In this modern world of navigating the online dating scene as a single, it can be super duper tough to find someone that we connect with in a way that goes beyond the benign surface level. Gosh, I get it, it can be so tiring trying to actually connect. But what about when we do meet people on our wavelength and it doesn’t work out? Do you ever wonder how it can just fizzle out from something we wanted to go further or perhaps you have found yourself wondering why there was a slow fade into nothingness on a romantic level rather than that forever love that we human beings so want? Where and why did he or she disappear? Let’s get to grips with it and try and make some sense of it all.
Have you ever experienced a potential relationship which has gone from sharing a heck load of passion, many a shared conversation about your actual passions and then all of a sudden something (dare I say it) platonic enters into the realm of your shared space that is anything other than romantic? I hear you - it happens. But, why does it happen? The answer, in my opinion, is that we modern-day daters are so unwilling to be our most vulnerable selves, we’re so unwilling to share who we are in our most authentic way and we don’t fully show up in each dating scenario. So much so, that each potential relationship ends up just being a situationship and the opportunity for real feelings to enter the room falls by the wayside. A situationship is kind of like a pseudo-relationship which shows up in your life regularly but you’re not physically or emotionally anything more than just in that moment together, it’s that simple, and the struggle with millennial situationships is real. It’s an absolute dating limbo.
But why on earth do we do it? Why do we date people when we’re not all in, why do others date us and are seemingly not all in? What’s it all about? The truth is, we singles today are scared of getting hurt, we’re scared of rejection, we’re scared of being vulnerable, and we really don’t know what to do if we get hurt or hurt someone else unintentionally - we don’t know how to deal, and so instead we choose to date down the middle or disappear when the going gets tough.
Dating down the middle - what do I mean - it’s plain and simple, we don’t let others in the way we used to, we don’t take a leap of faith which, let’s face it, if you’re looking to find that Carrie Bradshaw "can’t breathe without each other kinda love" then you have to be all in both emotionally and physically. To build a strong, sustainable relationship you have to be willing to get hurt, to heal, to grow and to give yourself in the future both fully and in a very much authentic way.
Are you dating someone down the middle? Do you feel like you’re being dated down the middle? Do you feel neither here nor there about someone in your life that you’re spending your ‘romantic time’ with? Get honest with yourself and do a self-check about where it’s going. Check-in and if both of you aren’t on the same page together then you need to check out and find your forever love.