It’s going to vary wildly. No two relationships are alike.

But, some of my favorite parts are coming home to the same place and getting a smile and a hug, deep conversations about random topics, weekend walks or am coffee trips. Planning your day/weekend/month/year, working towards mutual goals.

There’s a genuine calmness when you’re dating someone you can be yourself around. It’s one of the best things about being in a relationship

In my experience it was like making new friends but more stressful.

Dating felt a lot like looking for a job, trying to find prospects, going out on job interviews but with a relationship at stake instead of employment. You start with this rough pretext of wanting to get to know each other, and you ask questions about things that are important to you, muddling through small talk. You try to be entertaining, showing your best self until you get invested enough in each other. It’s stressful but can also be exciting because when you find someone you get along with it can be exhilarating.

Then, if you know you like someone but are unsure about whether they reciprocate your insecurities go nuts. You live in two simultaneous imaginary universes where in one, things go well and you live happily ever after, in another they declare you unfit for their life goals and leave you hurting and back to the grind of searching. Then, if you get to it, there’s the comfortable period of having your relationship defined and developing on what is ostensibly a good path and you can relax more and show your “real” self. If both of you can tolerate each other at your worst, that can lead to a proper partnership which and should feel like hanging out with a best friend. Your partner becomes your go-to person to enjoy things with and consistent companion, which obviously can be really nice.

Once you’re comfortable enough with the person? It’s like being with a best friend that you can be intimate with.

Really really depends on the person you are with. My first boyfriend was my best friend, high school sweetheart, partner and the man of my life. He died when we were 23.

I dated other people after, even got engaged, and never had the same conection. One was too narcisistic so it would make me feel insecure and jealous, another was very calm but very differenr from me so it made me feel lonely and bored sometimes.

It’s not the same experience everytime, but having someone say “I love you” and make plans for the weekend is really great

I was a late bloomer and I still feel like my brief brush with religion in my late teens and early twenties crippled my social skills for over a decade. Having said that, I managed to have a few awkward dates here and there and fewer still became relationships. Something they don’t tell you is that 80-90% of dates are awkward and terrible, but for many people including myself, when it clicks, it clicks.

I knew a woman at work once. I always stay very professional at work but I am friendly and nice to people. One day we were doing some bullshit paperwork and had a really good conversation and at some point when we were smiling and laughing I felt the vibes. We got a beer with friends after work. A few weeks later she got fired for some stupid shit but we stayed friends and dated for a month or two after. In this instance dating was primarily fun and adventurous. Getting to known each other etc. Bonus points because she had a cool roommate and her ex who came by for the kiddo once in a while was a cool too.

Another women I dated was already a longtime friend of mine. She went away to college and I saw her rarely for years. When she moved back, I invited her to hang out and we hit it off. We had a lot of fun and I felt the attraction, so I asked her out on a date. Because we had such a strong friendship beforehand, dating her felt like hanging out with my best friend, but more romantic.

For me, the thing that changes it from friend hangout to a date is:

1. Intention, everyone has to know it is a date.
2. A date typically has some hint of a potential romantic and or sexual interest, even if it’s subtle, not stated overtly, or vague. Having said that, it’s better to be bold and clear. When I first started dating I used to go in slow for the kiss when the vibes were right. I never misread the vibes too badly, but it’s 2024, so now I always get verbal consent before I even kiss someone. I was honestly surprised at how often “I would like to kiss you,” or “would you like to kiss me” gets a yes. If you get a no, most people are thankful to have been asked and that somewhat counteracts any awkwardness from being shut down.

It starts by being the best feeling in the world and then you just slowly get used to it and it becomes quite mundane. Some people intrepret the honey moon period ending as the amount of love decreasing but in reality it just changes. This happens to everyone. Also, the first time is usually the best feeling one, especially in the beginning, while probably not objectively best of all the relationships you’re going to have.

I went the friend-to-romantic-partner route, so it was pretty much just like hanging out with any other friends.

Yes, he was the popular boy in my class, a new kid (at the time the relationship started) whose family is Malagasy (like me, except my family is Kiwi, and I have always been the unpopular girl). Our relationship started as a joke (and we probably would’ve never sought each other out ourselves, me being aceflux and him genderfluid), but the joke forgot its identity and it became serious. I’ve grown to feel special as a girlfriend, it’s like having a counterpart that makes up for all your shortcomings.

The process of dating is inherently complicated just by the fact of coordinating the schedules of two people, more if one or more of the people involved have kids.

You can’t just drop everything and choose to go do something, you have to plan it, in advance, with another person.

Planning something fun can often take all the fun out of it, you have to work harder to have fun.

But in the end, the shared experience of planned fun is worth it.

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I just wanted to know what I’ll miss in life. Sometimes hurts thinking about it but, hey I couldn’t stop thinking about it.