I seem to be on a bit of a streak here, writing about online dating. What can I say - I write about what I know and what I feel, and right now, online dating takes up a lot of my emotional space.
On the surface, it would seem that online dating should be easier than the traditional method of going out, meeting new people, exchanging numbers, and waiting for the other person to call. With online dating, the site (sometimes) does the work of finding people for you. You put in some information about yourself and what you're looking for in a mate, and they send you the people who meet those criteria (again, sometimes). It removes the "sitting at the bar waiting for someone to approach you" element. It allows you to shop the pool of eligible singles without even having to hear them wax poetic about their favorite sports team or how awesome they are at their job. On some sites, you can even put in a few search criteria and browse hundreds of profiles at your leisure. It's easier than traditional dating in that you don't even have to interact with the person to determine if you're interested. You just have to look at their pictures and interests. Sounds better than approaching someone at the bar and wasting time chit-chatting, trying to figure out if you have something in common, right?
I have found this feature of online dating to be wonderful. I'm not great with striking up conversation with a complete stranger and the bar scene makes me queasy. A website that does that part of the process for me? Yes please. I can click through profiles that are sent my way, and if I decide that I'm not interested, I can just click to the next match and not have to worry about making a graceful exit! The other person doesn't even have to know that I'm not interested! That aspect really appeals to me because I don't like letting people down or crushing their hopes. Online dating lets you shop without the social commitment, however brief, that traditional dating requires.
The next step is where I feel like I get on an emotional roller coaster. I've been very intentional about sending emails and notes to the guys whose profiles interest me. I've read enough magazines and Buzzfeed features to know that a lot of guys appreciate the girl making the first move. If I had to wait for the guy to email me first...let's just say that the only guy to email me was a libertarian from Illinois who was looking for a housewife who would stay at home with the 8+ children he wanted to have.
Plus, if I am putting myself out there, I can prove to myself that I am making an effort, that I want to get something out of this process, that I'm serious...that I'm making some sort of progress in this area of my life, even when it feels like I'm standing still.
Emailing a new match is a small rush each time. I spend several minutes crafting the perfect casual greeting that will make him want to reply (or at least I used to...by now, I've got a pretty standard cut-and-paste version) and then when I hit Send, it's out of my hands. I get my hopes up just a little bit every time I email someone new. When will he reply? Will he reply at all? How much will it suck if he doesn't reply? Because there are some guys that I email because we have a few things in common, and I figure why not, and then there are others that I find a lot in common with and I really want to hear back from them. And deep in my heart, where thoughts of the future live...what if this is the person I'm meant to marry? I want to remember every detail of how we met.
A few days go by, no response from the email I've sent into the void, but my hopes are still up. Maybe he's busy this week. Maybe he got my email, but was in a place where he couldn't respond yet. Maybe he checks this account only once a week. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
A week goes by with no reply. No news is bad news. Now I have to make a choice - I could keep hoping that he'll respond, or I could let this one go, figuring he's not interested in me. It's not a conscious choice, exactly, more like a reluctant realization. It doesn't feel good to hear that someone isn't interested in you, but that's inevitable, especially in a forum like online dating, where there are so many potential connections to be made or broken.
I work through this process just about every day, over and over. I look forward to clicking through new matches every day, especially when there aren't any new messages in my inbox. Each day brings a new set of possibilities. New guys to make contact with. New guys who might want to talk to me. Maybe even The One. As much as I get annoyed by talk of soulmates, happily ever after, and The One, I can't help getting my hopes up just a little bit.
At the same time, each day brings risk. I risk being rejected. It might be easier to be rejected over the Internet, since I don't have to be embarrassed in front of other people, but it's also harder, because it's happening so much more often. It certainly doesn't hurt any less, at least for me. I've never been able to shake it off and move on as if I'm unaffected by it. I'm affected by everything, and sometimes quite deeply. Emotional depth is simultaneously a strength and a weakness.
Rejection just seems to be an inherent risk in online dating. I had no idea how hard it could be until I got into the thick of it. You put yourself out there, day after day, with no guarantee that someone will choose you. In the face of that scary truth, I still hold out hope that this process will yield a "success story." I don't want to stop putting myself on the line because I don't want to look back and wonder if there was something I missed, or something more I could have done. If I reach the end of my subscription with nothing to show for it, I will survive. It will be so so hard, but I've done hard before.
In the meantime, by the grace of God, we carry on. It will be worth it someday, right? :)
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Sunday, March 1, 2015
One in Four: Anatomy of an Anxiety Attack
I attend church just about every Sunday. I've gone to the same church since I was 13. I know almost every person there by name, and I'm pretty sure that most people know me. If not by name, then they at least recognize me from week to week. I teach Sunday school at that church, I've spoken in front of that church, I've played guitar and sang in front of that church, and I can get almost any kid in that church to give me a high five. I love that church.
I get anxiety in that church.
Usually it's pretty manageable. I have this homemade stress ball (a balloon filled with flour) that I can play with when I'm feeling fidgety or easily distracted. It helps me focus. My parents usually let me sit on the end of the aisle instead of in the middle, and that helps too. I don't feel so closed in that way.
In the past, I've had times where I had to leave the sanctuary and listen to the sermon from the narthex, where I'm not surrounded by people. I had to do that today because focusing on my stress balloon wasn't cutting it. I was sitting in my seat, Pastor Phil had just started his sermon, and I felt like I couldn't breathe properly. I tried to take deep breaths, but I couldn't make my lungs work. My hands were trembling, even with the balloon to hold. I felt like there was a small child sitting on my chest. My stomach was twisting. I felt warmer than usual. Then I felt colder than usual. Then I went back to feeling too warm.
This my friends, is a minor anxiety attack.
I stayed in church as long as I could, trying to ride it out, thinking that I could just sit tight and wait for it to end. It didn't, and I had to leave. There are these super comfortable chairs in the narthex and I went to sit on one of those. It took at least twenty minutes for me to feel normal and calm again. At one point, one of my students came down from the balcony and passed by me. She asked in a joking sort of way, "Hey Andrea, whatcha doin'?" I replied in a similarly joking sort of way, "Oh ya know, just hanging out!" I do that a lot - I reach for a flip one-liner before my mouth says the truth.
I've had this happen before. Most notably was during my semester in Spain. Our whole group was in Granada for the weekend, and they took us to a traditional flamenco dance hall. When I say 'traditional.' I mean that it built into a rock face. No windows, one door, and small rooms. Part way through the dance performance, I started panicking. There were lots of people packed into the room, it was getting warm, the stomping and castanets were echoing everywhere, and I just couldn't handle it anymore. I had to get out of there before I made a scene.
This anxiety disorder of mine rears its ugly head like this from time to time. It's not nearly as prevalent in my life as my depression is. I don't experience it every day or think about it every day the way I do with depression. Depression and anxiety often go hand-in-hand and they feed each other. I am fortunate enough that mine seems to be pretty mild and occasional. Some people, though, feel like I did every single day. They live in continual fear of having a panic attack and falling apart in front of other people.
Anxiety disorders are more common than you might think. Recent surveys show that about 1 in 4 people experience clinical anxiety at some point in their lives. That number is higher in college students and in people with co-occurring physical or mental health conditions. That's a lot of people, wouldn't you say?
Probably the most frustrating thing to me about anxiety is that, like depression, it doesn't make sense. I love my church, I love the people who go there, I would be comfortable talking to anyone there. I even feel comfortable getting up in front of church to play music or speak for 15 minutes about a mission trip I took recently. That doesn't faze me in the slightest, though you would think it would, if I have a tendency to feel anxious. But just sitting in church and listening to a sermon makes me feel like I can't breathe and like I need to escape to an empty area? What's up with that?
I don't have a logical answer. There's a biological answer, though - people with anxiety disorders have an overactive nervous system. Your body perceives a threat, and the system activates the processes that cause you to focus and get ready to respond to the threat. Most of the time, though, the threat is minimal (the full fight-or-flight reaction is not necessary to respond to the threat) or there's not a threat at all. But your body thinks there's something to be threatened by, and it all goes from there.
It's this illogic that makes it hard for other people to understand anxiety, I think. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't understand it if I hadn't experienced it before, even with my education and training as a counselor. People can say, "You're fine, there's nothing to be afraid of here, you know everyone here, the door is right there, why are you panicking?" But it doesn't work that way. I could have said all of those things to myself this morning in church, but it doesn't make me panic less. It's just something that I have to sit in and endure.
Chances are good that, if there are more than 3 people in your life, you know someone with anxiety. It could range anywhere from mild to severe. OCD, PTSD, and agoraphobia are all anxiety disorders. Please don't discount or minimize their experience. It's very real for them, and that's what matters. I'm lucky to have people in my life that understand me and let me be who I am, but that's not true for everyone. Please don't tell someone with anxiety to calm down, or to think positively, or to try doing something to distract themselves. They've probably already tried these things and they probably just need someone to sit with them and ride the anxiety with them. Speaking from experience, that simple presence is more helpful than hearing advice or subtle reminders that there's something wrong with me.
I embrace my church and I embrace my anxiety. Both are part of my life and taking either of them away would leave me somehow incomplete.
I get anxiety in that church.
Usually it's pretty manageable. I have this homemade stress ball (a balloon filled with flour) that I can play with when I'm feeling fidgety or easily distracted. It helps me focus. My parents usually let me sit on the end of the aisle instead of in the middle, and that helps too. I don't feel so closed in that way.
In the past, I've had times where I had to leave the sanctuary and listen to the sermon from the narthex, where I'm not surrounded by people. I had to do that today because focusing on my stress balloon wasn't cutting it. I was sitting in my seat, Pastor Phil had just started his sermon, and I felt like I couldn't breathe properly. I tried to take deep breaths, but I couldn't make my lungs work. My hands were trembling, even with the balloon to hold. I felt like there was a small child sitting on my chest. My stomach was twisting. I felt warmer than usual. Then I felt colder than usual. Then I went back to feeling too warm.
This my friends, is a minor anxiety attack.
I stayed in church as long as I could, trying to ride it out, thinking that I could just sit tight and wait for it to end. It didn't, and I had to leave. There are these super comfortable chairs in the narthex and I went to sit on one of those. It took at least twenty minutes for me to feel normal and calm again. At one point, one of my students came down from the balcony and passed by me. She asked in a joking sort of way, "Hey Andrea, whatcha doin'?" I replied in a similarly joking sort of way, "Oh ya know, just hanging out!" I do that a lot - I reach for a flip one-liner before my mouth says the truth.
I've had this happen before. Most notably was during my semester in Spain. Our whole group was in Granada for the weekend, and they took us to a traditional flamenco dance hall. When I say 'traditional.' I mean that it built into a rock face. No windows, one door, and small rooms. Part way through the dance performance, I started panicking. There were lots of people packed into the room, it was getting warm, the stomping and castanets were echoing everywhere, and I just couldn't handle it anymore. I had to get out of there before I made a scene.
This anxiety disorder of mine rears its ugly head like this from time to time. It's not nearly as prevalent in my life as my depression is. I don't experience it every day or think about it every day the way I do with depression. Depression and anxiety often go hand-in-hand and they feed each other. I am fortunate enough that mine seems to be pretty mild and occasional. Some people, though, feel like I did every single day. They live in continual fear of having a panic attack and falling apart in front of other people.
Anxiety disorders are more common than you might think. Recent surveys show that about 1 in 4 people experience clinical anxiety at some point in their lives. That number is higher in college students and in people with co-occurring physical or mental health conditions. That's a lot of people, wouldn't you say?
Probably the most frustrating thing to me about anxiety is that, like depression, it doesn't make sense. I love my church, I love the people who go there, I would be comfortable talking to anyone there. I even feel comfortable getting up in front of church to play music or speak for 15 minutes about a mission trip I took recently. That doesn't faze me in the slightest, though you would think it would, if I have a tendency to feel anxious. But just sitting in church and listening to a sermon makes me feel like I can't breathe and like I need to escape to an empty area? What's up with that?
I don't have a logical answer. There's a biological answer, though - people with anxiety disorders have an overactive nervous system. Your body perceives a threat, and the system activates the processes that cause you to focus and get ready to respond to the threat. Most of the time, though, the threat is minimal (the full fight-or-flight reaction is not necessary to respond to the threat) or there's not a threat at all. But your body thinks there's something to be threatened by, and it all goes from there.
It's this illogic that makes it hard for other people to understand anxiety, I think. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't understand it if I hadn't experienced it before, even with my education and training as a counselor. People can say, "You're fine, there's nothing to be afraid of here, you know everyone here, the door is right there, why are you panicking?" But it doesn't work that way. I could have said all of those things to myself this morning in church, but it doesn't make me panic less. It's just something that I have to sit in and endure.
Chances are good that, if there are more than 3 people in your life, you know someone with anxiety. It could range anywhere from mild to severe. OCD, PTSD, and agoraphobia are all anxiety disorders. Please don't discount or minimize their experience. It's very real for them, and that's what matters. I'm lucky to have people in my life that understand me and let me be who I am, but that's not true for everyone. Please don't tell someone with anxiety to calm down, or to think positively, or to try doing something to distract themselves. They've probably already tried these things and they probably just need someone to sit with them and ride the anxiety with them. Speaking from experience, that simple presence is more helpful than hearing advice or subtle reminders that there's something wrong with me.
I embrace my church and I embrace my anxiety. Both are part of my life and taking either of them away would leave me somehow incomplete.
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