Are you dating-fatigued?

This bubbly Nairobi marketer for a regional wines and spirits manufacturer does not like being single.

She admits that after each of her break-ups in the past, and they’ve been many, she has always quickly moved on to another relationship. Barely a week after the end of an eight-month romance five months ago, she jumped right back into the dating field with both her feet.

“At my job, if I am not out in the field meeting people, I am hosting and attending parties. Men to go on dates with have never been in short supply,” she says.

It was fun at first. She said yes to every man she found even mildly attractive. Each attempt would flop a few dates in, and she would quickly move on to the next man. Now, she feels emotionally, mentally and even physically drained from months of dating and attempting to make an emotional connection with a string of men without making any headway.

“I am tired of going through the dating ritual. I’ve got to the point where I don’t care if I meet a man I connect with or not,” she says.

Is there something bigger going on?

A quick glance at our dating scene and it’s not hard to see why there are people whose ultimate life goal is to be in a relationship. On a daily basis, we are bombarded with couple goals on social media, have an array of dating apps at our fingertips and people in our lives openly reminding us that unless we are claimed by someone, something is wrong with us.

We react to this by joining the race to meet that special someone by all means. And because there aren’t too many decent, well-intentioned people in the dating pool, a lot of these dating attempts are unsuccessful. Cram these unsuccessful dates in a short time frame and dating will begin to feel like a chore.
According to British relationships expert Sam Van Rood in his book Teach Yourself Flirting, dating fatigue is a notch higher than feeling tired of going on dates.
According to him, it can happen over just a few weeks of dating for some people while others will be dating non-stop for months or even years before they feel the fatigue creeping up. He writes that going into each date with high hope of your date turning out to be your perfect match leads to frustration and subsequently dating fatigue.
To cure it, he recommends that you treat your dating life as you would a fatigued body - take a break from it all for a few weeks or months and return refreshed, with renewed enthusiasm and realistic expectations from your dates.
Could settling into a relationship also help cure dating fatigue?
Cheptoo, 29, has done it. About a year ago, months of making small talk and going through the same routine of getting to know the basics about someone over and over were beginning to wear on her. So she opted to settle for the man she was going on dates with who was clearly more taken with her than she was with him.
“He was just one of a number of men I was going on dates with. I picked him because he is emotional,” she says.
In settling for him, she also ignored the obvious red flags he displayed like his insecurity and lack of ambition. These things have become a constant thorn in her flesh.
“I am so over it. I know we will never be on the same page with regard to the things I want out of life and that’s a deal breaker. I have my own company and I dream of a much bigger life but he’s content with his life as is. I shouldn’t have settled. I should have just taken a break from dating,” she says.
 

Dating is not a race

Nicholas Nasombi, a counselling psychologist with Nairobi based Institute of Professional Counsellors agrees that there is a lot of pressure for both men and women to couple up. This societal pressure coupled with the information from experts and surveys saying that being in a relationship determines how good your mental health is or how successful you become in life has people scampering to be part of a relationship.
So you have been on a series of first dates, each of them a miss and you can barely remember which guy likes art or which one likes to spend weekends at his mum’s. You are burnt out but you still crave to be in a relationship, what do you do? “The first thing to do is to take a break from dating. It is not a race,” he says.
More important, according to Mr Nasombi, is to figure out the root cause of your dating practices.
“Where does your desire to be in a relationship come from? Is it pressure you are putting on yourself? Is it the society around you? Evaluate and fix this,” he says.
In his view, whether or not you experience dating fatigue depends on the value you place on connecting with someone and how you handle rejection.
“We are social beings. We are built to crave connection. This is normal. To do this effectively, stop evaluating your success by the success of your relationships. If you realize that you can still be a happy, accomplished person even without being part of a relationship, you have won,” he says.
SIDE BARS

Signs that you are dating fatigued
 Pay attention if you are single, but you just can’t face another first date.
 It is a red flag if you have gone on a tad too many first dates in the recent
past.
 Pay attention if you are experiencing increased negative thoughts in regard
to meeting that special someone.
 It may be a bad sign if you find yourself giving out increased negative talk
about the people that you have been on dates with.
 It is a bad sign if you seem to have hit the rocks in regard to your dating life
and in the recent past, you have been told more than once that you are too
picky.

 It may be a red flag if you are increasingly cancelling dates at the last minute
with no valid reasons.
Detoxification guide
 Take a break from dating
 Nourish the rest of your relationship. Don’t let going on dates or checking
dating Apps consume you.
 Re-evaluate your list, if you are too picky, you will keep meeting people
who do not meet your standards then going on more dates.
 When you begin dating, focus less on finding a soul mate. Be happy to meet
new people.
 If you are trying to beat dating fatigue, online dating isn’t the best place to
go. A lot of people online are not really who they say they are, this means
increased disappointments.
 When you date, keep first dates as short as possible to avoid getting
emotionally invested and subsequently disappointed.
 Most important, stop defining yourself by your relationships.