Dating : Quarantine Thoughts: A New Perspective

Growing up, I never had an older sibling or role model to help give me advice or directions in life. I grew up in an introverted family and always kept to myself. I was that timid girl that was too afraid to speak out my opinion in fear of being judged. This was my life from elementary school throughout high school.

The moment I finally stepped into college and didn’t feel the pressure of needing to “fit in” or being forced to be a part of a complete teenager’s cliche, I began to find myself blossoming into a new person. I became more vocal with my thoughts and expressed myself with confidence for once. I started trying new hobbies that I was afraid of doing before, like doing YouTube videos, posting song covers on Instagram, doing Vine videos (RIP). Point is, I started developing a sense of courage and not being afraid to put myself out there. I was more comfortable approaching people, initiating conversations, and being my own self. I felt invincible for once and was living life to its fullest potential, but that feeling didn’t last long.

This all took a shift when I first started dating. Let’s back track real quick…I’ve never been in a relationship during middle school or high school, mainly because I was insecure and shy. Plus all the guys that I had crushes on where “out of my league” as an insecure teenager would say. So I never had ANY experience when it came to dating, let alone talking to a guy, etc. That all changed when I met my ex. It was the first time where a guy that I was interested in actually had feelings back. Obviously I had so many high expectations and was naive to the whole dating world. Long story short, we didn’t last long due to insecurities and jealousy on his end and my ignorance and standards on my end. Let’s just say the before, during, and after phase of this relationship was kind of a train wreck. There were many red flags that I obviously didn’t want to acknowledge because I was so blinded by the thought of finally having a boyfriend. It’s crazy what intense feelings could do to a person. I thought that I finally found someone that I will be spending life-long term with, but turns out that relationship was completely one sided. I was taken advantage of, lied to, and was even accused of cheating. It was my first time experiencing a heart break and it was rough, I completely lost touch of who I was and began blaming myself for everything. It took me a couple of months to work on myself and to forgive and make peace of the past. I didn’t date or affiliate with any guys for a good year and a half post breakup until I finally decided to put myself out there again.

Let’s just say the next couple of guys I started dating with weren’t the best either or things just didn’t work out. At this point, I wasn’t at the best place in my life. I was working towards a career that I hated, ALL my friends at that time were just toxic and fake, and I was giving attention to guys that weren’t about it with me. It felt like no one was being real with me and I didn’t know who to trust anymore. I started affiliating with drugs and alcohol to numb the pain that I was having because I felt so used and alone. It went to the point where I lost all confidence in myself and I knew I had hit rock bottom when I started questioning my own purpose in life. It was the darkest time I had ever experienced. A couple months after pondering about where my life had turned to, I decided to step up and make a change. I began making new life-long friends and started traveling more often. I finally took care of myself mentally, physically and spiritually. I knew that I needed to heal and had to put out the effort to release myself from the dark mental black hole that I trapped myself into. Funny enough, all the people who did me wrong in the past came back to my present life, each and every one of them. I knew it was up to me if I wanted to keep them in my life or not. I made a mental choice to cut off anyone who had disrupted my peace of mind in the past and to leave them there. It was the best decision I had done for myself thus far.

Upon healing, finding myself, and regaining my confidence, I always wondered why people behaved the way they did and the answer is simple “We all live selfishly for our own needs”. It definitely made sense, if something or someone doesn’t benefit where we currently are in life, then we won’t invest our time or energy into it. I’ll admit I have had my shady moment of ignoring other people’s feelings and misleading them. I learned to choose my words carefully and to be cautious of my actions, because sometimes it will give off the wrong impression to someone. Point is, we do things to protect ourselves, but sometimes the methods we use aren’t the best or wise choices. Throughout my dating life I learned that it’s best to be more upfront about what I want in a relationship rather than ghosting and flaking on an individual if the spark is gone or if I’m simply just not into them. There are only a handful of guys that I know that were completely straight up with me on what they wanted. They would bluntly tell me that they wanna start something or they’re either not looking for anything serious and only want FWB or they don’t have any feelings for me at all and only see me as a friend. Whatever the reason was, I have mad respect for those guys that were straight up with me til this day, because they were completely honest and didn’t play games. Time is sensitive and I don’t intend on wasting it on individuals who aren’t about it with me or vice versa. Everyone values their time, so why do something that you don’t want someone else to do to you? Simple right? Treat people the way YOU want to be treated. Dating as a millennial is definitely hard, but it did teach me a new perspective in this world and how I should react to certain situations.

Today, I am still single AF and you know what, I’m completely fine with that. I would much rather focus my attention on myself and not become dependent on other people for happiness. I feel like it’s important to take care of ourselves first and learn to love who we are internally before projecting that onto someone else. I definitely lost myself a couple of times throughout this process but it was never meant to be easy. It’s important to see situation as they are and not how you want them to be. The law of detachment is what I always live by: this law states that there is no one single route from getting to point A to point B. This is definitely relevant to our love life, career life, or life in general. Also to always remember that everything in life is temporary, both good and bad. Hence why we must always embrace the good days and endure the bad days that may come throughout our journey of life.

I know during these hard times in quarantine it could be a dread, but it’s definitely a good time to start focusing on ourselves and reflect on our past and what we want to change. My main goal is to not only inspire people but to help those realize that they’re not facing these challenges in life alone! During my dark times, listening to podcasts and reading self-help books really did help me put life in a different perspective. I may not have control on how people think, but I’m hoping to shed some enlightenment and show that situations happen in life for a reason, good or bad. This too shall pass.