learning to say the thing

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I am, unfortunately, a people pleaser.

Maybe it’s part of being a Virgo (I have a habit of blaming many of my personality traits on this, but if the shoe fits etc). Or maybe it’s the overachiever, perfectionist tendencies I’ve been cultivating since childhood.

Whatever the reason, it means that when it comes to dating—particularly online dating—my first instinct is rarely what do I want to say? Instead, it’s how will this come across? Will it sound too harsh? Too blunt? Will I seem rude? Will I seem like a b*tch? Should I soften it? Add an emoji? Wait another day so it doesn’t look like I’ve been thinking about it too much?

These are the kinds of mental gymnastics I find myself performing when a simple Hinge message turns into a full editing process.

It started with one sentence:

“I had a really nice time.”

A perfectly ordinary sentence, and not one that should require several hours of analysis, right? Wrong.

Maybe that’s what happens when you read so many books. You begin expecting your real life to follow the same narrative logic as fiction. Every interaction feels like it should build towards something meaningful. When it comes to dating, I often find myself viewing my own experiences through the lens of every romance novel I’ve ever read.

Romance novels are built around certainty - the meet-cute isn’t really an accident; it’s the start of a story with an ending that’s already been decided. Every miscommunication and awkward conversation exists because the author already knows these two people are going to end up together. The uncertainty is for the reader, which is what makes it so exciting to read. Real life, unfortunately, doesn’t come with that reassurance. There is no omniscient author steering two people back towards each other.

Obviously books can give us unrealistic expectations, but I sometimes wonder whether they also convince us that every connection needs to be significant. I definitely find myself trying to slot my own experiences into some kind of coherent narrative, thinking if I romanticise it enough, it’ll have to lead somewhere.

The reality is much less satisfying. Most people we meet won’t become our great love story, and most first dates won’t become forever. Because annoyingly, unlike fiction, life doesn’t come with a neat resolution. The only thing we can offer is honesty.

I found myself thinking about this while listening to the third edition of No Ordinary Love, an audiobook collection centred around five true stories of people taking emotional risks.

One story in particular, about Edward and Oden, felt scarily relatable to my current Hinge situation. After receiving a text from Edward, Oden spent the entire day spiralling. Eventually, they sat down together and spoke honestly about how they were feeling.

This in itself felt radical, especially in our modern dating era which seems built around avoiding honesty. Ghosting someone is easier than rejecting them, keeping someone in a state of ambiguity somehow feels kinder than just telling the truth, even though it’s actually the opposite.

It didn’t take long for me to work out that I was in such a predicament because I desperately wanted that ‘when you know, you know’ moment. I wanted to be lucky enough to find my person from that first date. But that just wasn’t the case.

The date had been lovely. We met through Hinge, exchanged messages for a while, and met up for the first date at a restaurant with a table overlooking the sea. The conversation was nice, we realised we grew up in similar areas and knew a few of the same people from school. But I knew from early on that it felt like having dinner with a friend, so it wasn’t going anywhere.

I returned to my draft.

“I had a really nice time :)”

The smiley face emoji felt wrong, like I was trying to soften the message. It reminded me of all the exclamation marks and emojis I put in work emails so people think I’m friendly.

“I had a nice time, thanks again.”

That sounded less like a text after a date and more like the email you’d send after a job interview. I might as well add ‘kind regards’ at the end.

I unlocked my phone again and finally wrote the message I’d been avoiding:

“I had a really nice time. I don’t think this is going to go anywhere, but I wanted to say that I really enjoyed it.”

I read it back and immediately wanted to edit it again, or just delete the whole thing. It’s not necessarily the honesty I was struggling with; I was worried about being perceived as the kind of person who could let someone down, or disappoint someone. It was something I’m just not built to do.

But that’s the important part about saying the thing. The risk isn’t about worrying if the other person will like your answer, the risk is the fact you were brave enough to give one.

I pressed send before I could edit it again. I put my phone down. Picked it back up. Turned it face down. Checked it again. Then a Hinge notification popped up on my screen.

“I had a really nice time too. I appreciate you saying that, I felt the same actually.”

That was it. No drama, no dreaded long paragraphs. It was just two adults being honest with each other. Oddly enough, it felt like its own version of a happy ending. Not because I’d found the right person, but because neither of us was left wondering.

While miscommunication in romance novels can often be a necessary and (sometimes) entertaining trope to create barriers and drama in a relationship, you can’t apply it to real life. You simply have to communicate, even when it is uncomfortable and awkward.

I think that’s what the third edition of No Ordinary Love reminded me of: a meaningful moment doesn’t have to be a grand confession, it can simply be choosing honesty. Saying the thing is always kinder than leaving someone guessing.

I’d love to know whether you’ve ever had your own version of ‘saying the thing’. Was it a text you’d been rewriting for days in your notes app? A conversation you’d been avoiding? Did it end up the way you expected it to? Let me know in the comments 💌

Also definitely go and give the No Ordinary Love audiobook a listen! You can check it out here.