The weird world of dating is something that came up in a conversation with someone I met not so long ago. It was not a date situation, but rather a conversation in a group setting. The person was super lovely, but a little bit taken aback by a group of widows out and about laughing and dancing. I have mentioned previously there seems to be an expectation both from people in my world and society as a whole that widowed people are sad all the time and find ‘living’ hard. We do, often! But life is not black and white, it doesn’t just stop because our person died. Happy and sad can exist in the same space and that’s actually a pretty healthy thing.

We got to chatting and several of us were telling stories of the dates that we had been on. The good, the bad and the down right weird. A common theme was not being the other persons priority, and agonising over what was acceptable. It’s a hard thing coming from the beautiful life that we had, to now starting from scratch with a whole pile of baggage. I am friends with a lot of widows who are all navigating the world of dating after losing their person, and one big theme seems to be that people settle for and accept much less than they should.

It seems like everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too in the dating world. Chatting with and seeing multiple people – keeping your options open seems to apply for anyone playing the game… I guess the theory is that the next person you meet could be the perfect one, while the one you’re with now is flawed in some way. In theory, we all know and tell each other that no one is perfect but also that we are worth so much more than we accept and that we should walk away from situations that are not 100% positive. It is easy to look at someone else’s situation and see red flags or things that are just not quite ok. It is much harder when you are in the situation yourself to walk away from it.

We are so desperately missing our person, and the emotional and physical closeness that we used to have, that it is easy to overlook things and stay in a situation much longer than we should. I have a friend who has found herself in a situation where the guy she has been seeing is still living with an ex. Mostly it’s over but they are still living together; he doesn’t want to hurt the ex, but he wants to have a relationship with my friend too!? Not something that you would be happy to have happen, but you go along with it because it feels good in the moment. The person we were chatting with likened it to needing a hit of sugar. We all know that it’s bad for us, but the endorphin rush is something that feels so good that we let it happen. We indulge in behaviour that is potentially risky and hurtful because we need to feel something.

We all do it to some extent.. everyone would prefer to feel happy rather than sad, but that’s not how the real world works. I’m not sure what the answers are… the little highs feel good. It’s nice to have someone tell you what you want to hear, even while you question the sincerity of what they are saying. We no longer have our person to be the cheer squad, so self confidence takes a massive hit and you chase the compliments and the feel good factor even knowing that it’s not healthy. It’s all part of needing to be distracted from the sad reality that is.

I know for myself that I go through phases with this. I download the apps and scroll through looking for connections when I’m feeling low. I go into it knowing that I don’t like it, that this is not how I want to meet people. I don’t actually really know what I’m looking for at this stage either! – I like the idea of having people in my world that I can do things with, a plus one for different things, but not necessarily any sort of full on relationship yet. I don’t like how shallow it feels to be on the dating apps, but it’s nice to have someone comment on a picture or tell me that they would like to meet. It is a sugar hit and a kind of validation that I still matter and that I’m someone that has something to offer… and before you all jump in and tell me off, I know that I matter and I know my own worth – but the sugar hit is addictive in a way.

I imagine this part of the roller coaster will keep going for a little while. I’m not entirely sure how else you meet new people, everyone seems to be on the apps and we all seem to have the same complaints about it, but it’s hard finding other ways to connect. Lately I’ve been setting myself the challenge of talking to at least one new person when I go out socially. I’ve had some pretty interesting conversations, and who knows maybe I will meet someone truly fabulous this way!?