After eight years without a single date, a reader wonders how to step back into the world of romance. Now living in Singapore as a writer and student, they worry about anxiety, financial struggles, and whether they can be brave enough to try again.
In a letter to advice columnist Annalisa Barbieri, the reader describes themselves as an expat temporarily settled in Singapore, still making friends and feeling nervous around unfamiliar people. They admit to being a broke writer and student, and feel embarrassed about that in a culture they see as career focused. They long for a supportive, funny life partner, and ask whether it is too much to state that wish in a dating profile. Their main question: “How can I restart dating in the most emotionally supportive way? How do I stay brave when the lightning strikes?”
Barbieri begins by questioning the premise. “I wonder why this feels like a huge deal to you: the abstaining until things are ‘just right’, saying you’ll date ‘next year’,” she writes. “We often do this if we’re not ready for something but feel we should be.” She notes that dating, like any relationship beyond childhood, works best when a person feels comfortable in themselves, so that a partner becomes an addendum to a full life rather than a substitution for one.
The columnist and UK Council for Psychotherapy accredited psychotherapist Hannah Jackson-McCamley both found the reader’s language revealing. Jackson-McCamley wondered whether the reader’s “relational experiences, dating or otherwise, might associate relationships with being tumultuous and something one has to prepare for or defend against.” Early experiences, she explained, can shape how we expect interpersonal connections to feel.
The therapist praised the reader’s desire to be generous with love, but also asked a deeper question. “I wonder if being a caring person is part of your script and perhaps redolent of the role you take in relationships,” she said. She called it “beautiful” that the reader can articulate what they want and are considering making it clear from the start, adding: “However, not everyone may be used to such clarity or be looking for a life partner.”
Barbieri reminded the reader that while they have abstained from dating, others may not have, and may approach it with less seriousness at first. That is acceptable, she says, because both people are allowed their own perspectives.
On anxiety, Jackson-McCamley described it as “a totally normal response to a perceived stress or danger,” and said it is not something the reader needs to permanently fix. She added that she would be keen to explore their experience of anxiety in relation to dating and beyond. Reassuring them, she said: “I want you to feel reassured that no one is ‘fixed’, we are all works-in-progress.”
The therapist also urged the reader to give themselves grace for making friends and facing nerves around new people. She wondered if this might be the first time they have felt different or like an outsider.
Jackson-McCamley cautioned against dismissing what the reader might bring to a relationship “beyond traditional accoutrements of status: money, job title, etc.” The reader’s own wants, she noted, are not material, and others may feel the same way.
Finally, Barbieri pointed out that the reader’s student life means they see people daily, which is an ideal setting for meeting both friends and romantic interests. She questioned whether the word “dating” implied using apps, and suggested that a softer, more real-world approach, starting with friendship and seeing where it leads, might suit the reader better.
As the experts suggest, the storm may be less about lightning and more about learning to stand steady. Giving oneself permission to be a work in progress, and choosing a gentle, real-world path, could be the bravest way back into love.
