What happens if you wait until you’re 25 to go on your first date? Is it a case of being older and wiser? Or are you more likely to have built things up too much in your head? We find out from someone who has been there!
Welcome to our series, The Love Diaries – a space for you to share your experiences, advice, fairy-tale endings, setbacks and heartbreaks. We’ll be hearing from industry experts giving practical advice alongside Capsule readers (You!) sharing your firsthand experiences with love – from the woman who cheated on her husband with a work colleague, one woman’s temptation now the love of her life is finally single (although she’s not), and the woman who forced her husband to choose between her and his girlfriend.
This week we check in with a story from a guest writer at 9Honey who shares exactly what happened when she went on her first date, aged 25.
It might’ve been the fact that I’ve spent a quarter of a century on my own or that my pre-frontal cortex had actually developed, but something possessed me to finally give the dating apps a go. And trust me, it wasn’t an easy decision.
I am the most hopeless of romantics, believing my whole life that I would find “The One” by chance and they’d sweep me off my feet. Well, maybe they could swipe right instead?
I reluctantly downloaded Bumble and set up the most basic of profiles. Despite the app being designed for women making the first move, I didn’t find it any easier to navigate, reading way too much into clues from each profile to determine if they were someone worth initiating contact with (and still getting it wrong most of the time).
Once I matched with someone, it was only a matter of days (and a lot of asking on his part) until I had set up my first ever date.
I thought I was ready for this. I had 25 years to get ready for this moment. But getting there I surprised myself, feeling like I was on the verge of crying. Normally I’m the type to analyse all the reasons why I’m feeling the way I am, to get to the root of the problem, but I was truly paralysed. I didn’t have it in me to figure out the layers of emotions, just letting the panic wash over my body. I knew it didn’t make sense, admonishing myself for making such a big deal out of something so normal.
Once I actually got to the coffee shop and saw him waiting outside though, the tumbling feeling in my tummy subsided slightly. He was just some normal, ordinary guy looking for love, just like I was. I decided to give it a shot, even though he didn’t pay for my coffee (rude).
As we talked, I realised that while on the surface we seemed to have a lot in common, we were in fact in two different places in our lives. He was fiercely independent, not like me who was just barely taking baby steps at discovering and vocalising my wants and needs in a relationship.
I think he realised this too, because by the end of the date, he was giving me dating advice, telling me to spend the next few years meeting as many people as possible, regardless of what happens.
While I would’ve rolled my eyes at that advice if given it even just a few months ago, even being on that date had made me realise the value of another perspective and how content human connection makes me feel, even in this new and never-before-experienced context of a first date.
It even made me curious about all the other people I could match with and have conversations with, regardless of whether we progressed to a second date.
So you know what? I think I’ll take his advice.
This article was reproduced with permission from 9Honey. To read the original article, click here.
