Hey guys, welcome back to TNTH.
Yesterday while scrolling through Facebook, I stumbled upon a post that had pictures of various women chilling with their partners eating fast food at home and watching movies together with a caption that said: “NO THIS IS NOT A DATE.”
This has been a topic that comes up a lot because of the times we live in. I will say, dating nowadays isn’t the type of dating we’re used to seeing in movies and television shows, but there really isn’t no true definition of what a date should be. There isn’t a checklist of things to do in order for something to be a date. It’s whatever you and your partner are comfortable doing, and if you guys like to stay home and watch movies and eat, then that’s how you guys date. If you guys like to go out, then that’s how you date. There isn’t a right or wrong way to date, and no, I’m not some brainwashed cheap bitch who doesn’t know my own worth.
Money doesn’t buy love, it buys a good time.
But that’s not what this post is about.
In context, I’m a woman who lets the world know that going out isn’t the easiest thing for me to do. I get really panicky when I have no guidance or control, I get stressed when I have a lot on my plate, and most importantly, my social anxiety has gotten worse as the years gone by. If you were to ask me 10 years ago if staying at home with your partner eating dinner and watching movies was considered a date, I would’ve said no too. 10 years ago, I wasn’t dealing with the type of anxiety I deal with now. Now, I understand when some girls don’t go out on formal dates with their partner. I am a woman that cannot handle social gatherings that well. Even if I’m on a date with my partner, I feel exposed. I feel like people are staring at me and judging me and my partner across the room. I feel like I got to look the part, which then makes me uncomfortable in my skin. Yeah, it’s good to go out on “traditional” dates, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t consider stay-at-home dates the real thing as well. They’re “stay-at-home dates”.
I understand that dating a woman like me; a woman with social anxiety is not an easy task for anyone. It could be a burden, it could be tiring, and while you may be a socialite, your partner may be the complete opposite. Not all women that enjoy stay-at-home dates are anxiety-ridden; some women just like to stay home more often. I am talking about a specific type of women, the type of women who are deemed as insecure and weak, and those who are so problematic, they can’t see the hurt their partner is doing to them. I’m not saying that there is this epidemic where these specific type of women get taken advantaged of, hell I’ve been there, but for fuck’s sake, letting your partner know about your mental health isn’t a sign of weakness, nor is it an invitation to be stepped all over on.
But women don’t see the complete picture sometimes. Listen, I am all for the “see your worth, women” movement, but by doing so is also downgrading a specific type of woman. By saying “stay-at-home dates are for brainwashed women who think it’s cool to let their partner do that for them” is saying that they aren’t women who see how much they are worth. Listen, there are more ways to determine if a person respects your worth or not, and eating food at home with some movies playing doesn’t say anything about my worth.
What it says, though, is that my partner takes into consideration how I am in social settings and what makes me the calmest and most comfortable. It says that I personally don’t like my partner to spend a ton of money on me because of my own financial situation. It says that if anything goes wrong, I am in the comfort of my partner’s home and I don’t have to worry if I get an anxiety attack in the middle of the city.
In the last 8 years, there hasn’t been a problem with what we consider “dates”.
All in all, stop trying to speak for women by degrading women. We, as people, have different preferences on everything in life. If traditional dating every weekend is how you define your self-worth in a relationship, then that’s you. If traditional dating isn’t something you define your self-worth in a relationship, then that’s you. Not all women are the same, and I think we established that when the body positive movement began.
But I digress.
Tell women that their worth is a self-defined concept. Whatever determines their self-worth is on them, not over a superficial concept of traditional dating.
-Liz. (:
Letters From Liz. 