FOMO: Dating Addition
We want our love like we want our coffee: Ready in under two minutes.
We all dream of the perfect date. He knocks on your door with a rose in hand, open the car door, acts like a chivalrous the whole night while never taking his eyes of you. All while ending the date with a perfect kiss in the middle of the street, just like “The Notebook.” Does this ever really happen? Eh. It’s more the exception than the rule. But pop culture and the new norm of dating have programmed us to think every date needs to be perfect—the food, the lighting, how they look, what they say. We want instant gratification. We want the guy to profess his undying love for us by date three and have our kids names picked out before we know how they take their coffee. Allowing your mind to jump ten steps ahead is dangerous territory, because when things don’t go exactly the way you want or the way you planned, a dark cloud of dark and desparity hits you. And in the end it only really hurts you. I get it, you really like this person, and you feel like you have never felt this way before— he can keep up with your humor, he understands you without you having to explain yourself, you vibe really well— and you want this to be the last time you have the question what is going on. But that, right there is the problem. Thinking too much.
We see people on television and in movies fall in love and live happily ever after. But who wouldn’t fall in love under the perfect circumstances? Your relationship gets to start in the perfect bubble where real life can’t ruin it. But when true love grows out of a petri dish, it’s hard to sustain outside their perfectly created conditions. These shows create unrealistic expectations. We can’t have our relationships like our coffee. We don’t get to press a button and presto, have an instant yet perfectly brewed relationship.
Never satisfied. Always occupied.
FOMO is real. We have all been there, and it is so much worse when it comes to our dating standards. You start dating someone, things are going great, but you are only have way committed. He is saying all the right things, doing little things to show he is thoughtful and caring. But you are both at a stand still while moving forward. This is what I call the “one toe in the pool.” You both say you are all in and are jumping in head first, but will only put a toe in the pool to say you are technically in the pool. Why do we do this? Because of FOMOOSOB; fear of missing out on someone better. Our minds start to wonder and we think “Is there someone better? Someone better looking? Someone with a better job? The questions start flooding in and before we know it, we have already lost interest in the person we are actually dating for a person who doesn’t even exist! Which is a little cray, and not to mention, really sad.
I get it. Dating is difficult. In your early 20s you think there is plenty of time to find the perfect partner. Then you hit your late 20s, early 30s and realize dating is like the giant fish tank at the pet store; it’s over crowded with barely any room to move. Everyday you hear someone tapping at the glass, swim up to it and hope you are pretty enough to be taken out of the tank. We go out, dressed to kill, parading around men hoping we are pretty enough to get picked and whisked away. And let’s face it, men are easily distracted by pretty things. They pretend they are interested in you, throw the “I have never had a connection like this” line, and BAM! Two seconds, later they are on to the next pretty girl that grabs there attention. FOMOOSOB. It doesn’t discriminate. And in my opinion, a guy who knows what he wants and doesn’t fear what is around the corner is much better than the guy who picks the pretty fish out of the tank.
We shouldn’t be so preoccupied by what can be that we aren’t focused on what we have. What is right in front of our face could be what we are looking for, but because it doesn’t come in the package we thought, or in the time we want, we constantly think “this can’t be it.” We let FOMOOSOB dictate how, when and where we fall in love. Trust your instincts— pick a door and stop thinking about what was behind door #2.
