Just Say No!

Dating. What a disaster waiting to happen. And each new encounter can either positively or negatively impact how we view the next date. When should we throw in the towel and “Just say no” to dating?
Reason number one: You’ve forgotten who you are. I have personal experience with this one. When you can look at yourself and you realize that you have no idea what truly makes you happy anymore, you know you’ve lost yourself. Sometimes it’s hard to even realize you need to look in the mirror. So my opinion is that when you feel angry all of the time or sad all of the time, this is a good moment in your life to reexamine. I think you’ll be surprised to see what you find.
Reason number two? If you’re not interested in having a relationship. But Tamaira, you may ask, isn’t that what dating is for? You can go out but not be committed? Well, yes and no. There are plenty of people in this world not interested in dating, so you could easily find people to hang out with or even have flings with if that’s your “thing”. But there are only two scenarios that come with dating when you’re not looking for that relationship. 1.) You end up hurting the other person 2.) You find someone fabulous, but totally screw it up because you’re not ready.
So, number one. You hurt someone. You could escape this situation if you’re completely and totally honest up front that you are in no way interested in a committed relationship. But seriously, how often does that work? Best case scenario the person finds you horribly unattractive and doesn’t want to continue seeing you. Problem solved. But if that person doesn’t, then you have a potential problem. Even if that person understands what you say, if they find you fun to be around, they will want to continue pursuing the relationship whether its currently at the committed state or not. And my personal experiences show that after awhile, not being committed will grate on the persons nerves and it can get ugly. The other person will always get their feelings hurt, because everyone wants to be that person that “convinces” someone they’re wrong…in this case, wrong about not wanting to be committed to “them”. So unless you want to wear smelly clothes and not brush your teeth for awhile in hopes of scaring them off, I’d just stay away from it entirely. In fact, “hooking up” for me doesn’t mean a date, for most people it doesn’t –(says Dr. Drew) - so there’s your loophole.
Ok, number two. You find Mr. /Ms. Fabulous. What a predicament. Here you are just wanting a date for something to do, and Voila! You meet Mr. /Ms. Wonderful. But suddenly you’re conflicted and confused. You’re not sure what you should do. You don’t want to date anyone, but how can you turn away someone that quite possibly is the one for you? I would say from experiences I’ve heard about that more times than not, you don’t turn them away. Instead, you ruin the chance of there ever being a relationship. You start to resent the person, you’re angry; you hold them accountable for your feelings without probably even knowing it. In turn this person gets sick of it, and moves on. Much later in life when you look back you’ll realize what you did. And while you’ll probably find someone fantastic at some point, there will always be the question of “what if?” You’ve probably heard of this, it’s usually referred to as “the one that got away”.
Best thing to do is just wait it out. If your not ready for the great things that come with a committed relationship, that’s fine. But it’s better to just sit out the inning, rather than play with a broken arm and throw the game.