THE AGE OF UNINNOCENCE

Female. Late 20s. This is my take on dating in the 21st century. Grab a diet coke, a bag of popcorn, and follow my crazy, tragic, almost magic, sometimes awful, beautiful journey of finding love in the city of London.

[theageofuninnocence]

You know, I think one of the worst feelings is finding out that you didn’t mean as much to someone as you thought you did, and you just feel stupid, because you looked desperate about caring too much.

[theageofuninnocence]

I’m looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.

- SATC - Carrie Bradshaw

[theageofuninnocence]

Take 2 - Dating for dummies

OMFG dating is exhausting why has no one told me this before I threw myself into the single market again??

What is it with all the labels?? Seeing, dating, relationship, boyfriend girlfriend, break up, on a break, exclusive, non-exclusive, official, unofficial, long-term, temporary, rebound, one night stand, friends with benefits...blah blah blah!

I feel like a hundred years old for having been completely sheltered from (or oblivious to?) the existence of such terms and stages that are applied to (non)relationships nowadays. Whatever happened to the good old dating/not dating while I was "gone"?? I mean...either you like each other enough to want to get to know each other, in which case you enter a dating relationship, or you simply don't. If you're compatible and get along well, you continue dating. If you don't, you say goodbye and continue your search. As simple as that. Since when has the term girlfriend/boyfriend become such a luxury? And why is the word "relationship" given as an award and only when you manage to pass a certain set of tests over time?

If we don't count the biology reason for the human's mating needs, then the primary reason why we spend our whole life searching for a partner is for the emotional connection, the romantic relationship. Why do we intentionally defy ourselves of the joy and happiness of being with the one we like by putting them into categories with different "privileges and rights", challenge them, analyze them, play them, until both are hurt and exhausted and things collapse? Our time, our emotions, memories, effort...all of our investment gone to waste.

Why do we jeopardize our own chance for happiness?

I know, I know. There are 6 billions of people on earth...blah blah. But seriously - how many people do you know? How many new people do you meet per day? How many of them are available? How many of them would you actually consider dating? How many of them cause butterflies in your stomach? How many of them would reciprocate your feelings?

It's hard to find someone who cares about us for no apparent reason, who sees only us in the crowd, who is incomprehensibly amazed by our less than ordinary self, and would want to get to know us, and is willing to invest into creating a deeper connection with us. It's even harder to find someone towards whom we feel exactly the same. Shouldn't this account for something?

[theageofuninnocence]

Take 1 - The Introduction

At the (barely) tender age of..let's call it twenty something, you'd think I know a thing or two about love. Or men. Or men in love. Or loving men. So did I. Until I moved to London, broke up with my boyfriend of almost 4 years on Christmas (btw. I'm awesome at timing), and entered the crazy ride called "dating life" in one of the world's fanciest capitals.

First of all, don't judge me. London was merely a catalyst not the reason for the break-up (although I'm sure my ex would strongly disagree). Had I not relocated, we probably would have moved in together or be engaged with a chic wedding on the way by now. Which...would've been quite nice, but wrong. Oh so wrong.

I don't know how you can tell whether it's the right person, I could only tell that he wasn't.

Secondly, crazy as things have been, I have learned (please excuse my American spelling) an awful lot about myself. Well, mostly about how naive and innocent I was, above anything else. So I'm actually glad for all the experiences.

10 months, few heartbreaks, few desperate moments, few escapes later...I think I'm equipped with just enough cynicism to join my optimistic nature to keep me going and occasionally even excited about what's to come.

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PS: I still have no freakin' clue what I'm doing most of the time.

[theageofuninnocence]

Welcome to the age of un-innocence. No one has breakfast at Tiffany's and no one has affairs to remember. Instead, we have breakfast at 7AM and affairs we try to forget as quickly as possible.

SATC - Carrie Bradshaw