I get asked it all the time. So, Erin, am I dateable?
What does it even mean to be dateable?
Most of us think of being dateable as being a good catch.
Having a lot to offer.
Having our shit together.
A nice mix of successful, attractive and kind.
Being loveable, even.
Not carrying a lot of baggage or red flags. I mean we all have some.
Or having some self insight. You went to therapy, or coaching. You took a minute to figure yourself out. You’ve grown. That’s important.
But there is so much more to it than that.
Being dateable is about being ready, willing and able to date.
Doesn’t sound that hard, when you run a business, lead a team, or have founded something world changing, or you can engineer bridges, raise teenagers, stitch humans back together, write books, climb mountains, or simply get up and deal with whatever life has thrown at you for a day.
You ask them out. Or you get asked out. You go for a drink at the cocktail bar. You talk about common interests. Rinse and repeat enough times and presto, it’s a relationship!
Again, there’s so much more to it than that.
Being ready, willing and able is different than wanting to, or saying you want to date.
It’s different than actually making it to happy hour with someone on your arm.
I recently wrote about a statistic, that 30 percent of online daters don’t actually ever go out on a date. They don’t even get to the cocktail bar.
Why is that? Well because reasons. In my very educated evaluation, it’s a mash up of not trusting the process, having had bad experiences with non-dateable dates, a fatigue born of endless illusory access. There are thousands of profiles but the process for transforming the sea of faces into meaningful connections is DIY. You have to pierce the veil of their resistance, their bad experiences, hope to entice them to see the real you with interesting questions, not come across as too needy, not come across as too aloof. You’re looking for something that swiping alone can’t find. When you think you’ve found it, it’s not as you expected, it looks different, behaves differently, doesn’t hold that spark. Or maybe you feel a spark but they don’t. It’s hard to keep the faith. At some point the swiping becomes a fix, a game, or a way to daydream. You struggle to follow through. When someone is serious you wonder what’s wrong with them. You suddenly feel awkward, or self conscious. The emotional effort of engaging feels daunting, impossible. Not worth it. You string them along without meaning to. You disappear in a moment of discouragement. Ghost. Now you’re one of them. You may be a catch, but you’re not dateable. You’re unwittingly, through no fault of your own, part of the problem.
Being dateable is as much about how you engage as what you bring to the table.
It means you have space in your life, or can and will make space in your life for a relationship.
It means you are willing to be vulnerable, open not just to the idea of a perfect person floating down from the heavens and effortlessly instantly complimenting your life, but to the imperfection of differences, and building those into a rewarding dynamic that is greater than the sum.
It means you aren’t bogged down by past wounds you expect your date to overcome for you with their persistence, perfection, or blind devotion.
It means you are willing to trust the process; a process, because if you don’t trust your process you won’t engage effectively. You’ll wind up driving from fear, compensating for your fear, and who do you think is going to align with your fearful, compensating, walls-up, self? Not the partner you want. You’re basically investing in a complicated, distrustful, gamey relationship riddled with unhealthy patterns where neither of you know one another before you even get dinner.
When we help you ‘be dateable meet dateable’, we aren’t in it to judge you as worthy. Though we know you are.
We’re in this to get you ROI, to invest your emotional energy wisely, not in your resistance, fears, uncertainty and past (we don’t want to grow more of those) but in a better feeling dating experience, calm and confidence that allow you to engage, spark the right kind of connection and build it into a relationship with each step you take, rather than winding the fishing line into a permanent knot.
That means a better process. It means we connect the dots for you, and between you and that sea of faces that smile ‘too good to be true’ or ‘not for you’. And it means that we help lift you out those behaviors that are holding you back, or setting course toward the iceberg in your ‘unsinkable ship’.
You know I think you’re a sexy beast, but if you want to know if you’re dateable, if you’re engagement is going to get you metaphorically or literally engaged, please see my handy reference guide below and ask yourself, “do any of these (very understandable and infinitely solvable) struggles apply to me?” If so, you may be ‘a catch’ that is never going to be caught. Swimming upstream. In the wrong sea. You catch my drift.
THE 21 QUESTION ARE YOU DATEABLE EASY REFERENCE GUIDE:
Do you test your dates? Do you go into a date with a wall up, a judgmental eye, dismissive and prepared to be disappointed?
Do you keep dates on strings? Meaning you hang on to conversation threads, dates you know you’re never going to settle down with because you crave the attention or because they are good on paper.
Do you expect or need to be won over, persuaded, or dazzled before you invest or reciprocate?
Do you distrust a date’s interest in you or lose interest when they show interest?
Do you only feel interested when you have to chase a date, or they play ‘hard to get’.
Do you play hard to get, or expect to be chased by a romantic potential?
Do you struggle to be vulnerable, express yourself, or share yourself authentically?
Do you go through the motions of online searching but struggle with follow through?
Do you lack confidence in what you want and need in a partner?
Are you seeking attributes in a partner primarily to correct for past choices and bad actors?
Do you experience persistent fears about making bad choices, seeming weak, or foolish, tolerating unhealthy behaviour, or settling?
Do you struggle with anxious or avoidant attachment styles?
Do nerves get the better of you on a date, causing you to feel awkward, overshare or clam up?
Do you feel easily discouraged and wonder often if you’re ‘meant to be alone’?
Do you have a tendency to attract certain types that aren’t what you want, or aren’t healthy for you?
Do you feel attracted to certain types who aren’t healthy for you, or don’t seem to be in alignment?
Do you find yourself quick to judge and dismiss a potential date?
Do you tell people what they want to hear but hide your true thoughts, feelings, personality?
Are you inherently distrusting of the people you date?
Do you go through the motions but struggle to connect emotionally or fall in love?
Do feelings of insecurity cause you to sabotage or close off from romantic potentials?
Now I could dissect all of these behaviours and tendencies, how they arise and how to hack them, but you’d have to wait for the book version of dateable, which I’m saving for retirement. And as we’ve discussed here today, many of these behaviors are a response to painful dating and relationship histories and platforms.
In the meantime, making what is fabulous about you actually work for you and your relationship goals isn’t just our way, it’s the only way out of frustration and toward what you actually want.
And we have real time solutions for that.
As I write this I am reminded of a 90’s song by a bad-ass artist named Jane Jensen, entitled “Luv Song”, exalting the absurd expectations, both high and low, of finding the right partner. It goes something like this:
He’s gotta be cool like James Dean. And burn like fire. He’s sweet like sugar. Or like custard and desire… He’s fine. He’s Mr. Slick on time. And your mama’s gotta love him. Or he ain’t worth a dime! He’s not codependent or anything weird like that. No fertilizer bomb materials in his closet. Not convicted of any major crimes. Not really much into Entomology. Never tries to calm you down. You can stay out all night. Talk all you want. He’s not jealous of your friends that are guys… and thinks they’re really cool.
Sounds pretty dateable to me.
Much love,
Erin