Back before I met my wife Lisa, fifteen years ago, I suffered through what all of us must endure as we search for everlasting love: dating.
For medating was more challenging than an ultramarathon, more painful than a torn ACL, more uncertain than the weather in the Rockies in May.
Dating has a way of scrambling our brains, giving us periodic surges of dopamine as we touch possibilities of true love, romance, and/or hot sex, mixed with the roller-coaster disappointments of ghosted crushes, awkward dinners, inaccurate dating profiles, and the unavoidable scattering of flakes, jerks, and ding-dongs.
Of course, dating can be wonderful once you’ve gotten into a groove with that special someone. But when things are uncertain, you’re particularly vulnerable. Dating means purposely putting yourself in a position in which your happiness relies on the outside world and the whims of people you barely know (or have even never met). That’s always a dangerous combination.
Although my travels through conventional dating are over, I still periodically date, as Lisa and I have an open marriage. Many of the potential pitfalls of dating are mitigated for me, because I have already found what in Hebrew is known as my bashert – my soul mate. I’ve found my lifelong romantic companion, and so am fortunate to have someone to come home to every night, whatever else may happen.
In other ways, however, attempting to date as a married man can be more difficult than conventional dating. Alternative relationship structures are still very taboo, especially in mainstream American culture. I’ve rarely, if ever, overheard an open conversation about alternative relationships in the “real world”, even in my typically progressive and open-minded spheres of running and work. (I’m a social science researcher). This means that my potential dating pool is very small and essentially invisible, and, more frustratingly, means that it’s hard to find people who can relate to my experience.
A Better Dating Strategy
I’ve been blessed in many ways in life, and I know that when we spend a lot of effort feeling sorry that the world is not delivering something we’re craving, we can forget about all we have to be grateful for.
So this past year, instead of curling up in a ball and complaining*, I decided I’d shake up my dating strategy to make it work for me. I would seek out beauty and relish the intensity of physical thrills. I would acknowledge the flaws of my body but expose it to new experiences anyway.
I didn’t need everything about my dating experiences to be perfect — relationships are not always sunny, and sometimes the objects of our affections weather storms. But there were some essentials.
My dates needed to be reliable and available. I have a busy life, so I needed a situation that didn’t require me to travel more than a half hour or so for a quick hookup (though I was certainly up for some romantic long-distance adventures).
I would accept some physical risk, but protect my body wisely and stay away from sketchy situations. I was even up for playing a bit with pain and submission, so long as the experience was rewarding in the end.
This only left me one option, clear as day:
This year, I would date the mountains.
I’d spend all my excess emotional and physical energy traipsing over the trails near my home, connecting with them, trusting them, and growing with them. I’d spend romantic weekend days and the occasional moonlit evening pounding strides up hillsides, cruising down singletrack, and dining on jellybeans and peanut butter sandwiches.
And that’s just what I did. My year of dating the mountains was romantic, dramatic, and filled with blissful highs, and, occasionally, heartbreaking lows. And I have a camera roll full of gorgeous centerfolds to show for it – a racy shot of Longs Peak waking up first thing in the morning, a sensuous image of the clouds parting over the Twin Sisters.
Dating Means Opening Your Heart To Whatever You Love
It’s true that, as humans, we require emotional, physical, and spiritual connections with other people. But when the outside world doesn’t seem to be delivering exactly what we ordered, we need to find something deeply fulfilling over which we do have control.
Dating, at its core, simply means putting some of your own heart on offer. Romance can bloom with another person, or with whatever it is you choose to love.
