Gen X Dating
3 min readI threw myself into the dating pool almost two years ago. During that time about a year of that time, I was in a relationship kinda’ thing. ANY.WHO. Before that, I was out of the dating pool because I wanted to focus on education, career, and being a mom. Also, I found people a tad annoying, and I honestly didn’t feel like dedicating time to folks.
In 2019 after my father passed, his death made me look at life differently. That’s because he was involved in a relationship, and the person he was involved with didn’t come to see him while he was dying from stomach cancer. That made me look at having a person to love differently. I started to realize it would be nice to have a person. Not a person like my dad had, but a real-deal genuine love. I wanted this, but I knew I needed to do some work on myself if I wanted to have a healthy relationship.
So by the end of 2019, I started on my therapy journey for grief and to unravel all the things I knew I carried around my entire life but ignored. I went to therapy for ten months, and it was the best thing I’ve ever done, equivalent to education, buying property, and having my son. During those ten months, I talked about how I wanted to develop deeper relationships with my friends and be in a healthy relationship with a partner. At the end of the sessions, my therapist encouraged me to throw myself out into the dating pond.
So, I threw myself out into the dating pool, which I discovered had dookie in it, but I learned a lot as a GenXer in these dating streets. Getting to know people were so much different than it was back when I was dating before motherhood. So I maneuvered through the dating apps and met lots of people. Some of them turned into great friendships. That was my favorite part of throwing myself back out there.
I was only on the dating app shortly before finding someone I wanted to spend time getting to know. I am not one to spread my time around dating a million people at a time. I usually meet one person I like and get to know them. If I don’t like them, I move on to find another person. I don’t have the bandwidth to juggle people, and honestly, I don’t like being around folks enough to allow multiple people in my life.
So I ended up getting into a relationship with this person, and they were great at first. I enjoyed their company for a while. It was all fun and games until I realized I was being love-bombed by a person who exhibited traits of NPD or Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That was unfortunate, but it taught me so much about myself and dating as a Gen Xer.
As a Gen Xer, I am at a different place in life. So my needs and expectations are not the same as when I was dating earlier in life. I am finished with school and secure in my career. I’m not interested in getting married and starting a family because I have a young adult son. So I am only interested in a companion or life partner. I don’t want to merge my life with another person. I want to have separate but complimentary lives where we come together, enjoy each other’s company, travel, and enjoy holidays but go home to our own spaces. A person would have to be an exceptional human for me to change my mind.
So, after learning so much from my past relationships, taking a breather, and some downtime, I am ready to jump back on the apps. I may or may not write about my Gen X experiences on my quest to find my person on these dating apps.
If you are a Gen Xer and ouchea’ on these dating apps, let’s chat on my socials.’
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