Why do I always feel depressed or anxious after dating?

Isn’t this really just our human penchant for imagining how we want situations to play out, and then becoming emotionally invested in that outcome?

We go into encounters like this with some notion of how they ideally should unfold. You want to be found charming and smart and spontaneous and admirable in a long list of other ways. That’s the ideal, but the reality rarely matches the ideal. Reality is always messier. But it has the great merit of being real.

The post-date critiques that make you so dejected are just the pangs that come from realizing that reality will only go so far in accommodating our ideals. Things get much easier when we can finally make our peace with that fact. Life’s rough edges add immeasurably to its beauty. Let them be.

You are a victim of the propaganda of the medieval political church, and/or the modern welfare state.

It goes like this…

If anybody in the world is unhappy (or any other form of misery or failure), you should feel guilty about your own happiness (or success) until or unless they are “made” happy first.

Nobody likes to feel guilty so you suppress the feeling untill it is repressed. But it haunts you as feelings of anxiety or depression.
It is all over the place and it screws up more people than you would like to imagine. Save yourself. Shame on them who have done this to you.
Allow yourself the peace that comes from enjoying positive outcomes and get away from or reject those who planted that shit in your head.

:)

It sounds like your anxiety is extreme. You could benefit from working with a therapist to explore why you feel so anxious that you would rather not go out at all.

Try telling yourself to just let things play out. That the outcome does not matter, the journey does.

However, I feel that seeing a therapist would be your best bet.

You may be fatalistic like me. You worry what will happen with this person and you in the future and you know it won’t be perfect. I understand! It’s a sort of anxiety neurosis that’s not uncommon.

Don’t allow the good opinions of the men you date have anything to do with how you feel about yourself or your self-worth.

I know exactly what you’re feeling, because I’ve gone through the same thing. Just keep these two ideas in mind:

1) Ask yourself, “Do I like this guy?” People spend so much time worrying about if the date likes them, they forget to check in with themselves about whether they still like the other person past first glance/date.

2) Remind yourself, “He’s a human being, just like me.” Not a god or someone who needs to be on some sort of pedestal, judging our worthiness to be loved and cared for.

You’re worth a good relationship. If not with this man, then with someone else. Keep calm and carry on, my dear. Give yourself a chance.

To me it is quite simple, you stress because you for whatever reason, are not comfortable in your own empty space. You are somehow feeling less than whole or complete without some other person sharing it. Maybe it is the silence, the lack of human touch, who knows. The way you can stop stressing and be able to just chill with a book or a movie is to imagine you are some big star and he is trying to get next to you, you could care less if he came back again. Once you frame it in your mind he desires to be with you more than you need to be with him, the anxiety….. what anxiety? There is no more anxiety.

Thank you all…. these replies have been very helpful and insightful! I am going out with the girls tonight and not going to worry about this stuff. Its not really worth worrying, going to try to take the attitude, whatever happens, happens!

Wow this site is amazing! It’s like a high quality answersYahoo! And the answers were interesting… Good luck, OP. You are definitely not alone…