Hi y’all,
Firstly, I hope everyone is staying home and staying safe! Please don’t think that you’re above the law – the sooner we all behave ourselves, the sooner we all come out of this and I have every faith that we WILL come out of this, stronger.
I’ve been using my time in isolation to really focus on myself and my goals and I’ve achieved some great clarity which I wasn’t able to do before. I hope you’re finding what works for you and are making the situation work, no matter what that means! We’re living in history here and we just have to make the best of what we’ve got. As Cheryl Strayed says, you can’t complain about the cards you’ve been dealt but you should play the hell out of the ones you have.
Anyway, I could go on for hours about all the things I’ve been learning about myself from this and if you’d like to know my thoughts on this just message me separately – but we all know that you’ve tuned in to find out how on earth the dating is going right now. To be clear, I am 100% sticking to the rules and all my dates for the past month have been virtual. It’s actually really interesting – I think you bring your best self to a first date and it’s a bit harder to do that on a video chat. So I think the version you’re seeing of someone is a bit more like themselves, not the pretend one they roll out to impress you!
So I’ve had a couple of virtual dates and actually they’ve both been pretty good. It’s essentially the same as seeing someone in real life but it’s takes a bit of the awkwardness out of things because you don’t have to worry about the greeting and the sitting too close to someone thing that can sometimes happen, especially if you’re in a loud bar or something.
The one I wanted to tell you about was this guy I matched with on hinge. A doctor! Not my usual type (ie was Asian but no beard) but since I am trying to meet someone and obviously going for my type doesn’t seem to be working, I thought why not. So we matched and we were messaging a bit back and forth but maybe like five or six messages across a week – pretty slow comms from both of us. He was messaging at random times because of work and then by the time I caught up it would have been another day or so. We finally logged onto the app at the same time and had a really nice chat, and then switched onto whatsapp (leveled up!).
As we both knew that we weren’t going to be able to meet anytime soon, I think it took away the small talk element and we started talking about the deeper stuff straight away – our histories, our ambitions and plans, our love languages and theories of attachment… we even played two truths one lie but via voicenote and I assure you, it’s much harder than it sounds especially when you don’t know the person!
We had a couple of phone calls and it sounds silly to say but the connection just felt different. On a Tuesday evening (I know this because I was watching the Stand Up To Cancer Bake Off) he was messaging me and suddenly said his phone was dying and his charger wasn’t working. Apparently this had happened before but he couldn’t get to his phone guy because of lockdown… and then my last message didn’t go through. Now, I don’t know this guy really, so perhaps he is someone who has a rubbish phone, or he is someone who allows his phone battery to die and doesn’t care about being out of contact.
As we all know, I am big on comms so this was not ideal for me but I was trying to be sensible about it. He had told me and so all I could do was wait. And wait I did. The days ticked on and I was trying to be cool, but obviously I was asking advice from people left right and centre. My cousin thinks he could be married – and also made the valid point that in this day and age no one can really go without their phone for long periods of time, especially a doctor!
Anytime, i’m sitting there twiddling my thumbs and 50 hours later (so 10pm on Thursday) guess who slides into my DM’s and acts as if nothing has happened! Dr. Saab sends me a message saying ‘ah that looks cute’ in response to something I had posted on my story. I was so shocked that I just replied normally and we chatted for a little. I did say that he’d been missing for fifty hours and I should have sent out a search party… and he was very ‘my phone is old and it plays up a little’ – I mean, how do you argue with that? Also, he owes me nothing, we haven’t even met. I still think it’s a bit bonkers though.
Anyway, he then suggested meeting up in a park and doing a social distanced walk but I said no because that would be weird enough if we knew each other, and ridiculously awkward with a stranger. Also I would have had to drive to a park and I just feel quite uncomfortable going out right now if it’s not essential. Plus he’s on the frontline so I think far too many reasons working against us. We had a facetime date instead, which was really nice. I actually think that having to get to know someone this way, means actually investing in asking the bigger questions and so I feel like I know him quite well.
That evening though, it all came crashing down didn’t it. He messaged me and just asked if we could put things on pause – because he said work was really starting to get to him (a nurse who worked in his hospital has just passed away) and he didn’t think he could be emotionally available to invest time in something right now. He was really sweet about it, and said that speaking to me really made him smile but that he had to be honest. Obviously I felt sad about this, like I said I thought the connection felt different, but I also really respect that he’s been emotionally open with me and told me exactly how it is. Hopefully we will pick up again once things calm down but until then, I am just spending time back on the apps (haha) and of course thinking about myself and what I need.
I’d like to give a quick shout out to all the key workers who are being incredibly brave and helping us to keep on keeping on. I’m doing some volunteering which I think is the least I can do, and I hope that everyone is trying to do their bit if they can.
Sending you all lots of virtual love and I am about to sign off and have a virtual Easter brunch!
Sabah xx
First Time Dater 