One Year On...

So, I first started writing this blog last August. It wasn’t planned and it was actually a friend who suggested I start writing it in the first place because my love life was (and still is) that laughable that you couldn’t possibly write it. That is, unless you’re me.

Not much has changed in the last year, really. I started this blog single and using online dating apps and I’m writing this post in the same position. I’m still single and I’m still, reluctantly and shamefully using Tinder and Bumble. Deactivating both regularly. Although things are pretty much the same as they were this time last year in terms of my relationship status, I have still been on quite a journey in that time. For instance, I have managed to have my heart broken for first time by a guy who wasn’t actually my boyfriend, a few ‘almosts’ with one or two people and even one actual relationship. Well I mean, if you can call 4 months a ‘relationship’ anyway. So yeah, I’d say that’s a bit of a journey.

There is one thing that has changed over the last year though and that is… me. I now know what I want and what I deserve thanks to the madness that is ‘dating’. My skin has got a lot thicker and I am much stronger than I was a year ago. For example, now: if I’m ghosted? Cool. If I’m dumped? Plenty of fish still left in the sea. If someone doesn’t like me back? Life goes on; I’m not everyones cup of tea. If I don’t get a text back? well, I’m not going to double text you, so I guess that’s that and our ‘talking stage’ is over. I’m really not hung up over things like this any more; shit happens and this is what dating life (mine anyway) is like. You get used to it.

So, enough said and without going into too much detail about people I’ve met and dates that I’ve had; here’s a bit of how my year of dating has gone so far, how it’s made me feel and where I’m currently at…

Being D-U-M-P-E-D...

… hurts. Really fucking hurts. Whether it’s for the best or even if you see some warning signs; it still hurts. Especially when you are the person who is being dumped. It’s absolutely crushing. I should be used to it by now and part of me is to tell you the truth. I’ve been through it one, two, three and even more times than that, but I just didn’t quite expect it this time. I think that’s why it hit me harder. One minute I’m dating someone I really, really like and the next; I’m not. They will now be nothing but a distant memory like everyone else.

D is for...

Depression. There. The one word that so many of us still struggle to say, admit that we suffer with, or have suffered with. Even though it is one of the most common mental health problems. Although the stigma around depression is slowly being broken, it’s also still very much alive and kicking. It may be 2019 now, but depression is still seriously misunderstood. And I know this because, well, I suffer with it. So this is my conscious effort to help break the stigma even more this year. 

"You've Changed" - No Shit

There is one thing that I get told by almost everyone; “you’ve changed.” Whether it be from a family member, or someone from school, I hear it all the time. Considering I started off as nothing more than an egg that later fertilised, before developing into a fetus, and then an actual, living human-being… I would like to think I have changed quite a bit too. 

No, I know what people really mean when they say “you’ve changed” though. What they mean is, I’m into health and fitness now. I’m a gym girl. I am far from the girl who despised P.E. lessons in school; skiving pretty much every one she could. I am far from the girl who also drastically lost weight, herself, and even looked skeletal at one point. And I am far from the shy, unconfident girl I once was - the one who was scared of what anyone thought of her, and what she had to say. The girl who never told anyone how she was feeling, or what she was really thinking. The one who let people walk all over her; getting away with it. So yes, I am fully aware myself that I have indeed, changed. I have completely transformed myself.