Hello, friends!!! You may remember that in January this year I told you I’d taken voluntary retirement from dating for 2025. Five months in, I feel it’s time we caught up on how that’s treating me.
Quite frankly, it’s been bliss.
I’ve not wasted hours of sleep staring at two blue ticks, willing someone to WhatsApp me back.
I’ve not spent evenings racking my brain for – or worse, Googling – Hinge prompts for the 71st time.
I’ve not turned up to see friends or family, or even turned up to work, with an unnecessary hangover after an average date on a Thursday evening.
Instead, I’ve felt what I was craving from retirement: content.
Sure, there’s been long Sunday afternoons alone that have stretched on forever, no matter how many times I rewatch Friends or binge Married at First Sight. There’s been moments where I’ve really wished I had that person to call to come and help me lift my stupidly heavy bike up the stupidly shaped stairs into my flat because I’ve had a stupidly stupid day at work and a stupid guy’s hand to help would mean everything. There’s also been the inevitable Friday nights where I’ve had the itch to try one of the hundreds of new dating apps, but these are getting less and less with experience of waking up guilt-free on a Saturday morning knowing I haven’t.
And to catch you up properly here, I bought the flat in January, and I’m writing to you from her Juliet balcony – the doors are wide open, the last of the day’s sun is saying ‘hello’, and I’m only mildly distracted by the rot on the railing that I really should spend some time getting rid of. (You can’t have it all, eh.) Still, I’m sitting here in my space surrounded by my things and they’re exactly where I want them, and it’s what I spent months imagining from the moment my offer was accepted last Autumn. (And yes, I did think I’d write way more from said Juliet, but I haven’t – yet. I’m hoping this evening will be the start of that chapter.)
I’ve written before about how confusing I find dating, in part because I wonder if I tend to confuse the ‘want’ to date with having the time – or boredom – to date. And that’s not to say I lead a dull life, but there’s only so many times you can rearrange the furniture in a rental for something to do on a Saturday night when all your friends are busy – busy decorating their new houses, busy planning their weddings, busy on first dates of their own.
Yet as soon as I moved into number 1 (that’s my flat, by the way), the ‘want’ to date went. Poof. Course, a lot of that’s because moving is SO tiring and takes over your entire life and personality, but it’s also because I finally feel like I’ve got a home where I can just be. I can put five, ten, twenty nails into the walls and hang pictures and mirrors and memories, then take them all out and start again, just because I can. I can take all the kitchen cabinets off and sand, paint, and wax them red, orange, fuck it – PINK – and then change my mind, just because I can. I can get into bed on a Friday evening and stay put reading until Monday morning, just because I can. (Let’s overlook the logistics of the last one because I need you to get my drift.)
It’s made me realise what it is to be content – at least in this part of my life. And it’s the sort of content that may seem mundane, but it’s one that I really, truly, deeply do not have the time for someone to get in the way of, or disrupt or ruin. Because for years – and I mean, years – I’ve needed this sort of content-ness in my life, but I was going about it all the wrong way. (That’s not to say I wouldn’t do it all again. I would in a heartbeat, otherwise I wouldn’t be revelling in this feeling right now and you wouldn’t have had my dating stories to gawk at.) So the urge to swipe, type, flirt, meet, chat, spend, dance, snog, cry has well and truly gone. And I’m enjoying getting to know the version of myself without it. So bloody much.
If you’ve read any of these pieces before, you’ll know I like a caveat – and true to my word, there’s one coming up. (Because what’s an ‘I’ve found myself’ story like this without a minor ‘but’?) I’ve not got the interest in looking for dates, but if someone else were to be notice me, who am I to say no?
Just because I’ve ‘retired’ from dating doesn’t mean I’m retired from looks across the bar, or lust at someone I’ve seen around a few times, or even love – it just means I’m not looking. And you know what, it’s true what they say about it finding you when you’re not looking…
…because so far this year, it has.
Maybe it finds you at one of the coldest January après skis you’ve ever been at, where you go from holding a beer to being held (like a beer) above two French guys’ heads in what can only be described as a disappointing – but hilarious – lineout attempt.
Maybe it finds you via your Mum who speaks about you to the son of a friend of a friend’s friend who also happens to live in Leeds.
Maybe it finds you on one of your best friend’s birthdays in April, back at that same ski resort but in a different bar (and without the lineout), in a queue for the loo.
Wherever and wherever it is, I’ll let it find me. And if it stays, it stays. If it goes, it goes. But one thing’s for sure, if it’s not adding to the feelings of content, then there’s no way it’s being part of the picture of content. And that’s something this young retiree feels proud of.
OH and before I shut Juliet up for the evening (the sun has well and truly said ‘goodbye’ now), the most magical thing happened to me last Saturday that I want to share with you. I walked into a pub garden and saw a guy I dated a few years ago – at the time, and for a faaair while after, I was completely floored (read distraught) when we stopped seeing each other. I’d always been worried about how I’d feel if I bumped into him, whether those feelings would rush back and I’d have to spend a LOT of time and energy pushing them back down. So when I saw him and I felt, well, nothing, I was shocked. In fact, I was almost giddy when I realised that he didn’t have the power, but I did – I do. Course, there was a twinge of ‘oh, SHIT!!!’ when I first noticed him, but it was only a millisecond before it was replaced with indifference, with nothing. And let me tell you, friends, that if I was feeling content with 2025 before, I’m sure feeling super bloody content with 2025 now.
(I also happened to be walking into that pub garden with said guy from the loo queue in the ski resort, but more on that another time. In his words, who says the story has to have an end?)
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