Ask Jess: I Know Why You’re Too Busy To Date
Posted by Jess - 10/08/10 at 10:08 amAn Open Letter to the People Too Busy to Date
It’s Tuesday. I’m back. And I have another rant. This one is about how people (like, nearly everyone) put dating at the very bottom of the pile.
Dear friends (we’re friends, right?),
I know you’ve been hurt before. You cried and you wallowed. You ruminated about how you let it happen… and how you could prevent it from happening again. And I know, you heeded the advice of every self-help book, talk show host, women’s magazine, and well-meaning friend. They told you that your priorities were out of order. I know.
Happiness starts with you!
You don’t need a man to feel fulfilled!
Create your own destiny!
You can achieve anything you put your mind to!
All true by the way. And I know, you are a determined person. Being single was lonely and you wanted to fill the void. But you got hurt when you last tried to do that. So you found something else. Actually a lot of something elses. And you threw yourself into it with all the fervor, energy, and passion that you had previously held for love.
And, friend, you have kicked ass doing it! Every night of the week you’re busy. You’re the chairperson of local Red Cross chapter. You play softball on Tuesday nights. You take your dog jogging on Sunday mornings. You’re in the running for godparent of the year to your little niece. Friday night is a standing night out with friends. Life is full. Life is good.
Which is WHY you don’t need to go out looking for a date. Am I right? Surely, you are busy enough, you are out there enough that love will come along when the time is right. So what if all your charity friends are married and living in the suburbs. So what if your co-workers are mostly gay. So what if you see the same people week after week. The worst thing to be, the most shameful thing you could do would be to become desperate. Only the weak admit to wanting love.
But if you say, try an online dating site or meet someone by sheer chance, I know you wouldn’t be foolish enough to let a stranger interfere with the important things in your life. I know you wouldn’t alter your schedule in any way to make room for someone you hardly know. Someone who’s just as likely to disappoint you. Someone totally unknown and untested. Why on earth would you give that person any preference over all the other stable elements of your life?
I’ll tell you why (you knew that was coming, right?). Because love doesn’t happen overnight. It does not walk into your living room late at night and announce itself. It does not appear gift-wrapped in your favorite boxer shorts. And, brace yourself, it may not look like Zac Efron.
We’re all so careful not to put a man/woman ahead of our own needs. We’re so fierce in defending the protective busy life we’ve built for ourselves. But then we literally make no room for love to come in.
Soulmates don’t start out as soulmates –they start as strangers. Somehow, at some point, you have to make room for one.
There is a middle ground here. You can live a fulfilled life and still leave the door open to love. You can devote a portion of your time to meeting people, dating people, and giving a stranger a shot at perhaps one day becoming a life partner —which is the thing that you’re still (somewhat secretly) hoping to find.
We all want to be lucky in love. Humor me through a metaphor. I like to imagine luck as an exotic wild bird. You can’t hunt it down easily. You can’t order it to land. You certainly can’t schedule it’s arrival. But what you can do is spend a little time building a beautiful nest –making yourself attractive to luck. Don’t neglect it. Stop by and spruce it up once in awhile. One day luck will fly by and see that you’re offering a pretty fabulous place to land.
Love,
Jess
[Photo Credit: Photo by Your Secret Admiral on Flickr]
