Dating

I work with clients of a variety of ages who are struggling to navigate dating. The dating scene of the 2020s is hard. It’s fast and often as impersonal as shopping. The way your prospective partners behave can be so confusing! It’s easy to get caught up in if the other person is going to respond to you. But what are YOU feeling? How does this person enrich your life?

In the modern era of ghosting, it can bring up fear, and the struggle to navigate this often ties into fears of rejection, anxieties, and abandonment issues. You may wonder if it’s something you did wrong which may leave you feeling self-doubt and uncertainty.

When I work with people in this situation we spend time refocusing on bringing it back to you. When you think so much about the other person, then you’re not attuning to yourself. In therapy, we’ll be working to identify what you really want in a relationship and a partner. We’ll examine what past relationships have looked like and what your idea of a healthy relationship is. We’ll gain an understanding of what goals you want to work towards with a partner. Uncover what’s really non-negotiable and what areas can have flexibility. We’ll also get realistic about how they’re showing you who they are right now. If this is not what you want, then we can also look at what’s going on for you that you’re not accepting the way this person is.

This gets into understanding what your attachment style is, and looking at the combination of attachment styles with a potential partner.

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What if you are the one doing the ghosting? If you are wanting to understand yourself better in this regard, we will look at your attachment style and communication style to gain a better understanding of what leads you to avoid. Is it a fear of conflict? A fear of upsetting another person? A lack of self-awareness or self-confidence which is impacting your ability to communicate directly with another person about your feelings and experiences? If you are wanting to gain self-knowledge to better understand these choices you are making - and - the impact upon others of your choice to avoid, this is an area we can explore together.

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What do you really want and what’s going on for you?

If you’re finding the process of dating stressful, unsettling, or anxiety-producing, therapy provides an opportunity to look inwards and learn about yourself on another level and solidify your own foundation. You’ll learn how to come from a place of more self-confidence and how to navigate the dating scene with less stress and more freedom to be in the moment.

Dating often unearths family of origin sticking points. Things you learned in your youth are kind of like that box on the shelf you’ve forgotten about. We’ll get the box off the shelf and look at it and learn more about yourself in the process.

What this is not

This is not matchmaking.

This is not dating coaching.

This is about looking inwards at yourself. This allows you to take ownership over your wants, needs, and desires and not externalize them onto someone else who’s going to make everything happily ever after.