Hi, younger generation. I hear you’re in need of unsolicited advice about dating. Don’t worry about the title - none of this will be X-rated, I just like puns. Anyway, having been single in the era of match.com, I feel eminently qualified to dole out dating tips.
First up. The “list” doesn’t work. You know the list I mean. There’s the wants (for me, dark and handsome), the musts (brainy/kind enough to follow my rants on science and politics without looking confused), and the deal breakers (no drugs, no religion - okay, I might be a little rigid). The older you get, the more solidified your identity becomes and the more detailed the list gets.
The problem? It’s a shopping list … for people. Ever tried to tick off a potential partner against your list? Or noticed a potential match was mentally checking through theirs? Sexy as, right?
Dating apps used to work like this: you fed in your wants, then the computer “scientifically” matched you. I got plenty of matches, but no sparks. Turns out having a wish-list is great for meeting a) liars, and b) people who become friends but not lovers.
This might sound twee but cutting loose on the “science” and following your passions is a better bet. Passions: the stuff that makes you happy, and maybe a little hot. Forget about meeting The One, just focus on ping pong. Or salsa. Or crested grebes.
Speaking of salsa, that’s how I finally met the guy who took me off the market. (The market… the terminology in my day really was ick. I hope it’s better for you now). I’d given up on men (we really did talk like that in the 90s), decided to pause the hunt (because what could be worse than being single) and it was then that my friend Monique called me out on my assertion that Kiwi guys couldn’t dance and made me come to salsa classes at Auckland University.
Mark noticed me and immediately fell to his knees. It was actually to mock me for being short, but I reciprocated by expertly not noticing him. Much later, I finally noticed a guy toe-tapping on the edge of the dance floor. I asked him to dance and from then on, we never let go. Well, maybe we do let go these days when we notice Miss 11 rolling her eyes and making puke noises. (The younger generation is so intolerant.)
The thing is, there is no “The One”. There’s only two people trying to make it together, sometimes flying, followed by pratfalls. I wish I’d known this through my many tragic break-ups. I remember receiving and/or delivering the ‘let’s be friends’ talk, then collapsing and creating an actual damp spot in my lounge. It usually took me many brain-contorting months to talk myself around to the idea that even if old me had loved the old him, new me knew that new him just wasn’t right any more.
It took me ages to understand that even if relationships are perfect (they can be), people change.
I mean, bodies change, right? I would never have realised before it happened -- that pregnancy would make my size B boobs swell to Es and that a delayed reaction to my slowed metabolism would make my waist less, er, waisty. You’ve recently gone through puberty; you probably get it. And the rest of you changes, too: your identity, your values.
It’s tricky to change in sync with another person. It helps not to hold on to yourself too hard, but still know who you are. I’m not sure if what I’ve written makes any sense. But gradually finding the idea of yourself helps. Sometimes your partner helps you with that, sometimes they get in the way, often simultaneously. But they’re also changing, so they need help and acceptance, too. Maybe that’s what love is, in the end.
Renee Liang is a paediatrician with special interest in community and youth health, she is also Asian Theme Lead on landmark longitudinal research study Growing Up In NZ. As senior NZ artist, Renee explores the migrant experience; she wrote, produced and nationally toured eight plays; made operas, musicals and community arts programmes; her poems, essays and short stories are studied from primary to tertiary level. She was honoured to be made MNZM in 2018 for Services to the Arts.
