Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Why you need to date yourself first
When I was younger I used to have all of these crushes.
I ended up quite disheartened when I turned 18 and hadn’t experienced any form of romance.
I remember feeling so inadequate, it was almost as though my self-worth depended on my relationship with other people.
Unfortunately, I feel like many people can relate to this.
18 was the age where I started to become interested in personal growth and acceptance and as I invested more of my time in understanding who I was I came to this harsh realisation.
I only craved relationships to make up for something that I was missing within myself.
I was trying to fill an internal void by seeking external validation.
As an introvert I love spending time alone, but whenever I was alone I would always seek some sort of entertainment.
I hardly ever enjoyed sitting down with my thoughts.
But, I began doing this; sitting alone and just thinking without any entertainment nearby.
The more time I spent alone, the more I started to understand myself.
I also began doing more things outside by myself (solo-dates).
Everything I expected from other people I began expecting from myself. I would sit outside by myself and read, I’d buy flowers for my room, I’d go to socials alone etc.
And I started to enjoy being alone in public.
Honestly, at the time I never really thought of it as solo-dating.
The one thing I really wanted to improve on was my confidence and I thought that doing things alone in public would help with that.
But, looking back on it now I’ve realised that I was doing things that allowed me to learn to love myself again.
In the rest of this blog I want to share with you the things that solo-dating taught me.
Hopefully, my experience will be of some use to you.
1) You learn to be comfortable alone
When I was younger I was hardwired to fear being alone.
As humans I think we are always trying to find groups to fit into, I mean its a basic survival tactic.
I do feel as though being seen alone (especially when your younger) is frowned upon.
I once got told (as a joke) that I seemed like the person who would end up with a bunch of cats in the middle of a secluded forest. And I remember feeling so excited at that future prospect.
Being alone is not a bad thing.
One thing that solo dating teaches you is how to be comfortable alone (especially in public).
I used to hate being seen alone in public.
I hated being seen in public full stop.
But the best way to overcome a fear is to confront it.
And so by going out on these solo-dates, although I felt extremely uncomfortable, I was able to learn how to be comfortable alone.
2) You learn to form better relationships
Previously, I spoke about relationships in the romantic sense but dating yourself allows you to form better relationships in all areas of life.
Before I began solo-dating I was really shy and I would literally hide behind others.
My happiness depended on others and I had low self-esteem and self-worth.
I didn’t really have many good relationships to base what a healthy relationship looked like.
I didn’t even really know who I was.
Going on solo-dates, spending time with myself and looking after myself (both mentally and physically) helped tremendously.
I learnt how to find happiness within myself and stopped relying on others to make me happy.
I also got to know myself better. And this helped strengthen old and new relationships.
You learn about self-love
When we think about love it’s normal to think of the love that we receive from other people or the love we give to others but hardly do we ever think of the love we give ourselves.
Growing up self-love was never taught, it was just something I assumed everybody had.
But, as I grew older I realised I had no idea how to give it to myself.
Unfortunately I feel like a lot of people can relate to this.
When I began setting time aside for my self to do activities that I wanted, I began to really learn what self-love meant.
It meant prioritising myself and my needs and learning to accept who I was despite all my flaws.
It meant talking to myself in the mirror or pretending I was a youtuber doing weird videos (I feel like everyone does this).
And it meant saying no to things that were draining my energy and saying yes to things that were replenishing it.
It’s about being there for the people you love.
When you love yourself, you get to this point where you stop tolerating other peoples rudeness and as a people pleaser this helped me immensely.
Even though I struggle to confront the situation I do know when to walk away which is something I struggled with before.
You begin to understand what you deserve and don’t accept anything less.
So Self-love has widespread effects.
I think the easiest way to develop self-love is to spend time alone doing things you love.
Its in these moments of solitude that one finds who they really are.
And, once you know who you are you can start learning to love that person.
Self-date ideas
This is just a small list of solo-date ideas:
- Take yourself out on a picnic
- learn something new/ read a book
- Find a new hobby
- Spa day (I love at home ones)
- Movie night/ Go to the cinema
- Solo dance parties (literally the best)
- Go to a new café you want to try out
- Practice Yoga or other mindfulness activity
- Take yourself on a walk or hike through the park
- (For university students) Go to a new society or social event
- Explore the city your in
- Paint/ Any other arts or crafts activity
- Buy yourself flowersssss
Goodbye!
I hope that you enjoyed this weeks blog post. I’d love to hear any comments or feedback on my posts ( you can comment these below).
I hope my experience has proven useful to you and I’d love to hear your experience and advice on this topic too.
With that being said have a wonderful weekend 🙂