Dating again – when?

A random discussion from social media made me think about the right time to start dating again after a relationship.

When is the right moment?

Let’s say you were in a long relationship and it ends, how long do you wait until you start dating again?

Does it matter for you what other people think or you just do what you feel is right for you?

The classical questions, ‘why are you single?’ and ‘how long was your last relationship?’ are making people to analyse the right timeline to start dating again for you.

Are they right, thou?

From my point of view, everyone has a different timeline for when they are ready to start dating again. There are a lot of factors involved to take into consideration and the duration of the relationship is the least important.

It matters if the relationship was a good one, how and why it ended. Were you over it when you walked out of the relationship?

Were you happy in that relationship or you were just roommates at the end?

Saying to someone lines like ‘My last relationship lasted to 10 years’ doesn’t mean that it was a happy relationship and I need a lifetime to recover from it.

Sometimes I feel like I am being judged for my choice of dating again only after a few months since my relationship of 10 years ended. Hearing lines like ‘If I were you, I would be ready for another 3 years’ just makes me say things like ‘Well, you are not me and you do not know the story. You do not know me and you draw your conclusions based on a single line’.

Dating is a wild place and people are judgmental when it comes to other people’s stories. Should we care or take it as a ‘Thank you, next?’