Maybe Date Night Should Start With Dating Yourself

Maybe date night should start with dating yourself.

When we hear the words "date night," we almost automatically picture another person. Someone you're dating, your partner, your spouse, someone you've had your eye on. But I think we need to start having a completely different conversation around this.

What about dating yourself?

And I mean really dating yourself. Getting dressed because you want to feel beautiful. Putting on the perfume. Making the reservation. Ordering the meal you actually want. Going somewhere you've been wanting to experience. Or creating the entire evening at home exactly the way you like it.

Because before we ask somebody else to learn us, I think we should know ourselves first.

Especially as women — how many times have we been taught that one day somebody is going to come into our lives and make us happy? And then when they don't magically know exactly what we need, we feel disappointed. But how can someone else know what makes you happy if you haven't taken the time to discover it for yourself?

Dating yourself teaches you that.

What lights you up? What makes you feel beautiful? What environments make you feel peaceful? What do you enjoy when nobody else gets a vote? What are your boundaries? What will you tolerate? What absolutely does not belong in your life anymore?

When you know those answers, relationships become very different.

You're no longer asking another person to create your happiness for you. They're being invited into a life where happiness already exists.

And I think that is such an important distinction — because loving yourself first does not mean you don't want companionship. It means companionship is no longer where you go searching for yourself. You already know who you are. And if somebody comes into your life and what they want requires you to abandon that woman, then maybe they simply aren't aligned with the life you've built.

That's okay.

You don't have to compromise your peace just because you don't want to be alone.

This is why I love the little rituals. The shower, the skincare, choosing the outfit, putting on a fragrance that makes you feel incredible. Not because anybody else is going to smell it.

Because you are.

Maybe tonight you put on your favorite perfume and take yourself somewhere. Maybe you stay home, order your favorite food, light the candles, and make your own evening feel special.

The point isn't where you go. The point is realizing you never needed to wait for another person to start romancing your own life.

Flowers for yourself. Reservations for one. Perfume just because.

And date nights where the person you're getting to know more deeply — is you.