Whoever Said Dating Is Fun Is A Damn Liar

If someone tells you that dating is “fun,” they’re a damn liar.

It’s like a job interview, but one where you’re allowed to drink adult beverages to calm your nerves. You’re trying to sell yourself the best way possible to a stranger, without giving off too many red flags about your past dating resume, all in hopes that you might have the potential for finding a new place of bedroom employment. Mind you, you also have to master not spilling anything on yourself, avoid looking like a starving carnivore who is seeing food for the first time in a century, and hydrating yourself with water so you don’t nervously sip down too many adult beverages and accidentally throw up on your date’s lap. Yup, it’s loads of fun.

If someone tells you that dating is “easy,” they’re a terrible human that needs to stop watching Nicholas Sparks movies.

Let’s face it: dating is like a high school test that you will most likely continue to fail. No matter how hard you study for it, no matter how prepared you think you are, and no matter how many times you put a brave face on and fight the good fight, a majority of the time you get handed back a failing grade and are forced to try it all over again. You would think that sweet gestures and remembering small facts would count towards bonus points, but they don’t. You would think that going out of your way for them to show that your interested would be considered extra credit and make up for something that could have been done wrong, but it doesn’t. Hell, even all of the cyberstalking you’d done beforehand can’t help you when they ghost out of your life into oblivion. But sure, dating is super easy.

If someone tells you that you should “sit back and enjoy the ride” of dating, they have been married for far too long to remember the bumpiness of this hellish carnival ride.

One false move and you fall off the platform of this ride, destroying your pretty little face that you spent two hours trying to make look good for him, only for him to blow you off again. The constant highs from the good moments of getting to know each other to the lows from your insecurity in knowing that one wrong thing said could lose you this opportunity, forcing you to return to your nights in bed with your dog watching reruns of The Office, wondering if even Michael Scott would text you back. Sure, the view from the top of the ride it is great, but what happens when your date forgets to fasten your seat belt, while he/she is moving on to the next ride that is wilder, more adventurous, and looks like a Victoria Secret model fresh off the catwalk with the no under-eye baggage?! You’re left plummeting down into despair again, just when you finally got your hair right. Oh yeah, dating is a fun ride.

If someone tells you that being single is “the best time of your life,” they need a straight reality check to the nuts or lady parts.

If the best time of your life involves crying into a bottle of wine with your dog and best friends, Ben and Jerry, over another idiot that’s somehow worse than the last one and refuses to give you a reasonable explanation as to why he/she is a dingleberry, then sign me up for the convent, because I need to do some soul searching with some holy wine and talk to a higher power about being given the wrong life. The idea that you could invest so much time, iPhone battery life, selfie energy and hair products into one person that could potentially not even acknowledge your existence the next day or give you a reasonable explanation into their disappearance from your life is utterly devastating and heartbreaking. How can someone say that this is the best time of your life, when you’re forced to continue being brave and putting yourself out there to a stranger, hoping that they will not only accept you for who you are, but simply take a chance on you. As a single person, that is literally all that we ask for. The simple chance to have an amazing little something with you that could last or to royally fuck it up later down the road with you after all the fun. Either way, we just want a chance to see where it can go. And maybe a phone call here or there to know you still exist on this on Earth, and to be wined and dined occasionally. Hell, maybe even a Harry Potter movie marathon in sweatpants with junk food and the potential of getting lucky later, but that’s not asking for a lot!

Either way, to say that being single is the best time of your life is idiotic. Finding your someone that you don’t need to talk to every day, but you really want to, that’s the best time in your life. I’m assuming this. I don’t really know. The current one I’m dating just went three days without talking to me, so what do I know?

If someone is taken and tells you that they’re “jealous” of all the “fun” you’re having dating/being single, forward them this.

This is just a little reminder that the grass isn’t greener on this side. Maybe if you’re in a loveless relationship that has no light at the end of the tunnel and you’re questioning if the witness protection program takes applications, you should rethink your relationship.

Back to the point: dating sucks. Yes, it might be fun to meet new people and go new places, but in all seriousness, dating is one large anxiety-driven nightmare that you sometimes can’t wake up from because you’re too busy trying to figure out if Ryan Reynolds from The Proposal is chasing down your love like Sandy B or if Ryan Reynolds is hunting you down like Deadpool and going to leave you broken, confused, and looking for your head. You never really know who to trust, which ones to invest your time into, and how to figure out which scenario is really going to work. Also, let’s keep in mind, that’s only if they choose you. Statistics have shown that 95% of the time, they won’t (Those are statistics based off my dating life – no science to them at all.)

When it comes down to it, dating is the luck of the draw (or the swipe right). It’s only fun when someone genuinely takes a chance on you and you give them that chance right back.