Make plans, god laughs
or whatever higher power you choose to believe in.
I’ve spent way too much time disassociating on TikTok after another strenuous day of trying to write for a Google algorithm before getting bored out of my brain and getting short-burst dopamine hits from 30-second videos.
Tarot card girlies telling me the love of my life is around the corner, finding new music, sometimes crying over a video of the world’s cutest kid named Koazy (IYKYK), and woo-woo meditation or manifestation videos, I get sucked into it all.
One common theme of my TikTok algorithm is (of course) dating, relationships and single woes. When people put up videos like, “tell me how you met your person”, many others shared stories of giving up and giving in “to the universe” and then boom, they met their husband or wife or beloved holiday fling when they decided to focus on themselves and Eat, Pray, Love or whatever it may be. The old “it’ll happen when you least expect it” is maybe one of the most annoying phrases single people have to deal with.
That's why the rest of this newsletter is very ironic. And yes, I am also rolling my eyes, don’t worry.
One last date
In the first few days of 2025 I was telling one of my good friends (and one of the long-suffering ones who always listens to me dissecting failed situationships) about my upcoming travel plans which involved just saying ‘fuck it’ and taking at least three months off full-time work to just… well, remember what it’s like to live life.
Most of that plan revolved around some Asia travel, doing a lot of writing again for the love of it vs the whole trying to make a living, and packing up my things and putting everything into storage so I didn’t have to be tied to a return date home, or a lease, or maybe not even Sydney.
“Watch me after 8 years of being single, meet someone just before I go, who is Sydney-born and bred,” I said to my friend.
The plan was in place. The one-month return to the apps I had over the Christmas break was over. And just before I stopped using Bumble in mid-late January, I gave my Instagram to a lovely man who I had been briefly chatting to because I was about to delete the app and I didn’t want to ghost him because that seemed mean.
One last coffee date wasn’t going to do any harm. I’m sure you can see where this is going.
Coming face to face with your own avoidance
Surprise bitches, I have a boyfriend.
It’s been an interesting journey. I haven’t dated anyone for a long, long time who was so upfront and clear about their intentions. I was so used to the fuckboy behaviour, the situationship-style of dating, the dating with no real intention, that having someone consistently and actively pursue me, express interest in me, listen to what I said, and continue to be curious about me threw me for a loop.
I’m usually the one giving dating advice, or telling friends that things shouldn’t be the hard and fast butterflies, but a slower, sustained burn of a period of time. Of course, when you’re in the situation where it’s happening to you, no matter how much work you’ve done on yourself, your attachment style will rear its ugly head in some shape or form, even if it’s a more subdued style.
My nervous system wasn’t thrown into fight or flight for the first time in years. I wasn’t left wondering his intentions, whether I’d hear from him, whether he liked me, because standing in front of me was a perfectly secure man saying what he meant, how he felt, and somehow dealing with some confusing avoidant curveballs I threw his way with patience and understanding.
And, look it’s true, sometimes if you give it enough time you nearly turn into the thing you hate. “I freak out about labels,” I said to this beautiful, patient man at some stage a couple of months in, as he politely listened to me talk in circles like I was a 34-year-old fuckboy.
Thankfully the work kicked in (therapy works, who would’ve thought) and basically I stopped being an avoidant little bitch. There’s more to this grappling of avoidance that I’ll write about soon.
But for now, I can’t help but laugh that all it took was me very seriously packing up my life, getting ready to embark on a very single, very solo travel adventure and the world decided to deliver me a man who quite literally ticks every single box of some woo-woo values manifestation list I wrote back in 2023.
It’s early days, but shout out to 2025’s biggest plot twist.
I know I’ve been a bit absent, but behind that absence was a whole new MAFS season, making ends meet with freelance work, an unpaid but very fun podcast venture, a half-assed pilates instructor course, an apartment that needs to be packed up, a new relationship, and many unfinished newsletter drafts that are just waiting to be fixed and published.
So keep an eye out, the content is there, it’s just been unloved.
In other news, I’m going away soon and planning to spend some time writing and collecting over four years of dating thoughts, data, rogue chapters, etc. into some sort of publishable format – whether that’s just writing and releasing chapters here on Substack or whether it’s looking to turn it all into some sort of book.
If you’ve ever enjoyed my writing or newsletter, I have started a Buy Me A Coffee page, just in case you felt like buying me said coffee to kick my ass into gear.