All posts tagged: Dating

Talking About Dating Anxiety + Love on GROUP Podcast

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When Rebecca Lee Douglas first reached out to me to ask if she could interview me for her podcast, GROUP, my knee-jerk reaction was to politely say “thank you, but no thank you.” I sometimes don’t even answer the phone when it’s people I love, what makes you think I wana jump on a call with a stranger? Actually, I don’t even think I responded to her first email. Rebecca Lee Douglas is the founder and producer of the podcast GROUP, which focuses on mental health. She brings experts in and discusses important mental health issues in a relatable, empathetic, and often humorous way. There are episodes on thought distortions, Seasonal Affective Disorder, and even emotional support animals. She’s amazing. Buzzfeed recently named GROUP as one of the 27 Podcasts You Need to Start Listening To In 2018. In other words: Yas Qween!! So when she said she wanted to talk with me for a mini-Valentine’s Day episode my inner-voice-slash-confidence-that-I’m-still-working-on-everyday was like “nah, she doesn’t actually want to talk to me.” But guys, Rebecca Lee Douglas is …

Breaking Habits We Don’t Even Know We Have

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In my suggested readings section of this site I mention the book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. I read this book for the first time in the fall of 2014 and I am still a believer. The gist of this book is: change one habit, change your life. But what if we aren’t even aware of some of our habits? Shit, man, what then? After I first read “The Power of Habit” I literally only changed one habit from my days and by God it worked! For years I had a small novel bouncing around in my head, but hadn’t gotten around to writing it. So the one habit I changed was how I spent my lunch break at work. Instead of dicking around on the internet or wandering around the office kitchen I would grab my laptop the minute I clocked out, go to the next door coffee shop, and write for an hour. Every.single.day. And I eventually wrote the little book. I think of this anytime I feel helpless in life. It’s not always …

Why You Should Meet that Online Crush in Person Sooner Rather than Later

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I was supposed to be working on my writing exercise. After telling myself I was going to attend a local writers Meetup for over a year I finally dragged myself out into the world and did it. I was at a neighborhood coffee shop, surrounded by eight other women writers from Seattle, and we were doing a 10 minute character exercise. Except I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t concentrate because there was a first date at the table next to me. And they’d clearly met online. And it was clearly uncomfortable for both of them. To be perfectly honest, I could sit and listen to first dates all day long if I could. I love those first moments of sheer terror, of hope, of uncertainty, of wonder and fear. One of my first serious, head-over-heels crushes was with a man I met online. Or, we were introduced online by a mutual friend and started exchanging emails. And lemme tell you, hot shit was he dreamy and witty and perfect.  And for the first time in my life …

You’re Not Alone if You Feel Nervous About Dating

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Something really cool has happened over the past few years. I started this blog in 2013. It began as a place where I could think through pain points I’d had while trying to date as I also dealt with anxiety. One of my mantras when I thought about starting this blog was, “I can’t be the only one.” As you guys have shown me, I’m not. And I have the evidence to prove it. This site is powered via WordPress. There are thousands of people who find my blog via search engines online (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc). For 95% of these searches I’m unable to see the words people typed in that led them to this site. But for the other 5% I can see what someone searched for. There are no other identifying factors for the search terms, so there’s no way to know the person’s age, gender, hometown, etc. Yet this anonymity makes me feel all the more connected.  And it’s one of the coolest things. In 2016 so far here’s a sampling …

I Hung Out With a Friend While He Tried to Work Up Courage to Tell a Girl She Was Pretty and MAN It Was Stressful

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We hovered around him like buzzards surrounding a fresh carcass. “Just get in and get out,” Friend 1 shouted at him. “It’ll be over so fast!” Friend 2 added. “Come on, don’t chicken out,” Friend 3 contributed. “If you don’t do this then you’re dead to me!” Friend 4 screamed, spittle flying from their mouth and also I should mention Friend 4 was me. We were out at a bar for our friend’s 24th birthday. The rest of the group, myself included, had a mean age that fell in the 30 – 35 age bracket. However, we’d all met and bonded at the same dark, cramped bar here in Seattle, all rooting for the same English soccer team. They are friendships formed over shared hatreds of opposing teams and shared beers at 6am kickoffs. Our spring chicken of a friend, the one now turning 24, will sometimes talk about crushes with us at the bar, girls he might find cute or intriguing. We tend to grill him, digging furiously through his hesitant collection of information, foraging …