Dating Dave

Dating as a parent asks you to hold two truths at once. You are an adult entitled to companionship, desire and a life that extends beyond parenting, and your choices can alter the emotional world of a child who did not choose the relationship. Problems begin when one truth is used to erase the [...]

“I’m only looking out for you” can describe a loving act or introduce a demand that gradually makes your life smaller. A partner may offer to collect you after a late event because he cares about your safety, or insist that you must leave because he dislikes who is there. He may express [...]

Burnout can make dating feel like a test based on a version of you who no longer turns up on demand. Perhaps you once loved spontaneous dinners, answered messages quickly and had energy to meet new people after work. Now choosing a venue feels like administration, a lively bar is overwhelming and [...]

A couple can love each other deeply and still have terrible arguments. Affection does not automatically teach two people how to handle disappointment, divided loyalties, money, sex, chores or the moment one person hears criticism where the other intended a request. Many daters treat conflict as [...]

Dating someone difficult can turn an otherwise capable person into a full-time relationship manager. You begin explaining simple requests in five different ways, predicting moods before making plans and searching for the perfect sentence that will finally produce a reasonable response. Because you [...]

Love is one of the easiest words to say and one of the hardest things to evaluate clearly when you are emotionally invested. A person can be intensely attracted to you, miss you when you are gone, enjoy the comfort you provide and still be unprepared to love you well. Equally, someone may not [...]

Dating advice is full of rules because rules promise relief from uncertainty. Wait a certain number of hours before replying. Never accept a date arranged at the last minute. Do not discuss commitment too soon. Make the other person pursue you. Avoid appearing too interested. Some of these [...]

Few moments in dating create as much instant anxiety as feeling someone pull away. A person who was warm and responsive becomes slower, less specific or harder to read. Plans that once seemed easy begin to require more effort. Nothing may have been said directly, yet the emotional temperature has [...]

Living together before marriage is often described as either a sensible compatibility test or the beginning of moral collapse, depending on which corner of the internet is speaking. Real couples usually arrive at the decision for less theatrical reasons. They want more time together, rent is [...]

Long-distance relationships often begin with unusual intensity. Every visit feels precious, every message matters and ordinary time together becomes a holiday. Months or years later, the calls can become reports about work, sleep and what was eaten for dinner. One recent advice video described a [...]

One of the most revealing questions in a recent relationship-advice video came from someone who loved her partner but could not imagine a shared future because their family backgrounds, spending habits and ideas about money were so different. This problem rarely produces dramatic first-date [...]

A recent dating video declared that dating someone you find unattractive is “not okay,” and the argument quickly split viewers into predictable camps. One side insisted that appearance is everything; the other claimed that caring about looks is shallow. Both positions avoid adult reality. [...]

Recent dating videos are full of men announcing that “even nice guys are done,” usually accompanied by a story in which kindness appears to have produced rejection instead of romance. The frustration can be genuine, but the phrase contains a useful confusion. Kindness is freely chosen behaviour [...]

Videos announcing that men are choosing robot girlfriends, women are choosing artificial boyfriends and human dating is about to collapse have become excellent business for people who sell outrage. The technology is real: conversational companions can remember details, adopt a chosen personality, [...]

Being single after thirty has become one of the internet’s favourite diagnoses. Videos promise to explain why it happened, relatives ask whether you have “met anyone yet,” and dating profiles sometimes read like applications from people trying to recover lost time. The pressure can make an [...]