Stage 26 – The end!

Thank you all for following me through my dating year journey. The year and challenge has now come to an end. I am thankful for the experience and have learnt a lot from it. Even though it sometimes felt like a chore to publish new post I enjoyed writing about my dating experiences and my thoughts on relationships, love, lust and the other things I gave my opinion on.

Before I go into what I’ve learnt from the whole experience I’d like to give a quick update on the guys I dated during the year. I haven’t seen or spoken to the majority of them. I haven’t stayed in contact with the 4 that knew about my challenge and most of the others who didn’t. I’ve only really stayed in touch with 2, John & Ricardo and communication with them has been sporadic. John has been so kind to me and he could potentially be a good friend but as I mistakenly sent him the link to my blog site I haven’t maintained communication with him since realising the silly mistake I made. I don’t know if he has read my blog or not, but he hasn’t contacted me as he usually does to check up on me, so he may have read it. As for Ricardo after our second date I told him on Blackberry messenger (bbm) that I didn’t want us to see each other anymore. He tried to call me a number of times to talk about it but I didn’t answer any of his calls because I felt so bad and I didn’t think there was anything more to talk about. He didn’t handle it very well and after sending me a couple of messages, he deleted me as a contact on bbm and bad mouthed me to my friend. He eventually got over it and tried to get back in touch. At first I ignored his attempt but by his second or third attempt I gave in and we both apologised to each other. We still occasionally message each other on WhatsApp. He seems like a genuine and nice guy but as I said before he is just not for me.

From doing this challenge I can honestly say that going on dates with different guys is exhausting and not for me. I’m a one guy at a time kind of girl. I’m not into game playing and I hate leading people on intentionally. I hated the first half of the challenge because I was playing with the emotions of guys who hadn’t done anything to me. I felt better on dates with the ones who knew about my challenge and felt freer with them. Aside from the guy who sent me horrible text messages because I didn’t want to see him anymore (guy A from Stage 18) and an interrogation from guy X (who I didn’t even end up going on a date with) because he wasn’t happy about the post on him, I’ve been lucky enough not to have had bad experiences with the guys. I think it’s definitely good to go on a number of dates before deciding to settle down with one person for the rest of your life. I just won’t advise anyone to date so many people in such a short period of time as I did because you need time to really discover certain things about some individuals. Let’s take John for example, when I went on the first date with him he came across dull and I didn’t think I would ever see him again. He was however polite and kind and remained so even after our date, that’s partly why I didn’t resist when he asked to meet up with me again and the second date was fun. If I wasn’t doing my dating challenge and didn’t stick so rigidly to my list I may have considered a relationship with him because I think he has the qualities that will make a good husband. If I had the courage to tell him about this challenge I would firstly apologise for deceiving him and tell him that he is a fantastic person and I truly believe he will find someone special. He doesn’t deserve anything less.

What I’ve learnt from this experience
I’ve learnt not to ignore my instinct and sense when it comes to dating. I think if we all think carefully we can nearly always tell the difference between the people to give a chance to and the ones who are just simply time wasters. We may get it wrong from time to time but I think our instincts guide us if we listen carefully to it.  I’ve learnt not to stick so rigidly to my wish list and not to be wishful in my thinking. You cannot help some people to be what you want them to be or hope they become. You are just straight up incompatible. No one is perfect and acceptance is key. Due to different backgrounds and life experiences we are all as different from one another as we are similar. It’s just about knowing yourself and what you can put up with and finding someone who doesn’t have traits that exceed your tolerance level. The exterior of a person should always be placed lower than their principals and character when considering them as a potential partner. Respect is very important in relationships as well as communication. One should always seek to understand where the other is coming from before taking things to heart. I am not perfect and never claimed to be. I had high standards and still do, this challenge hasn’t changed that. It has however helped to highlight some things that I need to work on, so Mr Right will know he has found a premium lady when he finds me. I need to be more tolerant, patient and somewhat flexible.

This is not the ending I originally thought I would have. I thought I would have had a dramatic Hollywood style ending; where I’ll reveal my blog site to all of the guys involved and post it on my facebook page and ask if any of the guys I’m friends with on facebook would like to go on the final date with me. I’m glad that didn’t happen. I’m just too reserved to be doing things like this. I am still interested in blogging but not about something that affects me personally. I hope to turn every post into a book. Whether I publish the book or not will depend on what I think of the whole experience after some time away from it.

Thank you so much to all of you who have followed me throughout this journey and left me comments or gave me feedback personally. I hope you all got something out of it, educational or entertaining.

Thanks for reading My dating Year!

Stage 25 – Coming to terms with reality

I want to start of this post by saying I’m sorry to those of you who expected me to be completely open about my dating life. I’ve been dating someone for a few months now but I’m not certain about where things are going with him right now. I know the direction I’d like it to go but I’ve also prepared myself for the other direction. The guy knows about this challenge and knows he can google it if he wants to read about it, but as he hasn’t spoken much about it I’m guessing he hasn’t.

In the short space of time I’ve known him I can honestly say he has inspired me to improve in some areas of my life that I’m not so competent in but have been planning to improve on, i.e cooking. Don’t get me wrong I can cook to survive and can make edible meals but I’ve never really been one of those ladies who are really into cooking and cook every day. I feel ashamed to admit it, especially now but it’s true. I always used to joke about marrying a chef when my parents tried to force me to learn when I was younger. I know it’s not too late to learn now. I just feel so ashamed that he can cook a lot more dishes than I can and because he is so critical of the food he eats I’m always nervous when I cook for him and look for approval from him. I haven’t cooked much for him for this reason. I feel like I need to learn and have even asked one of my aunties to teach me before cooking for him again.

I’ve come across a few challenges with him already and sought advice from some of my single and non-single friends. As I’ve been single for such a long time I didn’t think carefully about who I went to for advice. Based on the type of advice I received from the two groups of friends I have to say it is very important who you go to for advice. I appreciate the fact that my single friends listened to me and had something to say to make me feel better but with hindsight I now know that was the wrong thing to do. There comes a time in life when we need to cease from going to the usual people that we go to for help and advice. I’m not saying we should do so because these people don’t have our best interest at heart, no, they are just not always equipped to give us the advice we need. “Seek advice from the people who are where you hope to go”. This is the advice one of my friends, who recently got married gave me when I told him about this post. I wish I had gone to him when I needed relationship advice earlier.

I feel like my understanding of relationships has definitely matured slightly from doing this challenge and I feel prepared to have a relationship now. I know nobody goes to school to learn how to sustain a healthy relationship but I feel like I have through this challenge. I’ve been able to question my approach and reactions to certain things and one thing I’ve learnt recently about relationships is that it’s important to know where your partner is coming from. A lot of the time people get upset over things that others say or do because they’ve heard or seen the situation differently from how it was meant to be received. I’m not saying I will always take things the way they were meant, I’m just a bit more mindful of the confusion that can occur in the process of communication. I usually use my lack of understanding as ammunition to get over guys because as you all know now my standards are quite high, so if I feel a guy falls short I usually amplify any bad thing he says or does to me to get over him if I’m into him.

As I’ve been getting that look and things said to me that are usually directed at females who get married late in life from my family I’ve decided to humble myself and work hard at understanding where the guy I’m dating is coming from before getting upset over some of the things he says to me. I still get upset over some things but I’m working on it. Even if things don’t turn out as I would like them to, I’ve chosen to see my time with him as an opportunity to grow and learn new things. Most of the things I now appreciate in life I’ve had to go through pain, shame and stress in order to arrive at appreciation. As getting married is something important to me I’m ready to put up with more than I was willing to in the past to get there. I’m just going to pray for wisdom to be able to decipher what’s worth putting up with and what I shouldn’t even consider putting up with.

Thanks for reading My dating year – stage 25.

PS: The final post of My dating year will be posted within a week from this post. I’m going to give an update on the guys I went on dates with, more details of what I’ve learnt from the process and what I plan to do moving forward. I hope you’ll find the time to read it.

Stage 24 – Issues (the undiagnosed breed)

Welcome to My dating year – stage 24

The year is about to come to an end and I’m still single, not a surprise but I just wanted to mention it. Wow, I can’t believe the year I’ve had. A lot of ups and downs, with each experience making me a stronger person. I don’t want to reflect on the year just yet because I’m saving that for my very last post on my dating year, I can’t wait.

I have to say getting into a serious and meaningful relationship seems like playing the lottery to me these days. The odds of picking the right persons seem so low because there appears to be so many wrong people in the right clothing. I sometimes feel to ask those who are in meaningful relationships: ‘how did you find each other?’, ‘what procedure did you take?’, ‘what type of complications did you go through at the beginning and what made you stay with each other even after the difficulties?’

I’ve come to realise that a lot of people have issues. I know this is common knowledge but I didn’t really realise the extent to this epidemic until now. I know some of you are probably thinking this girl is a drama queen and wanting to lol. After you’ve done that just think back to when you first realised a fact of life that was always prominent but didn’t sink in for you until one sudden day when you stopped and thought WOW, is this really how the world/some people are? If you did the exercise properly you might now appreciate why I said a lot of people have issues. The types of issues that I’m talking about affect people in all areas of their lives but can be a big roadblock when dating and looking for a special somebody to settle down with.

Ok, a good amount of people have issues and a lot of the time you can spot the issues before they come close or just as soon as they do. The people I’m referring to here are the ones who are so good at hiding their issues that you almost feel to do a 360° turn so you can play the whole situation in your head again to try and understand what just happened. The types of things that make these people qualify as having issues can be very little but it’s just the fact that they disguise the slightly mental behaviour and show a completely different side to them until the day they erupt over silly little things. Yes there are lots of fake people. This breed of people that I’m talking about is different from the fakes. They don’t seem to be driven by malicious motives. In fact I don’t even think they have motives for their actions a lot of the time. They just snap and I don’t think they can explain why.

Reading the previous paragraph back to myself, I feel as though I’ve described a group of people who may actually have a minute form of mental illness and don’t even know it. In essence we could all have some form of undiagnosed medical issue come to think of it. A lot of the time it’s hard for us to see our faults for what they are. We often need someone with good intentions to give us a true reflection of our not so pleasing sides.  The point of this post anyway is how do you deal with people with undiagnosed issues when trying to peruse a meaningful relationship with them? Readers if you were dating someone and realised they had a slight issue, and if isolated could be disliked for it, but when considering the complete person, and all of their wonderful traits they don’t seem so bad, what would you do? 

To say I didn’t realise the extent to the epidemic is a bit of an exaggeration, I know, but a lot of things appear as an epidemic when you first become aware of them. They do to me anyway. Even though it’s not an epidemic I think as a society our tolerance of other people’s issues when it comes to dating is an epidemic. In the old days a lot of people found someone within their community and just dealt with the good, bad and ugly side to the person. Personally I think that’s because they didn’t know any better; not like us who live in a fast paced digitalised world. We can get to a lot of places more easily and quickly. Some of us even go to other continents to shop and source some of the essential beauty kits to maintain the celebrity look that will raise a lot more eyebrows if the guy we are dating is acting up. In a world where we can get things faster without dispensing much energy and also go further afield if needs be, is it a waste of time to tolerate some people’s unexplainable issues when we could easily move on to the next guy or is that the key to achieving the type of relationship that a lot of people are seeking for whilst moving from one failed relationship to another?

I really hope I haven’t offended anyone with this post. I’m just sharing my thoughts out loud so readers please don’t take any offence if you think differently to me. I would be more than happy to read your thoughts on this topic below.

Thanks for reading My dating year – stage 24.