6 Ways to Support your Mental Health While Dating
Dating is a slog. It’s a lot like going to a thrift store. You know there are a few gems in that massive pile, but you’re going to have to dig. It’s going to take time. You might even have to ask the manager if they have more men in the back.
The path towards partnership can be confusing, disappointing, and infuriating. But by practicing the tips below, I’m confident that you can make it easier — even enjoyable. It is possible to support your mental health and approach dating with more serenity, fewer headaches, and clarity about what’s really important.
Quick note: I am a heterosexual woman who has only dated cisgendered men, and the language I use in this article reflects that. My hope is that these recommendations can be useful for people from all gender and sexual identities.
1: Believe people’s actions.
When a person is interested in you, they make it clear. They will ask you out. They will call, text and email you. They’ll tell you that they miss you, and eventually, they’ll tell you that they love you.
When a person is not interested in you, they also make it clear — provided that you can pick up on the signals. They will NOT ask you out. They will NOT call or text (and not because they’re dead). When I was in my early 20s, I took a lack of interest from a guy as a sign that I needed to work harder to show the other person how great I was. I would try to convince them to go on another date, and I tried to change all the things I thought were “wrong with me”. Over time, I learned to accept that a man’s lack of initiative was a sign that they weren’t interested, and I would move on. This saved me a lot of time and mental and emotional energy. It also reduced my level of self-hatred.
Believing a person’s actions is the Occam’s razor of dating. It is so simple, and so clear, but can be incredibly painful to accept that actions — or lack thereof — are the only reliable indicator of a person’s feelings about you.
I’ve had many conversations with friends who say things like this after a first date:
“He said he definitely wanted to get together again, so he’ll call!”
“He promised not to ghost me!”
“He said we should go snowshoeing to a remote hut together this winter!”
Oh no sis. This might sound harsh, but in my experience, men say random ass things like this all the time. It is not that they have bad intentions or are deliberately lying to you. They’re speaking based on what they genuinely felt in that moment…before they’ve really had a chance to think and reflect.
The next time a guy says he definitely wants to see you again, don’t react. Don’t put any stock into this and don’t clear your schedule. Instead, sit back and wait to see what he does next. If there’s no follow up text or call, and if he doesn’t ask for another date, believe his actions and let it go.
2: Focus on connecting.
Whenever we go out on a date, most of us, consciously or unconsciously are trying to impress the other person or hoping that they will impress us. Most people don’t actually focus on connecting with the person sitting across the table.
How would you approach a date if your primary goal was to connect with the other person? My guess if you would be a lot less scrutinizing and a lot more curious. You might listen more deeply and ask thoughtful follow-up questions, and be far less concerned about coming up with super clever responses to charm the pants off your date. You might be a lot more present than you typically are, and more open to showing up as the weird, quirky, hilarious freak that you are.
When you think about it, it’s a pretty cool thing to meet a brand new person and get a window into their lives. Approaching dating this way can actually make it fun and exciting, as opposed to feeling like you’re interviewing for a job you don’t actually want. But we get so focused on trying to convince our date that we have our shit together, or doing detective work to try and figure out if our date has a secret family in Costa Rica or some other fatal flaw. We forget that we’re talking to a real live person with hopes and deep dark fears and interesting experiences. We miss the opportunity to just enjoy the moment, free from expectation or judgement.
3: Avoid magical thinking.
So you finally managed to meet someone you like. You’ve set up a date for next week, and in the meantime you are going absolutely hog wild fantasizing about your future together. Maybe you’ll go to Hawaii for Christmas and he’ll wear the scarf you just happen to be crocheting right now!
I call these sparkly runaway thoughts “magical thinking”. You are guilty of engaging in magical thinking whenever you think about future vacations, a dream wedding, or any other highly idealized future scenario with the person you’ve just met or have been dating for only a short time.
Magical thinking can be dizzyingly exciting, and while it might seem totally harmless, it is actually incredibly destructive for a budding relationship. That’s because when you go into magical thinking mode, you are effectively putting blinders on. You fail to see the other person as they really are and forget the many steps necessary before committing to this person. You might fail to notice that the other person doesn’t share your same level of enthusiasm. Nope, all of that goes out the window once you put your sparkly Magical Thinking goggles on, and you become convinced that you are meant to be with a person who is essentially a stranger.
The storyline perpetuated by our culture is that as long as you can find your soulmate, you will be happy forever. You will never feel lonely, and you will never have any real problems. Here is a hard truth: if you are unhappy with your life as a single person, you might be just as unhappy partnered. Even the happiness boost we get from getting married quickly fades away. I don’t want to discount the profound joy that comes from being in a partnership with a person you really care about and who really cares about you. But placing the burden of your complete and total fulfillment on one single person creates tremendous expectations and pressure for the relationship to work out, and this eventually overloads it.
When you go along with the narrative that you’re incomplete without a partner, you miss out on the joy that is available in this very moment, whether you have a partner or not. The next time you catch yourself engaging in magical thinking, remember that just because you have incredible chemistry or a weird childhood coincidence with someone or you both love Anna Karenina, it doesn’t mean that they’re a suitable partner for you over the long haul. It doesn’t mean they are kind or trustworthy. It doesn’t mean anything, except that you are excited about the potential you’ve convinced yourself exists in this person (a virtual stranger).
4: Don’t tolerate bad behavior.
Many of us are attracted to men who don’t treat us very well. Some of us have codependent tendencies and enable others’ bad behavior. Some of us feel unattractive, unlovable or broken and think we have to settle for scraps from a partner. Some of us have an anxious attachment style and require constant reassurance from partners, which often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of attraction to emotionally unavailable people. Some of us internalized the idea that love is a struggle or that we can change or fix a man with sufficient effort. Trust me babe, as magical as your vagina is, it does not have the capability to churn out healed men. Focus on what you can control — and this does NOT include attempting to fix or save anyone.
It can be difficult to spot unacceptable behavior, but here is an incomplete list:
Unwillingness to take responsibility for hurtful actions
Inability or unwillingness to listen to or validate your experience
Refusing to do an equitable share of household chores
Stonewalling (and also literally punching walls)
Refusing to acknowledge your mental health challenges
Disrespect in the form of physical or verbal abuse, body shaming or condescension
It’s important to note that someone displaying these unhealthy behaviors should not be labeled as a bad person. People can be misguided or scared and sometimes use coping mechanisms which helped them survive up to this point but that end up hurting you. Sometimes people have too much on their plate and just can’t be the partner you need in this moment, even if they love and care about you.
Operate from the assumption that the person you are dating is NOT going to change. Can you accept them as they are right now? Are their bad habits truly destructive (i.e. he is unwilling to listen to you and does not validate your emotional experience) or just annoying (i.e. he complains whenever you put on Phoebe Bridgers)?
Refusing to tolerate bad behavior starts with knowing on a deep level that you are worthy of love just as you are now, and worthy of being happy. It starts with regulating your nervous system so that you feel most at ease around people who support you and make your life a little easier. And it starts with being willing to walk away from any person who does not treat you with the respect you deserve.
5: Let go of perfectionism.
What is really important to you in a partner? Many of us have an endless list of qualities and characteristics we want — things that no living person could reasonably fulfill, if we’re being totally honest. Esther Perel describes this in her wonderful TED talk about infidelity. Most of the things on our Partner Wish List *don’t actually matter for a happy, loving relationship*. Ex: we want the other person to have a master’s degree, or be super tall, or be a Deadhead. These things might spark an initial attraction, but they definitely aren’t enough to sustain a relationship.
By now you understand that a major theme of this article is that unrealistic expectations = disappointment, not just for dating, but for anything in life. I am not encouraging you to settle for someone who treats you poorly (see tip 4) or who doesn’t light you up. But at some point you’ll have to acknowledge that your partner is unfortunately not Barack Obama, and that he’s not perfect. That means you’ll have to compromise on certain things.
So what really matters in a partnership? Kindness. Trust. Respect. Shared values. A shared vision of the future. Mutual love and support. Solving problems together.
If your partner is bringing all of this to the table and you still feel like it’s not enough, it’s time to do some internal investigating. Are your standards so impossibly high that no one will ever measure up, and therefore you’ll never have to risk getting hurt? Are you overly focused on things like image or status? Are you avoiding commitment because you think there is someone out there who would fit your personal ideal just a bit more? Do you feel unworthy of love? Uncomfortable unless there is significant chaos and struggle in the relationship? Are you like Ariel, waiting on the beach for Prince Eric to come rescue you without you having to say a goddamn word? Some of these things are indicative of self-sabotage or clinging to fairytale storylines (ahem, unrealistic expectations) and could be unpacked with the help of a therapist.
Life is not about finding the perfect person. It’s about finding a real person and building something real with them.
6: Notice the stories you tell yourself.
We all have baggage that we bring into a relationship. And we all have many stories that we tell ourselves about people and about relationships: that our partner will only find x or y attractive, that the next person is going to cheat on us, that we have to be married by 35 or there won’t be any suitable mates left.
It’s important to name these unhelpful beliefs as stories so they don’t end up controlling you. It’s also important that you start noticing your habitual tendencies — your coping mechanisms, automatic responses, and feelings that motivate your actions, especially if your own actions confuse you. Some people refer to this work of examining the parts of ourselves we’d rather pretend are not there as shadow work.
Most people never take a hard look at themselves, because the truth is that it’s very painful. But if we want to move closer to becoming the person we want to be and avoid punishing our future partner for the love we failed to get as a child, shadow work is essential.
There is plenty of work we can do on ourselves when we’re single, and there is some work that can only be done in a relationship. Only in a relationship do certain fears, triggers and vulnerabilities come up. Rather than blaming our partner or forever hiding from love and the potential of rejection, we can use these painful moments as an opportunity to awaken. We can utilize our partnership a means for deeper reflection, integration and spiritual growth.
