Three dates a week … girl, how do you keep a job or clean your house?” I said.
“Who are you telling?” she said. “Plenty of times I would pack a bag and change into my date clothes at work. It would be after midnight when I get home.”
Now before I go any further, I feel like I have to state the obvious – when I say “dates,” I don’t mean sex.
I’m talking about going out with people on a regular basis – to movies, concerts, dinners, special events – where there is no potential for a venture into serious relationship territory.
Her intention with each of these guys is to transition into something official, but when it doesn’t they just kind of lock her in to spend time and she doesn’t refuse.
“I’ve been going in circles,” she said. “I just kept hearing other women talk about how hard it is for them to find one date, and I felt bad complaining about going out all the time, because at least I had somebody paying attention to me. All of my girls seem to have a problem getting in where they fit in, so I felt like I had a leg up and settled with my situation.”
But the truth is, while she has the regular self-esteem boost by these men who seem to feel like she’s entertaining, nothing substantive has come of it. She’s just as single as her friends who don’t have a healthy dating life.
And that operates against her goal of getting married sooner than later.
Well, the self-professed serial dater has decided to embark upon a “dating detox” for the next 30 days.
“I mean, what’s the point?” she said. “Yes, I get a good meal, a free show and decent conversation, but at the end of the night I go home alone and I feel like I’m not any closer to a relationship. I actually feel like, ‘Why haven’t they decided to take this to the next level – is it me?’ Then I get into ‘woe is me’ mode. The whole thing is silly.”
So she’s shutting down her rolodex. A polite, but direct note was sent to her half-dozen “regulars” informing them not to contact her and she would be out of commission.
But her fast isn’t just for her old faithful fellas; she’s shutting out any new prospects too.
“All I was doing was trading one for the other,” she said. “I would rotate a new guy in, and when it was all said and done it would be more of the same. It’s easy to get comfortable when guys are consistent, even when he wouldn’t be talking about anything either.”
She admits that it was fun – even affirming – for a long time, but she compares empty dating to empty calories.
“It meets a craving, but at the end of the day you just end up having to spend more time on the treadmill … the dating treadmill.”
She’s not really worried about what she’s missing as she temporarily bows out of the dating scene – mostly because she hasn’t met him after nearly 10 years of dating on a regular basis. But she also feels after this relentless dating without a purpose she might not even be in the right frame of mind to recognize – or be ready for – Mr. Right if he were to walk into her life.
“I just need clarity,” she said. “And I feel like the time I spend with these guys with ZERO intentions I could spend focusing on all the things I need to do that will make me a better wife.”
