Okay so slow dating… yeah I’m finally doing it (and sucking at it sometimes)
Slow dating is honestly the healthiest trend in modern love and I’m only just now getting why at 31 sitting in my messy apartment in [somewhere US, probably with bad AC right now]. Like I used to be the king of the three-day-text-turnaround, “u up?” at 1:47 a.m., let’s define the relationship after the second mediocre makeout. Spoiler: it never ended well.
Last summer I matched with this girl Mara on Hinge (classic) and instead of immediately trying to lock in a Friday night bar spot I just… asked her what her favorite bookstore was. We texted about books for like eleven days before we met. Eleven. Days. I almost deleted the chat three times thinking “she’s definitely bored I’m boring her she’s talking to five hotter guys rn”. But she wasn’t. We met at this tiny indie bookstore that smelled like old paper and patchouli and we literally just sat on the floor reading the first chapters of different novels to each other for two hours. No dinner. No drinks. No “so what are we” panic. It felt… weirdly peaceful? Like my nervous system forgot it was supposed to be in fight-or-flight.
Why rushing feels like trash fire (my personal autopsy)
I’ve done the fast lane thing. A lot. And it usually ends one of three ways:
- Someone (usually me) catches feelings way too quick and then freaks out when the other person is still in casual mode
- We sleep together by date 2 and then the mystery evaporates faster than cheap tequila
- Or worst: we keep seeing each other for months but never actually know each other past surface-level “favorite vacation spot” trivia
Fast dating trains us to perform instead of connect. Slow dating on the other hand forces you to sit in the uncomfortable not-knowing. And yeah it’s anxiety-making as hell at first. My thumb literally itches to double-text when someone takes 4 hours to reply. But every time I resist, something kinda magical happens. The conversation actually gets deeper. The silences stop feeling like rejection.
Real talk: the embarrassing slow-dating fails I still think about at 3 a.m.
Okay fine here’s the cringe. Three months ago I went on date #4 with this guy named Julian who’s like aggressively into pottery. We’d been taking it super slow—walks, coffee, one museum exhibit where we argued about whether Rothko was pretentious or genius (he said genius, I said both). Date #4 I decided “okay this is safe I can be vulnerable now” and I blurted out my entire childhood trauma over iced matcha like I was on a TED Talk. Bro just blinked at me for like seven seconds then very gently said “uh… maybe we save the full origin story for date 7?”
I wanted to die. Legit considered moving to a new city. But he texted me later that night: “Hey I liked hearing the real stuff. Just wasn’t ready to hold all of it yet. Can we keep going slow?” And we did. Still are. Turns out boundaries during slow dating aren’t rejection—they’re respect.
Another time I ghosted someone for nine days because I panicked that I liked her too much too soon. Then I had to crawl back with the most awkward “hey sorry I’m an idiot working on my attachment style” message. She actually laughed and said “good. I was practicing patience too.” We’re still texting. Slowly.
Tips from someone who’s still figuring slow dating out
- Don’t schedule more than one date a week at first (yes it feels like torture)
- If your brain screams “they’re losing interest!!” — sit on your hands for 24 hours before texting
- Ask one real question per date instead of ten surface ones (“what’s something you’re lowkey ashamed of liking?” hits different than “what do you do for work”)
- Celebrate small intimacies: remembering their coffee order, sending a song without needing immediate reply, sharing a picture of the sunset without captioning it “wish u were here 😘”
- Accept that you’ll still fuck up. I still do. Weekly probably.
So yeah… slow dating is kinda saving me
I don’t have a perfect love story yet. I’m still impatient, still overthink every emoji placement, still occasionally cry in my car after a “good but not fireworks” date because my brain wants Disney instant soulmate montage. But slow dating is teaching me something better than fireworks—it’s teaching me how to build an actual fire that doesn’t burn the house down in three weeks.
If you’re tired of the apps feeling like a slot machine, maybe try slow dating. It’s not sexy at first. It’s awkward and boring and wonderful all at once.
Anyone else trying this? Tell me your disasters—I feel less alone when I know I’m not the only idiot learning how to wait.
