Author: sselinsimsek

Being 24 years old and trying to date after COVID-19 is hard. Over the last year, I went on a first date with 24 men. Out of these 24 men, I went on a second date with 18 and I got along well enough with only three of them to see them for more than a couple weeks.

These numbers may seem crazy to some people who have been out of the dating pool for a while, or even for people who are in the dating pool currently.  The truth is, all of my best friends are in serious relationships and I sometimes feel some sort of pressure to be at the same stage of my life, so I rely on dating apps to get me to there.

Even though none of these dates went anywhere and I was quite tired of asking so many people how many siblings they had and what their favourite colour was (I mixed them all up too), these many dates taught me so many lessons about myself and about people around me.

I want to share a few of those lessons with you, as well as the not so gracious stories of how I came to learn those lessons so that you do not have to suffer through 24 first dates too.

#1 If you do not respect yourself enough, your dating experiences will mostly be low quality. 

I met this guy that was very attractive for a coffee date. On our first date, he asked me only 2 questions about myself and talked about himself for the rest of the date. I was quite shocked when he said he had a great time and would like to do it again (I mean of course he did, who doesn’t like talking about themselves?!). 

After a few dates, when we were watching a movie, the actor came on the screen in her bikinis and her perfect figure. The guy pointed at the actor and said “You could look like this if you worked out more”.

Now…I have always been the girl who was insecure about her appearance because I was never a skinny girl, more like a happy medium. And usually felt insecure in my body that my reaction would be to laugh it off to make the guy not feel awkward. But on this occasion, I looked him in the eyes and said “It’s hilarious to me that you feel comfortable to say that out loud”. This was the first time I ever stood up to a guy, and let me tell you it felt GOOD. Needless to say, I stopped seeing this man shortly, or any other man that had the audacity to comment on my body or any other insecurities. My dating experiences have been significantly better since then.

#2 If you do not like them, you don’t have to see them again

I used to feel so guilty after a horrible first date that I would always agree to go on a second date, just to give them a chance to redeem themselves (in their own eyes at least). This cost me many hours of my time and endless boring conversations.
The last time I did this was when I went on a date with a guy that was 8 years older than me, because I thought he would have fun stories to tell me AND BOY WAS I WRONG. We were there for only an hour and 50 minutes of this conversation was about his business (he was quite proud of it as you can tell). In the last 10 minutes of our date he asked me a single question about myself, which was a setup so that he could bring the conversation back to his business. And even after this date, I felt like I should go on a second date with him just so he doesn’t feel judged for liking his business so much.

But, sometimes it is important to remember that just because they paid for your coffee or dinner, doesn’t mean you should put up with a man that doesn’t know how to hold a conversation. Frankly, I never texted this guy or saw him a second time and I have absolutely no regrets about it.

#3 Your type also has a type, and sometimes it is not you

Out of those 24 people I met, I found 3 of them extremely attractive. When I got home after the first date I was all giddy.

I waited by my phone for them to text me and tell me they wanted to see me again. However, unlucky for me that I was slowly ghosted after two or three dates by all three of these men. If I am being honest, I was quite devastated, because I was secretly hoping that one of these guys would be the last first date I would have to go on. I spent days replaying these dates in my head to see if it was something I said or did. 

But being let down is a part of dating, just because someone seems like your dream person, doesn’t mean they feel the same way about you and that is OKAY! Sometimes people do not think you are the right fit even though you did nothing wrong, you were just not quite it. 

Just don’t give up and take this rejection to heart. 

#4 No amount of extra effort will make someone like you

I have been on both sides of this, being the one who is extremely giving and being the one that is receiving so much.
One thing I realized in this dating process is that acting out of love and acting for love are very different things. One of them is wanting to do nice things for someone else because you like them and you want to see them happy. There is no ulterior motive, you simply like spoiling them. However acting for love is a little different even though it starts off with the same goal of making someone happy. Acting out of love has the ulterior motive of making this person see HOW GOOD YOU ARE TO THEM with the hopes that this will make them see you differently.

I can tell you with confidence is that no amount of dinners you pay for or nice gifts you buy them, will make them magically start liking you. They might appreciate the thoughtfulness and the effort but this will rarely end up with them in love with you just because you are nice to them. And it is quite unfair to expect that.

#5 Settling is worse than being alone 

After these 24 first dates, I decided to take a little break.
I realized that being on dates that I did not quite enjoy, or talking to men that I did not quite find attractive was not helping me, it was only making me panic and despair.

I have always been one of those girls that really believed the narrative of “good looking guys aren’t very nice, and nice guys aren’t very good looking, so you gotta pick one or the other and settle for it”. My dating experience so far kind of supported this point and if I am being honest, I was quite close to doing exactly that…settling for one. 

But then I heard one of my girlfriends say “it doesn’t have to be either looks or personality, there are men out there that are great people and you will find attractive”. 

I love the life I created for myself, I have a nice job, great friends, a place that looks like a Barbie dream house and an adorable cat. I think it would be a shame to settle for someone that I did not find as amazing as everything else in my life. Sometimes it is nice to be reminded that being alone comes with so much peace and happiness that settling for something that is not quire it would take away from that peace and happiness. Being with someone isn’t the ultimate goal. Being happy is, single or with a special someone.

I really enjoyed my speed dating experience this year, it helped me learn more about myself and collect some fun “dating nightmare” stories that made my friends laugh. I am excited for what the future might bring.

For now, I will be using the horror stories I collected on my Instagram to entertain my friends 🙂

As a marketing professional, I always second guess myself when I have to write stories.
Is this story too boring?
Do people really care about this topic?
Does my point make sense?

The course content of EXSM3989 really helped me answer all of these questions.

The tips I learned from the great article of How to Tell a Great Story really changed the way I write. If you are wondering what these tips are, allow me to share them with you:

To see the full article, visit this link!

If there’s one thing people would say to describe me, it is crazy cat lady. But how did I become a crazy cat lady?

The story starts when I was 7. Growing up in Turkey, I saw cats everywhere every single day. I really mean it… Turkey is known for the amount of street cats we have. 99% of the time, these cats are absolute gems and they love nothing more than getting pets from strangers.

My little cousin’s domesticated cat on the other hand… was quite the opposite. If she could talk, I am quite certain that she’d tell the entire world how much she hates my guts.
One day when went to visit my cousin and her family, the second they opened their front door to welcome me, their cat just jumped at me with her claws out.
I don’t know why she wanted me dead so badly but she continued to pester and bite and scratch me for the next 3 hours of my visit. And when I left my cousins home that day, I just knew I never wanted to touch a cat ever again.

This hatred I had for cats lasted until I was 20, when I moved in with my roommate Dini. Dini fostered around 7 cats a year (which I did not know when I agreed to move in with her). When I arrived at our new apartment for the first time I saw the little note that she left me, asking me to take care of her little foster while she was away for TWO FULL WEEKS.

TERRIFIED would be an understatement of how I felt for the first few days with that cat. I left the living room whenever he walked in, I avoided eye contact and never attempted to get in his personal space… until one day he just decided to come and sit on my lap.

And that was the day I realized I am the biggest cat person. And four years later, there is nothing I love more than being around cats. I foster around 2-5 cats a year myself and I am the go-to person for all my friend’s cat-sitting needs.

This week I am cat-sitting my friend’s cat Stanley. You can follow our adventures here!

I will give you some background information about Stanley and I’s adventures from this week’s module!

• Setting: Stanley will be staying with me in my apartment. This is the first time he is staying anywhere other than his dad’s (my friend) place.
• Character: Stanley is a rather shy boy. He is very skittish and definitely is having some separation anxiety as his dad never left him alone since he got adopted last year.
• Plot: You are about to find out if our story is a story of forever best friends or just distant acquaintances that will never hang our again.
• Conflict: I do not want to spoil our story… but can’t say Stanley likes me as much as he likes his dad.
• Arc: Our story goes from Stanley arriving at my place for the first time to his first night here.. All I can say is that it was not a smooth sailing for either of us.

Pride and Prejudice is novel by Jane Austen that was published in 1813 and since then, there has been numerous movie and show adaptations of this book by Austen.

Call me cheesy but ever since I was a little girl, I have been obsessed with love stories and pretty much anything romantic. It was no surprise when my aunt made me watch the 2005 movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice for the first time as a teen that it would become my favourite movie of all time.

Even though it was written more than two hundred years ago, I personally believe Pride and Prejudice to be one of the most romantic love stories, showing all of us that a good story is truly timeless.

I am sure you are wondering what this story is all about. The story starts with our main character, Elizabeth Bennet.

Once upon a time there was a young woman named Elizabeth. Elizabeth was truly ahead of her time as she was very outspoken and very well read. She lived with her four sisters (one older, three younger) and parents.

She spent most of her time reading, going for long walks and truly enjoying her life while her sisters were in a desperate search for a husband. Even though finding a suitable husband was seen as main task for women in that time period, Elizabeth was quite skeptical of men, and truly believed that she would die an “old maiden”.

But, one day while she was at a ball with her family, handsome (and quite wealthy) Mr. Darcy walks in. They lock eyes for a second and Elizabeth realizes that this was the first time in her life that she intrigued by a man.
However, as a daughter of a farmer, Mr. Darcy saw Elizabeth as ‘socially inferior’ as he was known for his rank and fortune.

Because of his prejudice of Elizabeth’s social standing, Mr. Darcy was rather snobby around Elizabeth, putting her down on multiple occasions and letting his friends do the same.

Because of Mr. Darcy’s unbearable pride and snobby nature, Elizabeth started thinking Mr. Darcy was quite stuck-up, and believed the rumours that were spread about his ‘evil’ character.

Until finally, Elizabeth finds out that despite his snobby demeanor, Mr. Darcy has been helping her sisters in secret by finding them suitable husbands and financially supporting them.
Mr. Darcy then confesses his love to Elizabeth and apologizes for letting his prejudice cloud his judgement.

As a result, Elizabeth also apologizes to him for judging him so harshly due to her negative first impression and believing the rumours about him. They get married and live happily ever after.

While the storyline nothing extraordinary, I find the most recent movie adaptation to be extremely memorable due to it being able to tell this story with a female gaze. Even though the characters live in the 1800s, Elizabeth and all the other women in the story are not portrayed as the “perfect little creatures” that men fantasize about, but rather as flawed and relatable characters that show strength and vulnerability simultaneously.

The complexity of the characters, longing stares and gentle touches between lovers, the light piano soundtrack, the elegant yet simple regency era fashion, and the beautiful landscape of England work together to create the most memorable love story of all time.