Sarah Showfety is a New York-based life coach, speaker and author of Dating by the Books: One Blundering Singleton's Search for Love in the Self-Help Aisle. An avid fan of Tostitos, cheese and the Snuggie, she'll travel just about anywhere you invite her. After years of bad jobs and silly dating shenanigans, she got hitched and founded Straight Up You to help women create careers and relationships that rock. Connect with her on Twitter @straightupyou or on Facebook.
I have dated, lots. In many different ways. Speed, blind, online…and regular old meet-at-a-party (or baggage claim, or the laundromat). I’ve had a drink with more complete strangers than I care to remember. It took me a long time, and boatloads of meshugenah to find my long-term guy, because I was making a sh*t ton of mistakes along the way. So many, I spent a year studying and taking expert dating advice to rectify the situation.
And so I present, after years of trial, error (and study!) ten things not to do if you want a BF anytime soon. (Note: if you’re not looking for a relationship, feel free to disregard and go get your swerve on).
1) Spend hours texting/Gchatting/talking to some dude you never see - One time, I thought this guy was kinda sorta my special someone because we had regular marathon phone seshes laden with laughs and sweet compliments. Not so. You know what we didn’t have? Dates. Face time. Anything beyond a mutual, at-a-safe-distance crush we nursed like teenagers (while living ten blocks from each other). Beware of guys who aren’t chomping at the bit to see you. You may feel a virtual emotional connection, but that things’s about as strong as a one-ply napkin in Al Roker’s underpants.
Ladies, really?
In this article, a professional Millennial woman wonders why she and her peers can’t find dateable men. She cites the usual suspects: being career-minded and a deficit of high-quality available dudes (paired with a surplus of educated, ambitious, gorgeous women).
But I’m not buying it.
What it sounds like is: they’re barely trying when it comes to love. While priding themselves on the effort they’ve put into their educations, careers and stylish closets, they seem equally proud of being too busy dominating the world to meet men (and not wasting time on guys who aren’t “really amazing”).
Question: How does one know if something could be amazing if they’re unwilling to “waste time” on someone who isn’t amazing on first impression?
At a party celebrating my 33rd, surrounded by married friends talking about honeymoons and Preggie Pops, I gulped red wine and hoped the hot Nordic IT consultant in my office I’d taken two weeks to get up the nerve to invite would show. As the night progressed, and Sven didn’t, I realized: it was my ninth consecutive birthday without a boyfriend.
I switched to vodka and wondered how that alarming statistic had managed to escape my notice until now.
Waking up alone the next morning, I decided: this will not happen again. No more self-organized parties, not another year of one-off dates and two-month textlationships to nowhere. This would be the year I’d kick my single status to the curb and find someone who’d take me out for a nice fish dinner at 34 – a proper boyfriend.
dahGRAMS
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