Notes on: Dating after divorce

*not quite divorced yet… 🥴

I’m a single woman in my late Thirties; a mother of one, co-parenting, going through a divorce, and trying and somewhat failing to date in London. I mostly enjoy it – I like meeting new people and feeling the taste of the freedom I once had before I had a child – but it can be an altogether draining prospect, putting yourself out there, pouring your energy into something, building up hope and then having to pick yourself up again when it doesn’t always work out.

While you mostly know me for writing about interiors, I’m enjoying having a place like Substack to share the rawer, more vulnerable, human experiences in life, like dating after divorce (or in reality, mid-divorce). I hope it might make someone else feel a little less alone in it all. Because sometimes it can be a lot to get your head around. Because I never really expected to be in this position. I didn’t think I would ever have to go on a first date again. It was a huge leap of faith to give up something comfortable and familiar, not knowing what I was giving it up for. Hoping there was something better out there, but not having yet found it.

Since separating from my husband of 12 years, I’ve been dating on and off for three years now. When I was last single, in my (somewhat naive) early Twenties, there were no such thing as dating apps, no one had a word for ghosting, and there was no ‘talking stage’ either, if you went on a couple of dates and got on, that’s it you were together. It seemed easy. And it was fun.

Dating today is a whole other ball game. One where the rules keep shifting and changing. The apps are a minefield of fleeting connections, non-committal dates and missed potential. Don’t be too keen, don’t double text, don’t chase the spark, don’t be too available, don’t over-invest, but also keep swiping, be honest, be your authentic self, be clear with what you want, go with your gut, be your weird self, see who it attracts. While there’s a lot of things I love about dating, it’s also, as you can imagine, exhausting. It’s going on the best date of your life for eight hours then never seeing them again, it’s being ghosted after four dates, it’s finding grown men who are 40 and still don’t know what they want, it’s ‘I’m not looking for anything serious’, it’s situationships and almost relationships, and ‘let’s just keep it casual’, it’s red flags, yellow flags, beige flags, and few good green flags in between. You could be speaking to a widow, a divorced father of three, someone still living with their parents or even someone else’s husband. It’s just not quite as simple as it once was.

In your late Thirties, dating I’ve found is essentially a process of filtering. There’s lots of people out there, especially in a big city like London, but not all will be suitable for you. Chemistry doesn’t always equal compatibility, connection doesn’t guarantee commitment. I’m a good looking, blonde, white, able bodied woman, I can log on to the apps and get a date, or even three in one week, relatively easily. Finding someone isn’t the problem, it’s keeping hold of them that seems to be the trickier part. And I’m pretty sure it’s not me, but them. It seems like a rare lottery win to find someone who wants the same thing as you at the same time. Dating is most definitely a verb; you have to have two people willing to put in the same time, effort and energy in to make something work. I don’t believe in the right person, wrong time. There’s only the right timing, the right person.

The problem is we now have infinite choice. There will always be someone else out there who is hotter, funnier, more compatible than you or for you. I have a feeling that it means people don’t often give things a proper chance; there will be one small niggle or doubt and it’s easy to cut it off after one, maybe two dates, and move onto the next thing. Perhaps because there is this idea that the grass could be greener, or maybe we’ve been conditioned from films and romanticised stories to think that love should feel a certain way, and when it’s not all fireworks and sparks and love at first sight, we feel let down by a fantasy that was always in our head.

It’s easy to have this picture of your perfect person in your head, with a tick box of qualities, and when something doesn’t quite match up, take it to mean that it’s not meant to be. But the trouble is that there’s no such thing as perfect; people have bad days, we present the best version of ourselves in our photos or on the first date and audition for a role, but we’re still human, we can have awkward moments, and first date nerves, and as you get older, more wrinkles, grey hairs, wobbly bits, quirks and worries. In reality I don’t think you’re ever going to find someone who is perfect, you just need to find someone who is perfectly imperfect for you. And also someone who can accept you as your beautiful, perfectly imperfect self.

Real intimacy takes time to build. It is not just made overnight. There’s a false intimacy with dating apps now where you can talk to someone intensely for a few days and feel like you know them, sending goodnight kisses before spending an actual night with them. But in reality, you don’t really know them, and real intimacy is built over those smaller, more everyday moments, until you can become so comfortable in each other’s company, you have the privilege to peel back all the layers and learn who they really are underneath it all.

I have a bit of a habit for falling for potential and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. With my dating blinkers on, I tend to push aside the red flags, fast forward too quickly and ignore the actual reality of who is sitting right in front of me, in a hope it might become the version of what I want it to be. It’s very easy to build up a fantasy of all the possibilities in your head and get carried away.

I recently dated someone who was perfect on paper. A designer who suggested a candle-lit Japanese pottery workshop for our second date. I couldn’t believe my luck. I then took the fact that he had the same sofa as me, the same TV, the same love of green, the same cushions even, as some sort of sign that it meant something. Yet sadly what’s good on paper doesn’t always translate between the sheets. Compatibility on paper doesn’t always means it translates in reality and I’ve learnt not to be too fixated on a type or to get my hopes up too soon. We’re all looking for that hard to define thing where something just fits.

You see you have to be open-minded. Dating is a bit like trying lots of outfits on which you think will suit you then standing in front of the mirror and realising it doesn’t actually suit you at all, and in fact, you can’t quite believe that you ever thought it would.

There seems to be two camps when it comes to dating. One: you need to feel a spark from the get-go. Or two: the spark is a false economy; it’s anxiety disguised as butterflies and what you actually want is calm and safety and good conversation because that’s what will last. One piece of advice I read was: if you feel like you want to have another conversation with them, go on another date. Just take it one date at a time. And while I agree that fireworks can be a fleeting flash in the pan, and not always a hallmark of long-term compatibility, I do need to feel something and it’s often a gut instinct that is either there or it isn’t. It’s a tricky balance between feeling the spark and actual real life compatibility.

Dating in your late-Thirties, people naturally come with a lot more baggage. While this can make things more interesting – people have lived, they have stories to tell, they have substance and there’s nothing like learning about all the numerous ways that make someone human – it also means that there’s more barriers to connection; past hurts, worries, anxieties and unconscious filters. Some people feel weary from the baggage they have to carry, some are still sorting it out into piles, some are ready to put it to one side and unpack it together.

While in your Twenties, chemistry was enough to spark a connection; you only had to look at someone and things seemed to somehow click and fall magically into place, in your Thirties, it requires a little more work. You can feel a spark, feel understood and have deep conversations, have felt nothing like it before, and yet it is still not actually a guarantee for anything. It requires all the different parts of yourself to fall neatly into place with someone else’s jigsaw puzzle, and sometimes the pieces just don’t fit. I often feel like Hugh Grant in Love Actually when he exasperatedly says, ‘Who do you have to screw round here to get a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit?!’.

The trouble is I’m not built for casual. I’m a hopeless romantic, I see the best in people, I try to be nonchalant but I’m very chalant, I over-invest too soon and once I’m in, I’m IN, often when someone has one foot in, one foot out, hovering tentatively at the door. You see, I’m drawn to non-committal, emotionally unavailable men who can’t give me what I most want, because it leaves me in this awkward yet comfortable familiarity of having to earn love and prove myself. If I’m just nice enough, appeasing enough, and go with the flow and don’t rock the boat, maybe then they’ll realise my value. My brain thinks the unpredictability is like the dopamine hit of a drug, while my nervous system can never quite settle into peace and safety. It also means that I’m always a safe emotional distance from real connection, I never actually get too close, so therefore I’m never truly exposed. It’s an irony that the thing I want the most (a relationship), is the one thing I actually fear the most. Our brains often don’t make sense, do they?

Whenever I share anything on Instagram about dating, I get questions asking why I date. Why I keep putting myself out there when I have a small child to focus on. Why I would keep opening myself up to disappointment. And for a long time it felt like a bit of a conflict in my head, thinking that I should be this strong, independent woman who didn’t need anyone else. But wanting connection isn’t a sign of weakness or a lack from within. I am still a strong, independent woman – I like nothing more than spending time by myself, I have no problem going to the cinema or out for dinner on my own – but I still would like to experience life with someone special. I’m not looking for someone to complete me or save me, I have a wonderfully full life already, I’m just looking for the cherry on the top, someone to meet me where I am.

I think when you come out of a long-term relationship or end a marriage, you bound toward the complete opposite of what you’re used to. A situationship is practically a rite of passage after a divorce. You look for the 15% that you didn’t get, forgetting that you also need the 85% there to hold it all together. When I first separated from my husband, I chased the excitement and cheap thrills, seeking an alternative to the monotonous monogamy I had become conditioned to. I wanted to break down everything I thought I knew about love. I swayed between extremes and now it feels like I’m looking for that steady middle ground again. I’m slowly getting closer to where I want to be and I just keep telling myself, ‘I can’t wait to see why it didn’t work out’.

I think there’s also something about being a mother and dating, subverting what society perceives a mother to be. A mother can be a good mother and also fulfil her own desires, look after her own wants, and be sexy and desired. I felt by dating I was taking agency of my own body back again, I was filling my own cup so that I could pour back into the one at home, and I was building towards a hopefully more fulfilled life. It feels thrilling to explore and express my own needs after looking after another being so intensely, to be looked in the eye for who I am, not who society says I am, and to feel alive, free and young again. Even when it hasn’t worked out, I’m grateful for the experiences and all that dating has taught me. I’m a fuller, sparkier person for it.

Now I date a little more intentionally. Every date is data to work out if they’re compatible for me. I have a strong filter and have become incredibly picky. Someone really needs to deserve access to my world. I’ve become more self aware, more discerning, and still somehow seem capable of making the same mistakes. Sometimes I feel it would be a lot simpler if I just sent potential dates a Google survey asking them questions like, ‘are you a dog person?’, ‘have you had therapy?’, ‘are you avoidant?’, ‘do you know what you actually want?’. I jest, but I know it’s common now to have a video call before a date to vibe-check and see if you click before investing in one precious night of your week. There’s always going to be a bit of a risk and I think you’ve just got to keep putting yourself out there, keep giving it a go, and well, feel the fear and do it anyway?

Dating can be a slog and it’s a bit of a love/hate relationship, but for all the bad bits, there’s a hundred good reasons to give it another go – for the people I meet, the profound conversations I have in the back gardens of pubs, the friends I make, the laughter shared, the validation of being understood, the loves I’ve yet to meet and the lives I’ve yet to live.

In the spirit of sharing, here’s all the things I’ve learnt and look for in dating – namely the four C’s, curiosity, compatibility, chemistry and capacity – maybe it might help you too:

• Curiosity – Are they curious about the world and are they interested in me? It seems to me that men have forgotten how to ask questions. So many conversations go nowhere because I feel like I’m literally having a conversation with myself and having to hold it all together. I had to tell one guy I was dating that he never asked a single question and he said ‘Oh yeh, I’ve been told that before’. Face palm! The best people I’ve dated always come back with a question; it might be something small, insignificant or silly, but it just shows they’re keen to keep the conversation flowing and it might just mean you’ll never get bored. I really need someone who will stimulate my mind as well as my body. Looks can fade over time, chemistry can wear off, but good conversation never dies. Curiosity can tell you a lot about someone; how they see the world, if they’re open-minded, if they’re flexible or rigid in their thinking.