How Do I Know When I’m Emotionally Ready To Date?

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

Hi there! I discovered your blog recently and have been reading through many of your posts. I appreciate the strong grasp you have on dating/romance, so I thought it might be a good idea to ask about something I’m struggling with.

I’m a 31yo transmasc nonbinary person (they/he) who was just able, three years ago, to move from my abusive Mormon family’s home and start transitioning. My gender transition so far has had a huge positive effect on most life areas. However, romance is an area where I still have a really hard time. Partly because I’ve spent most my life under the power of a controlling family and religion, I have no romantic/sexual experience beyond a few chaste dates back during college. I’m a highly romantic person who has dreamed of love my entire life, but I just can’t seem to find the courage to make a move.

As well as being transgender/nonbinary and having no experience, I am disabled – autistic with multiple chronic illnesses – and unable to work more than 12hr/week, which means I am dependent on government support, now that my relationship with my family has broken. I’m also very demisexual, so I basically have to fall in love BEFORE I feel sexual attraction, which has just happened three times in my three decades. I have gender dysphoria connected to sex that means I have some additional hard boundaries there. All of this makes me feel that it’ll be a difficult prospect to find someone who fits me and wants to date me. Honestly, in a society this unfriendly and unsupportive for people like me, I am likely to be a major burden for any partner. My therapists say that my high level of emotional maturity, compassion, and responsiveness can make up for my practical/financial problems, and I see their point, but I can’t help but feel bad for the trouble I’d cause my future partner, particularly as the political situation worsens.

I’ve been in therapy for over a decade now, working through disability trauma, queer/sexual trauma, family trauma, and religious trauma, and I have made huge strides in the past three years especially. My therapists and my friends – most of whom are queer women, the demographic I’d primarily like to date – say that I probably need to just get out there now so I can experience how things are different/better in the general dating scene than in the Mormon dating scene. But I have spent months making excuses about how I want to be further through my transition, and I’m constantly moving the goalposts. Really, I’m scared that people won’t like the person I am becoming. After all, there’s good reason I hid my real self for nearly three decades. I keep wanting to test the waters, see how my friends react to my gender-related changes before I try to get into romance.

So ultimately, any time I consider getting on dating apps or anything like that, I feel very panicky. There’s a part of me that’s convinced people will laugh at me for daring to think anyone would find it worth the risk to date me. But social connection is the meaning of life for me, and at this point, it feels like romance is the last area I really want to be sure to explore before I die – and I’ve honestly felt death on my heels for most my life, which the current political circumstances don’t help. I don’t want to waste too much time because I might not HAVE that much time.

I definitely COULD push through the anxiety, but I don’t want to destabilize my emotional and mental health, particularly given how tied my physical health symptoms are to stress and anxiety. So my question for you is this: how do you know if you’ve healed enough from past trauma to push through the leftover anxiety and get out onto the dating scene?

Out Of Emotional Traction

First of all, OET, I want to tell you how proud of you I am. You’ve been through some heinous fuckery, and even at a time when being trans is more fraught and dangerous than it’s been in a long, long time, you’ve had the strength and courage to deal with your trauma, refute the bullshit sold to you and to be your best, truest and most authentic self. That’s fucking huge and you should celebrate that. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is all anxiety, OET, not lingering trauma. I don’t mean that you didn’t go through serious trauma and didn’t need a lot of healing – you clearly did. But I think that much of what you’re experiencing are the scars that the trauma left behind. It’s a little like being thrown from a horse and then being nervous around horses again; your problem is ultimately that what you went through rocked your shit so hard that you’re understandably afraid of what might happen if you try.

And in this case, it sounds to me like a lot of what you’re anxious about is entirely in your head – you’re engaging in the World’s Worst Superpower: Worst-Case Scenario vision. You are imagining all these horrible things happening because you had the temerity, the gall… to present yourself as a potential match on a dating app. How dare you, OET? At long last, have you no sense of decency?

If that sounds like an absurd and over the top reaction to your getting on the apps… well, that’s because it is. It sounds silly when you hear it coming from somewhere else because it’s not coming from your head. That’s the thing about our brains; they treat what we imagine as though it were real. Those moments you’re imagining are hitting you like a hammer because your brain is responding to them as though it actually happened. In a very real way, you’re just hurting your own feelings.

But this means that you have the ability to flip that switch just as effectively. You can, instead, imagine putting yourself out there – whether it means getting on the apps or simply being open to meeting someone out in the world – and it all goes incredibly well. You can picture meeting someone, even many someones, who are down for what you have to offer. People who are so intrigued by you that the things you see as hideous drawbacks are, in fact, not that big a deal. And your brain can and will respond to those with the same level of “yup, this is happening” as the nightmares.

But the bigger issue here isn’t that you’re talking yourself down and imagining worst-case scenarios, so much as you’re getting a little out over your skis. You’re getting spun up about things that aren’t happening and haven’t happened and may not happen, but treating them like they’re an inevitability. Everything from “the hideous burden I will end up being on my partner” to “people will laugh at me” are all borrowing trouble from the future, a future that may never come to pass, but you’re treating it as though it were an inevitability.

That’s one part of it. The other is that it seems to me as though you see this as an all-or-nothing deal – that you’re expecting storybook love or nothing at all. And while that’s very romantic… it’s also intimidating the fuck out of you. Fantasies are great, because they can be whatever you want them to be and to progress exactly how you want them to. A real relationship, however, is messy and often complicated and full of moving parts. It can go off in directions you never expected or never anticipated and you – so the feeling goes – are responsible for all of it. So the idea of trying to live the fantasy, even a toned-down, much more realistic one? That’s terrifying.

So my suggestion is very simple: slow your roll and adjust your expectations. You don’t need – nor should you expect – a storybook romance right off the bat. What you want and what you should do is simply take on a mindset of “well, I am going to see what’s out there; maybe I’ll meet the love of my life and maybe I’ll just make some friends and maybe I’ll come out of this with some interesting stories.”

This is your first real attempt at dating, and honestly, it’ll be better to see this as learning about yourself rather than expecting your first relationship to also be your last. You are going to learn a lot about who you are when you’re part of a couple, how much of what you think you want is or isn’t what you want in reality and whether what you want and what you need are in alignment with one another.

If you go in expecting Princess Charming to sweep you off your feet and the credits to roll on your happily ever after… well, that’s not likely to happen. But if you go in with a willingness to just see, to ease your way in and see what comes your way? That’s going to give you space to relax and experience, rather than getting spun up with expectations that life may not ever match.

Now, under normal circumstances, I’d say you should put more of a focus on meeting people in person and going out and doing things that you love with other people. But these aren’t normal circumstances, and the current political situation means that you, like other trans people, are under a fuckload of pressure and legitimate threat. So while I still do recommend prioritizing meeting people in person, making friends and seeing if love can, in fact, bloom on the battlefield… I’d recommend that maybe you should be looking primarily in queer, trans-affirming and trans-inclusive spaces. Love is hard enough as it is; you don’t need to add a layer of difficulty by wondering if the person you met at the Barnes and Noble thinks you don’t deserve basic civil rights and dignity.

But hey, queer and trans people have existed the entire time humans have lived on this planet, including times when it was far worse than the shitstorm we’re in now. Love ain’t a delicate thing. Love, like trans joy, is a goddamn cockroach, that keeps coming back no matter how many times folks try to squish it. So I would say that being open to finding love and companionship and joy, even if you take it on a slow and more measured pace? Well, that’s you spitting in the eye of everyone you think would laugh at you for daring to hope, never mind actually pursue love.

Like the song says: Dare to keep all your dreams alive.

This is going to be intimidating. You’re going to be pushing yourself in ways you haven’t let yourself even consider. But that’s the whole point – to challenge yourself, push yourself and overcome those fears and supposed handicaps. Taking it a little slow doesn’t mean that you’re not serious or not doing it the right way; you’re working with the way you know best while you figure it out.

But the fact that you’re doing it at all? That’s huge. That’s bold. That’s daring.

And you can win if you dare.

All will be well.

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Doc:

Well, there really is no easier way to say this Doc but I’m a fat fuck yup not thick chunky or hunky or fuffy or big boned or any of those little white lies gobbledygook; I am fat straight up. And well I don’t like it nor do I like people who are “supposedly” into my type or even my fellow fatties. I remember asking a girl (she was admittedly slim thickish) out once and she gave perhaps the cruelest yet most honest answer I’ve ever gotten: That going out with me or kissing me or sleeping or even dating me would be an act akin to zoophilia because well I have the body of a pig. That admittedly hurt a lot but at the same time it’s kind of a harsh reality check I needed for the dating market, and, well, I’m working to lose weight and become more attractive to at least the people I wanna date or I’m attracted too. Sounds shallow or vain but honestly, is there something really wrong with working out and losing weight for the sole purpose of getting laid with a sexy somebody?

Ever since I was told that lovely piggy comment, every time someone “supposedly” has an attraction to large men I’m gonna treat them like society treats zoophiles IE you’re wierd and gross and should get the hell away from me and even then, I’m pretty they’re no physically attracted to him (I’m a very visual creature) but rather his rather his fat wallet or something else.

Turns out I’m one those fat people who is well not attracted to other fat people they’re just not my type, it doesn’t turn me on, I can’t picture myself getting in bed with them and well you can’t really “become my type” or “change my mind” even if I’ve gotten to know them and they’re lovely people.

Even when I’m told women supposedly go crazy for dad bods or Jack Black or other large celebrity men, it’s once again hard to believe when me as a large man treats that kinda lust as weird and gross.

Which to surprise nobody has made dating for me very difficult and made me come across as vain, shallow and egotistical ass hat because I hate myself and my body. But at the same time, I don’t wanna “accept who I am” because I don’t like being in this large body. I wanna shed the weight and actually become the sexual being I see myself as and attract the people that are actually my type. I always motive myself with “why be less when you can become great” and I want that but this “acceptance” makes me feel like it breeds complacency and stagnation, in other words “you’re perfect as you are and never change”. But no big shocker turns out all this shame and rancor really isn’t the best motivator no matter how hard I push myself and well, being compassionate or loving with myself feels almost weird, inauthentic and delusional.

What do I do, Doc? How do I accept myself and yet change for the better at the same time?

From,

Shredding this Pork Belly

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to work out or to feel sexy in your own skin, STPB. That’s something I encourage everyone to pursue. But there’s a massive difference between wanting to feel sexy and have a good body, and beating the shit out of yourself and other fat people for no reason other than existing. The fact that you consciously choose to think of people who like fat men as “zoophiles” says far more about how you feel about yourself than about life.

It’s somewhat telling that you took one person’s really shitty comment as being a “harsh wakeup call”. That’s not a wake-up call, that’s one person being an asshole to you. Basing your entire view of the world on that has nothing to do with your place in the dating market and everything to do with how you feel about yourself. Like a lot of people, you are falling for classic masochistic epistemology; you’re taking it as gospel truth because it’s harsh. But like everyone who prides themselves in “brutal honesty”, it’s always about the brutality, not the honesty.

You met one shitty person and you decided to base your worldview around that because it hurt. That’s going to fuck you up more than you know, in no small part because it’s going to prevent you from ever actually achieving your goals. Not to get yourself down to a particular size – that’s hard enough, especially long-term – but to be happy with yourself. It’s not going to happen.

No matter how much weight you lose, you’re going to find that you don’t think of yourself as sexy or thin or happy. You’re going to look in the mirror and find all the little spots that don’t look “right”, the areas that may have a little more flesh and a little more give than you’d like. You’re going to swear you see the ghost of a double chin or too much belly flab. And one day you’ll have one beer too many or a snack that has a little more fat or salt or carbohydrates than you think you should be eating and you’re going to beat the shit out of yourself – emotionally – for having fucked up everything.

And no matter what the scale says or what your measurements say… you’re going to feel fat. You’re going to feel fat in a way that actually means “I feel so ugly and unlovable that I don’t qualify as human”, not “I have more adipose tissue than I’d prefer.”

Why? Because you can’t hate yourself into being better. No amount of beating yourself up, no amount of unleashing your inner drill sergeant or yelling “why be lesser when you can be great” is going to get you the results you want. It’s just going to lock you in a state of nothing being enough, never feeling the way you expect and being angrier at yourself for failing. And to make matters worse, all that self-hate and self-anger is just going to sap your energy and kill your results. You are going to be so on guard and so constantly monitoring everything for signs of weakness that you’re not going to have energy left for exercise or discipline or anything else.

And you will never be able to accept that people actually love you or care for you, regardless of what size you are, because you have taught yourself that you’re unloveable. Not the shitty person with the shittier opinions, not the world. You. You will only see your flaws and your mistakes and how far you still have to go and you will use those to beat yourself up and push people away because how could they possibly be into a fat fuck like you think you are?

You’re already feeling it. You already see it in your life. And frankly, it’s not surprising that self-love and care feels weird and fake to you; you’ve spent how long telling yourself that you don’t deserve love and aren’t worthy of care? You’ve carved a groove in your brain by insisting that these things aren’t real, don’t count and are signs of weakness.

So maybe it’s time to accept that you’re wrong about all of it and try a different tack?

This is what self-acceptance is about. It doesn’t mean being lazy or complacent or giving up. It means loving yourself and recognizing that your worth as a person has nothing to do with your body or your body fat percentage or whether you have a visible six-pack. You can accept yourself and love yourself and still want to improve. Do you think someone who buys and maintains a classic car or a pinball table or restores old toys is doing so because those things are just piles of shit that only has meaning or value if they’re perfect? Or are they putting in the effort because it makes them feel good to take this thing and make it work even better than it did before? Are they maintaining it simply to keep it from going back to being a piece of shit, or because they love it and want it to perform at its peak?

This is why Zen Master Suzuki famously said “you are perfect as you are and there’s room for improvement”; because your worth and your incredible nature is always there, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things you can’t do better. You can say “I’m awesome and people will be lucky to date me” and still decide that maybe you want bigger shoulders or a more toned torso. You can love your body as it is but still want to wear smaller clothes. Those things don’t contradict themselves. Acceptance isn’t complacency; giving up is complacency.

If you want to change, then the first thing you have to do is recognize what you were doing wrong. You need to apologize to yourself for being willing to take someone’s hateful comments as gospel and use it as the foundation for even more hate. And then you need to forgive yourself for letting that hate take root and fester. Someone played on your fears and insecurities and you took it as gospel truth; now you can recognize why that was wrong and – if you find yourself in the same place, you can make different choices.

And then you have to learn to love yourself, celebrate yourself and recognize how awesome you are regardless of your weight or body fat percentage. It’s easier to be healthy and fit when you love yourself because you’re not punishing yourself for being soft and weak; instead, you’re maintaining and iterating on improving a finely tuned machine. You’re doing things that make it run better, more efficiently and for longer. You’re taking steps to improve important factors like cardiovascular fitness, bone density, mental sharpness and overall maintenance so that you can keep it going even as it gets older and some of the parts start wearing down, maybe even needing to be replaced.

Maybe this comes with a reduction in visible adipose tissue; maybe it doesn’t. But that’s fine because the point is ultimately to treat yourself like you matter, like you deserve to be in the kind of body you’d like to see yourself in. And if it isn’t exactly like you’d like it to be – after all, genetics is gonna dictate a lot of factors, no matter what you do – well, that just adds character and nuance to it. And if a slightly different body style disguises the monster engine under the hood… well, that’s going to be a hell of a fun surprise for anyone who wants to come for a ride.  

Nobody restores machines because they hate them. They do it because they love them and see the beauty and the value in them and want other people to be able to see it too.

If you want other people to see the beauty and value in you and want to take you out for a spin? Then you have to see it in yourself first, and treat yourself accordingly.

Good luck.