Dating sober

It's not you I just couldn't fall in love with you

I've gone on five dates recently. Sounds like a lot, but I've just decided to start putting myself back out there. I’m pretty happy in my own company, so it's not like I have a panicked neediness when it comes to dating. It's just that I think I'd quite like to share my life. Although, unfortunately, currently, dating seems and feels like a lot of diary management. If anyone's tried to organise brunch with a group of mates over 30, you know what I'm getting at.

I feel like the dating world has changed, and this isn’t just because I now raw dog dates sober. I was chatting to a man in his 50s (not on the apps or in any romantic way). He just brought up the apps and said he saw his profile as a "marketing exercise." And I thought, oh god, Christ is alive. How depressing. Dating and love have become almost like another commodity, despite being in a world where authenticity is currently on brand. We want honesty, yet we all watch these curated TV shows, dedicated to the pretence of finding love. From The Undateables, First Dates, Married at First Sight, Love on the Spectrum, to even Love Island.

The thing is,, as we seem to be in a world where we meet people online, via dating apps, social media, hobby apps, gaming, and so on. No one is honestly presenting themselves that authentically. We don’t go through life at our best angles, making witty asides, or posing with dogs 24/7. Millennials have cottoned on to the fact that the apps are designed to keep you on there. Heterosexual men will grumble that the ratio is off. Your profile is kinda designed to fail. It is a business strategy. So much choice. They want you to subscribe and pay. Yet here we all are reinstalling Hinge or Bumble, hoping to get a match. By extension, the first date is kind of potluck on whether there’s a genuine spark there.

When you meet for a drink on that first date and don’t order alcohol, there’s an instant question of why from them. Wheres the social lubricent? It does reveal more about me, going against the social expectation. Rather than lying, I usually say, “I quit drinking because I was too good at it.” A witty throwaway line, yet instantly, I have exposed myself. I’m an alcoholic. That’s one of my flaws. If they push further and I feel comfortable I explain that my friend and comedy director passed away partly due to complications from drinking and I quit after the funeral, (the last time I blacked out.) It’s taken a lot of work for me to get to the place of acceptance, and I know if they find it off-putting, it’s probably not a fit.

I prefer second dates; I feel like I know a bit more then. The awkwardness is less, and the mask starts to slip both ways. It also gives me a chance to evaluate them a bit more. I think cos I have a little comedy profile online, or even if they found my Substack, there's a lot of me out there to be perceived, so even without the drinking, I sometimes feel on the back foot.

I'm sure they also worry I'm about to rip them on stage or something. Well, they tell me that. ‘Am I going to end up in a bit?” And to be honest no, mate. I don't mean to be an arse about it, but most of my dates aren't that interesting. You’re not that funny. There’s been no meetcute. Online dating is, um, a minefield of fuckery, to put it politely. I've been on tedious dates, sexy dates, fun dates, awful dates, but mostly dull; I'm sure they felt the same; we didn't connect. The dull stories don't make the comedy routine or the Substack.

Of course I’ll sometimes talk about dating but thats cos people crave personal, relatable material. Hence, dating is one of those topics, and saying that, I did have the shoe on the other foot recently, when I went on a date with a screenwriter for Days of Our Lives. I found myself getting a little bit nervous that he was mining me for material.

At the end of the day all of us out there dating, are equally embarrassed to say we’re looking for love and connection. That level of vulnerability and honesty can be embarrassing. I just finished the latest series of Hacks. I love that show; it's an authentic tribute to the comedy world and the women in it. Deborah Vance only started connecting again with a newer audience when her writer, Ava, made her dig in. Tell the truth, trust you'll make it funny later. So heartbreak, rejection and bad dates and how you respond to all that. Dig in, find the honesty, share away.

I love reading or hearing about a dating horror story as much as the next person. Most of us have experienced more bad dates than good dates. How do I know that? Well, no one would be dating if they were all great. I think people want to hear how hard it is out there, for some people to feel they're not alone, or for some people to feel smug, but I do sense a concern (even if it's coming from a nice place) when I say I'm single on stage. Which is something men and women of other ages don't experience as much. As the fertility time bomb awaits, I feel like I'm in a real sticky zone to navigate onstage and when dating. I feel like I have to have a joke about my childlessness or potential childlessness when, at the moment, I don't have much to say about it. Like, I haven't had a kid, but I've gigged in, I believe, 32 countries. I couldn't have done both. it’s easier for men in the creative world. I think that if I'd settled down with an ex from seven years ago, my worldview would be smaller because I wouldn't have had the opportunity to experience so many things.

I recently had a friend who, when they were broken up with, he said the shitty line, "I'm sorry for wasting these important years for you." He had kids already, so it really was a dick move saying that. She was rightfully offended. It's putting a woman in a box where her fertility is the most important and valuable thing about her, without even asking the question, "Hey, do you want kids?" Say sorry for dicking her about and being emotionally selfish. Don’t say sorry about her fertility. For many of us millennials, we're not having kids for numerous reasons. It’s not a rude question to ask whether you want them. It’s rude to presume that’s the most important thing to their being. Maybe we can't have kids? Maybe we are trans women. Maybe we are asexual. Perhaps we think it's unethical in the context of climate change. But say my mate did want to have kids. Then, I guess that's a conversation you need to have early on when dating, not at the end of a relationship!!

If you imagine kids in your life, it’s something that should come up during the dating stage. Ask me. Then get to the important stuff after, like how would you support me? I'm not talking just financially; I'm talking about sleep. Quite often over my 0% beer, as I watch my dates drink, I imagine our fights in the future if we did have a baby. Would it be me standing there tired, whilst they couldn't see that they hadn't been pulling their weight? I've been watching a lot of my hetro friends and colleagues go through it. Their partners, the majority of the time, don't pull their weight. The woman is always sacrificing. I remember my sister once telling me two years into her first kid that she was "so tired every cell in her body hurt." I dunno; becoming a stepmom to a 4-year-old becomes a lot more appealing when it's phrased like that.

People usually tell you who they are. I think just quite often we chose to ignore it. I don't want someone to change me, and I don't want to change someone else. If you're not compatible, move on. No-ones the bad person. Just certain wants in life are different. Better to find out early before you marry the person or buy a house.

I just finished a drama on the BBC called The Last Anniversary. The lead protagonist was a woman in her late 30s seeking love who inherited a house on an island in Australia. There's a scene where the local player, the man-child of the island, said the problem with dating women of a certain age is that they're all after his seed. Our protagonist did not want his seed. She wanted to fuck but not get pregnant from him. I enjoyed the scene because it was true. Just because my fertility years will probably end in a decade, it doesn't mean that any sexual appetite I have is just for reproducing. It's reductive.

From my recent dating and relationship experience, men in their 30s panic about the baby thing with me. This time last year, a guy asked me if I'd had my fertility tested. I felt like a horse he was potentially thinking of buying. Younger men are happy just to date, and unfortunately (or fortunately), my algorithm recently has moved on from autistic men who like warhammer to broken men in their 40s with guitars. Please don’t send me a video of you playing guitar. I don’t send sexy videos of my trombone practice…

The dating landscape has changed. I've been discussing it a lot with my single friends recently. How much energy do you put into meeting someone randomly on the apps? Which age group is the best to date? One of my mates said to date older or younger. Not my age, because straight men my age, were quite often damaged by porn but not in the way that they knew the dangers of it. Looking through my bad sexual experiences, I feel she may be right; it was the majority of men my age who sometimes went in for the non-consensual spank or throat grab in the bedroom. Younger men ask. Older men, Christ, I think they're just a bit lost and happy to be there. They remember only being able to see boobs in a magazine. Now I am sober, sex is better, way better. I have less of it though. People become unattractive when they're sloppily drunk. I guess the more casual hook-ups are long gone but so are the regrets.

I’ve watched two shows last coupke of weeks with alcoholic female characters. Sirens and The Better Sister. I like how they portray alcoholism. “I liked the feeling of whiskey in my stomach.” It’s a gene inherited but also a trauma response. The sobriety journey is a long one. I know the relapse and the crisis points make the drama but just sometimes I would also like to see more shows showing female alcoholics who have got out the other side. Not just childless and lost or irresponsible mothers. A female alcoholic never gets to land the fuckin plane. I’m just saying. We’re stronger than you know.

For me, I always imagined myself with kids, as I'm great with kids, I like playing, I like chldish wonder. It's not that I selfishly don't want them. I just went to a convent school in Croydon with very positive academic results as well as pregnancy tests. I spent forever desperately trying not to get pregnant. I wanted to be ready (you’re never prepared), but I never wanted to do it with the wrong person but now I feel judged for not having them. I have thought about freezing my eggs this year. I'm not sure the millennial dream that you can have it all is true, though. I love the show Survival of the Thickest. It's been left with Michelle Buteau's character turning down every love interest but thinking about having a child alone. I like this storyline. I just can't see myself financially being able to do that. You'd have to be able to afford childcare and your own place.

I've discussed dating and intentions with multiple male friends my age. I remember one conversation where I cut a guy short and said, "Bro, you're gonna have to date a younger woman. You keep going on dates with women in their 30s who want the house and the kids, and you're not there yet. So either get on that wavelength/date out of your familiar social circles of women who might have alternative outlooks on life/ or realistically date younger." Maybe I was a bit blunt, but I was right; he now dates a lovely, intelligent, talented younger lady.

My thirties have been a weird decade. It definitely started with me having a panic about kids with an ex-partner. We broke up, and then the pandemic hit. Got through that, toured the world whilst quitting drinking on a tour bus and then there's all the gorgeous solo travel I’ve done and the fact I’ve embarked on a screenwriting career. I’ve learnt so much about myself this decade. Many of my millennial friends don't have children. Adulting, the term coined for us or by us (not sure), has become less about house and kids and more about surviving in this economy and probably working on ourselves and not passing down generational trauma, whilst probably diagnosing our parents with various attachment and personality disorders. That takes up a lot of brain space. My parents used to be able to say, "Dad's a drunk." Instead, I have to say, "emotionally repressed, which has led to self-medicating and an avoidant attachment style." It’s a lot of effort.

I'm gonna keep trying to date. I think you have to get a bit of a thick skin about it, oh and some boundaries. We all get rejected, but if someone sends me an essay about how this is a vibe when I've said there isn't one or offloads all their insecurities, and we only went for one drink. I don't have to respond. I wish I’d learnt these boundaries in my 20s.

Popular meme. Not my messages

And likewise, the other way around. We all get rejected. I think my favourite line was “it’s not you, I just couldn’t fall in love with you.” So that meant it was me.

I had a really nice date the other night, though. Although when he leant in for a kiss at the end, I patted him on the back, so I kinda misread that. But hey, that's sober dating for you. I thrive on awkwardness. I’m just going to have a breezy approach to it all. I envision my future involving a kayak on a river in Vietnam. It looks wonderful, single or in a canoe with a partner and a kid.