Keep Dating Weird

We’re all a little weird.
And it’s about time we accepted it.
Look, I get it—I spend a whole hell of a lot of time trying to convince people that I am not, in fact, a total weirdo. Despite my dating woes (which truly are abysmal), I generally do come off fairly normal for the most part. I’m really good at keeping the weirdness at bay in times when the weirdness should definitely be kept at bay (like business meetings or funerals).

But if you ask me, dating is the one place you need to let that freak flag fly free.
Okay, I’m not saying you should, you know, openly admit to your foot fetish on the first date. But you should be yourself. And be yourself fully. And yes, that does include your habit of binge watching Property Brothers, your love of pickles dipped in peanut butter, all of silly voices you do, and, okay, eventually your foot fetish.

                                                    
Dating is exhausting. Maintaining a relationship is exhausting. But pretending to be someone you’re not, that’s the most exhausting. And it is one hell of a disservice to yourself. It’s one hell of a disservice to the person you’re with too.

The thing is, people date for a lot of different reasons. Some people date simply because it’s fun (though these people are clearly insane—dating is the worst, most stressful thing). Some people date because they’re looking for forever—wedding ring and all. Other’s are looking for forever but don’t necessarily need that same level of commitment. And some people, I guess, are just looking for something really nice, right now.
 

But the one thing, the thing all of these people have in common is that everyone is looking for someone who gets them. Dating is all about opening yourself up to another person, it’s all about letting yourself be seen and taking the time to really look at someone else. It’s wonderful—this give and take—but it also really takes courage.

Be brave. And let someone in. Not just into the part that’s well put together. Not just the part that picks the perfect outfit, or strategically plans every text message. Not just the part that’s really, really great at your job, the part that is so totally witty. No, I’m talking about those other parts—the grit, the grunge, the silliness, the OCD, the anxiety, the messiness, the hurt, the weird. Because you deserve to be accepted for exactly who you are.
You deserve to sit with a boy (or girl) at 4am and laugh until you’re blue in the face overnothing.
You deserve to sit with that same boy (or girl) at some other 4am and cry your eyes out for no reason at all, other than maybe your heart just really hurts.

You deserve someone who you can fart in front of, someone you can build blanket forts with, you can tickle, you can share a glance with, an understanding with, a thousand inside jokes with, pretend with, imagine with. You deserve someone that loves you when it’s inconvenient, a person that looks at all those glaring flaws (the ones you can never quite forgive yourself for) and still think that you are the most beautiful thing in the whole damn world.

Passion fades. Passion always fades. Tangled limbs and butterfly hearts, that buzzing, yellow, pink, new relationship hum—it always goes away. Because all of that is based on newness, all of that is based on discovery.

But love.
Love is something entirely different. Don’t get me wrong—love can and definitely should involve those tangled limbs, those butterfly hearts that beat just a little bit too fast. But more than that, love is about acceptance. It’s about belly laughs and goofy faces, it’s about quirks, it’s about tackling the rough stuff, it’s about embracing each other, and every single thing, good or bad, and doing that together. Yeah, that buzzing, yellow, pink, new relationship hum is gone but it’s replaced by something so much better. You’re left with this dizzying red wine blush, this warm, gooey feeling that makes you want to stay there—just there—for as long as you can. It can’t be beat.
And it’s all because you dared to go bare—you laid yourself flat.
You opened yourself up.
You got weird.