Take Yourself on a F*cking Date!

Come one, come all! This post applies to single folks and double folks alike! (Lol. I guess I mean married or partnered folks, but I’m often struck by the silliness of the “single” label). The premise I’m about to explore is that anyone – whether romantically attached to another human or not – can benefit from taking themselves on a date.

[coming soon! Embedded audio of me reading! In the meantime, pop over to Substack if you want to listen to this post.]

What on Earth do I mean by that? Well, here’s the deal that you’ve probably heard somewhere before… each of us has one primary relationship in our lives that, sadly, many of us neglect. And yes, my dear, that relationship is with ourselves. 

You are the only person on this planet who will ever deeply, completely, utterly and entirely know everything there is to know about you. You are the only person who will ever really and truly see you. And you, my love, are the only one who can fill your own cup. 

Other people help! Other people matter! I fundamentally believe that we can’t do this whole being-a-person-in-the-world, and loving ourselves, and showing up with kindness and compassion thing if we don’t have community and connection.

However. It’s also an inside job. 

And while I’ve written before about the need to start treating ourselves like a friend, now I’m taking it up a notch. What would change if we started treating ourselves like someone we were deeply in love with? Or, at the very least, someone we wanted to fall in love with?

Self-love Ain’t Easy

Now, truly loving someone isn’t always easy. Sometimes it’s messy and hard and frustrating. It means being nice and kind and compassionate even when the person you love is driving you bananas. It means showing up no matter what. It means listening. It means offering tenderness. It means holding boundaries even when you don’t want to. And all of that applies equally to loving ourselves. 

This shit is hard, y’all, I know. When we’ve got a deep-rooted, raging inner critic, it takes a lot of effort to treat ourselves lovingly. When part of us is having a tantrum about not wanting to go to bed on time, or turn off the show we want to watch, or brush our teeth – it’s hard to make ourselves do it anyway because we know it’s the loving thing. 

But maybe all of that might get a little bit easier if we also spent some time really diving into the fun parts of loving ourselves. If we take the drudgery out of this long-term relationship we’re in and celebrate – like actually, genuinely acknowledge in a significant way – all the reasons we continue to choose ourselves everyday. 

What might shift if we get really intentional about the whole range of self-love by leaning into the yummy aspects, too? The pleasurable, joyful, celebratory, and even romantic aspects of treating ourselves with love?

Treating Yourself Like a Lover

While it will probably seem silly at best and completely awkward or uncomfortable at worst, I’m inviting you to imagine what it would look like or feel like to fall in love with yourself. To court yourself. To woo yourself. To look at yourself like you are the cat’s pajamas and say, “damn! I want me a piece of that!”

Notice what happens in your body. Do you get a hint of that butterfly feeling? Do you feel just a little bit sexier and more desirable? Do you want to please yourself? (And yes, I do mean that in the sexy connotation but also in the sense of making yourself happy).

So often, we look outside ourselves for our source of validation. We need someone else’s gaze to “make” us feel sexy or desirable or worthy. And I don’t know about you, but while that can be super fun for a bit, the comedown can be pretty fucking rough when that source of validation leaves, or isn’t available, or just doesn’t exist right now.

I’ve been playing with this idea a fair bit lately, and even just imagining this kind of self-admiration, just considering flirting with myself in earnest, has had a positive impact. It leaves me feeling lighter, more connected to my body, and, well, more sexy!

Putting it into actual practice, carving out time for self-admiration and romance, has been really nourishing (especially while I’m currently un-partnered). Turns out, I can actually offer myself love in a way that I usually look to others to provide. I just had to set aside the awkward, “this is silly” inner dialogue and lean in.

Taking Yourself on a Date

In her widely renowned book (and now online course), The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron encourages us to unlock our creativity by taking ourselves on artist’s dates. She tells us to carve out time to be with our inner artist and take our creativity on a date – to give it the time, space, and attention it deserves. And I love this practice. I don’t do it consistently, in spite of my best intentions, but I do make it happen a couple of times a month. And it has radically improved my relationship with my creativity: my access to it, my engagement with it, my attunement to the creative energy I have flowing within me. Artist dates are hugely responsible for me starting this blog, for giving myself permission to do shit imperfectly, to play, and to write what I want to write.

My proposition here, then, is to do the same kind of thing with my self-love. For you to do the same kind of thing with your self-love. Rather than taking ourselves on artist’s dates, let’s take ourselves on lover dates.

What would shift and become possible if you connected with love more? If you tapped into that river of love that flows within you – without needing anyone else to be there?

It’s bananas, I know. The idea of taking yourself out to dinner, sitting alone in a restaurant, might make you cringe. That’s fair! 

It’s definitely not a practice that most of us are used to or particularly comfortable with. There are a lot of cultural signals and messages about what it means to be alone in public. But it doesn’t have to be excruciating. (I love this little video about being alone – how to do it, how to build our threshold of tolerance for being with ourselves. And this is part of that practice.)

We also don’t have to go out in the world to take ourselves on a date. A date is more about reverence and intention than the actual activity. 

Set the table beautifully, buy yourself some flowers, light some candles, and make yourself a decadent meal. Build a blanket fort and have a charcuterie picnic inside. Get all dressed up and have a karaoke dance party in your living room. You’ve got options!

And part of my point here is that if we can’t be alone, if we can’t attend to ourselves, if we can’t enjoy ourselves without an audience, then we may be setting ourselves up for over-relying on the people around us. For putting too much of our self-worth, our emotional stability, our capacity for feeling loved onto the shoulders of others. 

So, I invite you to play with this idea. Organize a date night for yourself and be intentional about it. What’s an activity that will light you up? That will make you feel good in your body and heart? What are some things you can do to genuinely show yourself that you’re in love with who you are?

Even, and especially, if the idea of being in love with yourself feels hard or out of reach – then this practice is for you, my love. If you aren’t there, this is a step on that path. It’s a first date. It’s a gesture of courtship. 

If we didn’t get taught how to love ourselves as kids (or if we got taught lots of reasons to not love ourselves), then this is a radical act of reclamation. It’s bold. It’s daring. And it just might shake things up in a way that makes a big difference.

You, my love, deserve a date night. Treat yourself to one, and let me know how it goes.