Dating should be fun

Focus more on how someone makes you feel than what you think you want

Recently I’ve found myself spending time with someone who isn’t the sort of person I’d imagined myself with. He doesn’t read—actually, he read a few pages of my book Notes on Heartbreak and stopped because it wasn’t his thing.

He sometimes comes out with things that mortify me slightly. But at the same time, he’s really kind.

Medium.com › hello-love › a-shrinks-take-on-dating-pro-tip-it-s-supposed-.

He picks me up from my place in his car because he doesn’t want me to walk in the cold; he makes me dinner when I go over; he’s an actual grown-up in a way a lot of men aren’t.

Our differences may prove too much long-term—I don’t know if it will start to frustrate me that he doesn’t want to do any of the things I want to do—but I feel secure but not smothered in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced before.

You might think your type is arty guys with mustaches—the sort who DJ and live in draughty warehouse conversions—but those guys might make you miserable. What you think you want is often different from what you need. On apps, you don’t look at people as a whole, but as lists of tr