I’ve been full force implementing the FDS ways. I’ve dated a fabulous guy for about 6 weeks. Letting myself be treated by being taken on dates. Avoided doing wifey shit like cooking for him - mind you he still got to eat my cooking when it was in a group setting. He chased me. It was lovely.

However, on the last 2 or so weeks I felt like I stopped getting to know him. Like I had hit the bottom of his personality and I was wondering if he was right. Well, turns out he was also questioning if it was right. He came over tonight to break things off in person. He cried because he didn’t want to but knew it was best. He said he respected my time and me as a person and didn’t think it would be fair to drag dating on.

6 weeks on the dot. Like the FDS handbook says, 6 weeks they know. I do think he is HVM because he did not push my boundaries. When I said ‘no’ he stopped.

There is a part of me that is hanging onto the idea that I should have cooked for him. That I should have been more sexually active with him. That I should have calmed my personality down. But I know none of that would have made the outcome any different, only delay it.

This is a new kind of uncomfortable. I’m not scared. I’m not diminished. I’m sad and disheartened. I want to blame myself for not being enough. But I am enough. So much so he could see it and knew he wasn’t my fish and exited himself.

Now I know this uncomfortable. Now I know what it’s like to date without faux intimacy. Now I know what it’s like to be at the end of something and not feel used up and discarded. I am sad, disheartened, and plan ol’ bummed. But I am not less than I was before. I did not debase myself or my values. I’m stronger now. I will do it again. I will find my fish. He will know it. I will not only be reeling him in, he will be swimming towards me.