It’s strange out there…
Can someone tell me what’s wrong with the dating scene?
A brutally honest and vulnerable share of my recent story, in search of some answers…
Because here’s the thing that genuinely confuses me that we all seem to feel the same way. We’re all having the same disappointing experiences. Yet somehow it keeps happening. Which makes me wonder: should we look in the mirror and honestly ask ourselves if we’re playing our part genuinely, or are we just… going through the motions?
With absolute honesty I don’t know any of the answers and this is not a piece to point fingers at anyone. Or dissect my past relationships. Or explain my attachment style… No no no… I’m genuinely seeking answers on how we are connecting these days — or whether we’re connecting at all. And if any of you want to come forward and share your own views or stories, I’d actually love that.
I’ll start first…
Thank you for reading. Your support—in any form—means everything. If you’d like to contribute to this journey of words and becoming, I’m deeply grateful.
I now intentionally set the tone of “dating” even long before it’s labelled as a “date”. And I intentionally frame things as a friendship first, before anyone gets deeply caught up in their attachment style.
As someone who has always been utterly romantic and romanticised almost every encounter in life, I was sadly forced to learn to be more rational when it comes to relationships. I won’t lie though I’d still love butterflies in my stomach, or that deep pull toward someone.
I can already hear some of you saying “that’s just your nervous system attaching to the familiar and it’s not necessarily healthy.” I know, I know… And I know in my case it hasn’t always been healthy. But that’s life and I’m still learning. Still quite a lot to learn.
Anyway. Here we go.
So I met this guy online. In the past I would have been ashamed to say that, for some reason, which is ridiculous given the digital era we now live in. I think it’s more than fair that I met him through an app, though not a dating app exactly, more of a social platform.
My rational self looked at him as a potential nice encounter. I assessed the data points, that’s the growth marketer in me. Similar Mediterranean background, but also years of living abroad, specifically in the UK. Because I know that makes a real impact on your personality. There’s a reason why Brits are very particular about being British, and honestly I appreciate certain aspects of that.
Yet I’ve always missed that Mediterranean way of connecting… collective rather than individual, messy and spontaneous, a little last minute, dinner at ten pm. Almost a love-hate relationship.
So I proposed we have a coffee and a walk in the park on a Saturday morning at 10am to be precise. I thought it was a decent, low-pressure way to get to know someone. Friendly. Mature. What could possibly go wrong at 10am on a Saturday morning?
So we had the coffee. A nice chat. I learned a lot about the differences between northern and southern Italians. Then we went for a walk in the park. Very easy, very relaxed.
I didn’t have butterflies — I know for some people that’s a red flag — but somewhere between forcing my rational self forward and gently suppressing my romantic one, I promised I’d give it a chance. My sister would have been proud.
There were a couple of minor red flags or rather, things I personally wouldn’t bring up and find a little strange in a first meeting. He asked my religion, for instance. I don’t know why, but I often come across this question in Italy — I hardly experienced it in London. Maybe it’s cultural, maybe it’s just coincidence, but I always freeze when that question arrives so early. And then there was a stretch of conversation about what things cost whether they were cheap or expensive. Anyway. Sensitive topics, I won’t dwell.
Overall, a relatively nice coffee and walk. We even talked about next time — a Lebanese dinner, because we both love it, and because London has completely spoiled us with the richness of its food scene. Rome is a different kind of richness, purely, deeply Italian, but variety is harder to find here.
Again, I wouldn’t call it a date. I deliberately don’t label anything a date.
Then came the moment of saying goodbye.
Only it wasn’t a friendly goodbye.
At the crossroad, I gave him an almost-distant, perfectly friendly hug — and this guy, for some reason, decided he could kiss me. Leaned in. And I was like — BLIMEY.
No.
I mean… how on earth did a Saturday morning coffee walk near a traffic light suggest that was welcome? Since when did you decide you liked me enough to kiss me? And even if you did, why would you waste what could be a genuinely special moment at a crossroads in front of a red light?
I stepped back. ‘No.’ And just like that, the moment changed. I tried to soften it with a friendly ‘see you next time,’ but he just said ‘chissà’ (who knows) with this defensive edge. And I remember thinking: of everything that just happened, that’s what you’re defensive about?
And that was that. Another moment of quietly losing faith, and I returned to my sacred space — home.
This is just one example of the fast-food style connections we’re trying to make without really paying attention to the full picture. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve had other experiences where everything seems to go well and then you’re simply ghosted. But I can only tell one story at a time.
This isn’t a piece to analyse this one encounter specifically. It’s more of a genuine question: why are we struggling to make real connections built on solid foundations? Is it the overwhelming amount of choice we now have? Our scattered attention from three-minute Instagram reels? And I’m left wondering: did we trade the mess of real connection for the convenience of swipe-and-see? And if so, what exactly did we gain?
The only thing I know is that I don’t know anything. And the more I think about how people used to meet, messy and imperfect as that was too but deeply human, this new era feels so deeply at odds with the hopeless romantic in me.
There we go. Here I am, 42, caught between a romantic heart and a rational mind in an era that rewards neither.
Tell me yours.
Thank you for reading. Your support—in any form—means everything. If you’d like to contribute to this journey of words and becoming, I’m deeply grateful.
This piece really settled into something I’ve been feeling but couldn’t quite name. There’s so much truth in how you describe the strange quality of everything right now. It is strange out there, and admitting that feels like a small act of courage.
What I loved most was your honesty about not having answers. So much of what we read tries to offer solutions or frameworks for understanding, but you just let the strangeness be what it is. That kind of surrender to the unknown without trying to fix it is rare and beautiful. It reminds me that sometimes the most genuine thing we can do is acknowledge that we don’t know what’s going on and that’s okay.
I keep thinking about how you wrote about the way the world feels unfamiliar lately. It’s like we’re all walking through a version of reality that doesn’t quite match what we expected, and there’s something both terrifying and oddly liberating about that. When nothing feels solid, we have to learn to trust ourselves differently. We have to find our footing in the movement itself rather than the ground beneath us.
Thank you for writing this with such tenderness and clarity. It made me feel less alone in the weirdness of it all. Sometimes the best thing someone can give us is permission to feel confused and still be okay.