#FirstDate #FirstDates #FirstDatesIRL #Dating #CountyKilkenny #Kilkenny #KilkennyCastle #KilkennyCastlePark #Ireland #LEGO

It’s a good thing my expectations were tempered. Once again, there wasn’t much attraction on my part when she arrived. We have a lot in common, and I could have seen us becoming friends, but I didn’t really need a friend who lives in County Laois. I needed to find love from a woman who lives in Kilkenny.

If life is trial and error in search of happiness, I had erred 45 times from April 2018 to May 2022. While there have been moments of happiness in those errors, I can say I was definitely discouraged at this point. I went on 8 First Dates from the time COVID starting ruining everybody’s life in March 2020 to May 2021. Eight First Dates in 15 months. Compare that to 37 First Dates in the previous 24 months. And despite the better quality of dates in those first two years, I still had nothing to show for it. Three years and 45 First Dates later, I continued to search for love, but my heart wasn’t in it. I felt myself going through the motions instead of actually enjoying the search. When I look back and tell people how many dates I have been on, some dudes are impressed. 45 First Dates isn’t impressive, it’s fucking exhausting.

(Last Dated – May 2021)