Dating with Depression — Don’t Fall into This Trap After A Rejection
The problem with depression is that it affects your self-esteem the most. You indulge in self-loathing and fall into the trap of despair. You always remain conscious of failure, even at the simplest of tasks, and at times go on to the extent of delaying them because you do not believe in yourself.
Dating with depression can be a daunting process. Many times people would find it difficult to even go out on dates in the first place. If they manage to clear the initial hurdles, being in a relationship would present many difficulties and challenges.
Online dating apps like Tinder have changed the dating game forever. They allow you to connect with strangers whom you might not have ever encountered in your life. There are many possibilities for meeting interesting people and having some great experiences.
A couple of years ago, I had one such experience. I met a Swiss girl who had just arrived in my city, Mumbai. She wasn’t interactive in our conversations and took hours to reply. We exchanged information and decided to meet on the day after. Judging by our interactions, I wasn’t sure if she would show up or not, but I decided to go on with it.
I was quite nervous about the date. Firstly due to my limited dating experience. Secondly, the jitters of spending time with someone from a different culture. I kept thinking about how do I deal with this? How do I make her laugh? What should I talk about? Will she understand my accent?
After meeting her at the designated place, we started walking towards Marine Drive. It’s a popular tourist place in South Mumbai which has a beautiful view of the Arabian Sea. The best place to spend an evening in South Mumbai. People visit this place for a stroll by the seaside and relax in the atmosphere.
She had come to Mumbai for a project for her organization. She had interesting things to say about her life, such as a journey from Nepal to Delhi on a Bus that took over 20 hours.
She was surprised to see a red-colored double-decker public transport bus, which reminded her of buses in London. She even talked about the similarities in the architecture and design of buildings in South Mumbai and in London.
We had dinner and walked towards her hostel — located near Gateway of India — another famous tourist place in South Mumbai. We were sitting by a promenade and discussing movies and shows. It was almost 9 pm now.
I knew that it was time to go, but I wanted the moment to last longer.
Finally, we walked towards her hostel and said goodbye to each other.
I sent her a few messages later, but to my dismay, there wasn’t any reply even after reading.
The next day she said that she didn’t want to upset me, so she wasn’t replying. She added that she did not want to date me, to which I replied that it was alright.
I didn’t see this coming. I felt that everything was going fine, but then this happened.
I made the mistake of taking this rejection by heart, thinking that it was my fault, and I am not good enough because I have been suffering from depression for quite a while and had self-esteem issues.
As I have mentioned earlier, when you are depressed, you indulge in self-loathing and blame yourself for everything that goes wrong. It’s a trap as it alters your perception of yourself, making you believe that you are not worthy or adequate.
It wasn’t the first time someone had rejected me. The reason why I took it so seriously was that that phase was the peak of my depression. I was struggling with my life and was in despair.
From then on, whenever I went on a date, I always remained anxious about being entertaining and confident to prevent another rejection.
In this process, a seemingly enjoyable thing — such as dating, became a stressful task for me.
During this process, I had lost on quite a few potential dates as I had already anticipated a rejection in my mind. Hence, I didn’t put any effort into it.
Dating with depression is a difficult task because there is always a possibility of falling into the trap of guilt and self-loathing after a rejection. It may be a direct announcement or an indirect one like Ghosting.
It’s always a good idea to seek therapy and improve your life before trying to enter the world of dating and relationships.
Unless you are confident and feel good about yourself, you would find the process of dating detrimental to your mental health. This is because rejections are bound to happen in the world of dating.
The reasons for rejection may be countless — they may not like your appearance, they may not like your personality, or something that you said rubbed them off, etc. But one thing is one common among them all — they didn’t find you attractive.
I don’t blame her for the rejection. You are never entitled to be with someone. It’s a mutual decision taken by the consent of both parties.
We shouldn’t take rejection as a measure of inadequacy on our part.
It’s an issue of attraction and compatibility.
There is always someone who would like us for what we are. Sometimes they do not fit into our parameters of attractiveness and compatibility. It’s up to us to try and change ourselves for someone else or be proud of what we are and accept someone who loves us for what we are.
