Everything I Learned About Dating in 2021

Hope lets us imagine scenarios better than the one we’re in. It helps us see a man who takes candid pictures of us so we don’t have to humiliate ourselves by fake laughing for the camera. It drives us out of bed and to the hairdresser for a bouncy blow-dry or to the bookstore so we can read things that will give us talking points for the next time we see him. But it’s also hope that allows us to believe the guy who says “let’s go to the movies this weekend” even though he doesn’t set a date or time. That’s when hope becomes something that hurts us more than cynicism ever could. In 2022 I’m giving up hoping, and only enjoying things I can actually see, right in front of my eyes. From now on I’m judging actions, not promises. 

Don’t worry about the pace something moves at. If you’re hungover and you want to call the guy you’re seeing and tell him to come and cuddle you while you watch movie trailers for hours, do it. If you’re meeting your brother’s girlfriend and you want him to come too, ask.

At the same time, don’t worry if things are moving slowly. If you want to go back to yours alone after the movies, that’s fine. If you’re scared of meeting his friends, stay in. All people are different and the way they connect is different, too. Nothing is right or wrong.

Stop serving yourself ultimatums that don’t need to be posed. Stop asking yourself: Do I like him enough to be my boyfriend? I don’t think he’d get on with my friends? I actually think men are worse than women at thinking this far ahead. I reckon it’s what makes them freak out when there is nothing to freak out about. All you need to ask yourself is: “Does this feel good, right now, at this moment?”

You are allowed to be unsure and to see how things pan out. This is not leading someone on. You have to actually try something to know how you feel about it.

The other day I was having sex, and this guy was pulling my hair really hard. I like it when people do it a bit, but this was so hard I was thinking about how I’ve been trying to grow my bob out by massaging The Ordinary Multi-Peptide for Hair into my roots every evening and now here he was, practically yanking out all my progress. I don’t even know if I can say it’s his fault, because I wasn’t correcting him, I was actually acting as if I enjoyed it. I need to stop justifying silence with stuff like, “Oh, he’s nearly finished, no point saying anything now.” I need to say what I like because when I do I have more fun. Because no one’s pleasure is worth more than another person’s.

Guys who will not accept that you’ve not come are just as annoying as men who don’t care about you coming. Both are to do with ego.

Don’t break up with someone because of the guy at work who holds your eye contact for a few seconds too long when asking for tea, because as soon as you go home with him and feel his tickly beard on your neck, you’ll realize it was a figment of your imagination.

Do break up with someone because you can’t stop chasing after these figments of your imagination.

I never feel more beautiful, more perfect, than when I’m with my female friends. The places I used to find affirmation—like by repeatedly asking my boyfriend, “Would you still love me if I was bald?”—have been replaced by a deeper resource. They build me up like the scaffolding that’s needed to build a skyscraper. Tell me it’s cute when I crinkle my nose when I laugh, or that I always dress glamorously (I fucking do!). And they catch me each time before I fall.