Why dating and hypomania don’t mix

I have quit the dating apps. Yes, I know, it’s about fucking time, and certainly not the first time I’ve said I would. But, they are gone, and my profiles have been deleted. It’s made me realise how much time I wasted on swiping, on responding to messages that went nowhere, of being grossed out by toilet selfies and married men, disgusted by poor spelling and expending energy on people not worth my time.

I’m hypomanic at the moment, my psych only confirming what I had suspected for the past few weeks. The restlessness and sleeplessness, the productivity that was channelled into work and uni but overflowed into scheduling back-to-back dates with people it was obvious I had nothing in common with.

I fidget all the time. If my foot isn’t tapping, my fingers are entwined, rubbing my nails over each other. I rock in my desk chair and toss and turn incessantly in bed. I’m over-investing in passion projects and spending money without much care. I am so riddled with energy that I walk, I garden, I cook and clean, starting and stopping and cycling through tasks unable to stop. None of these things are usual behaviour for me. Hmm, maybe cleaning. I’m not a slob.

What it does explain but not excuse is my poor decision-making of late. I had a Carrie Bradshaw moment with my psych when she told me that no-one has such a bad run with men and that it must be who I was choosing. Well, no shit. However, her point really was that if the apps weren’t producing men I shared interests with then I needed to find other avenues. MeetUp, interest groups, social groups, find new ways to meet people. Sounds lovely, in theory, but difficult to execute.

Making new friends as an adult is hard. It’s almost all through family, people we work with, friends of friends. I can’t remember the last time I made a friend without one of these networks or connections. Excluding dating, of course. I am still friends with some men I’ve dated. They’re largely really messed up friendships with blurred lines about sex but they’re friendships of a sort.

She suggested I write a schedule, down to when I eat, sleep, shower, work and exercise. She said I needed to give my body a plan to expend its energy constructively. I hate planning in advance. I’ll refuse someone’s invitation to drinks on Friday night on Thursday afternoon and tell them to ask me again tomorrow. I hate feeling “locked in” to commitments. The idea of planning out my whole day horrifies me.

But, it’s this or a medication review and I’m more terrified at the thought of messing with my meds. The last time we changed them up it started a three-month spiral into utter agitation and cuntish behaviour. I was nothing short of a nightmare and the boyfriend at the time copped the brunt. He was a dick, it turns out, but he didn’t deserve three months of savage mood swings resulting in an OD attempt.

So, instead I must schedule, stay off the apps, and focus some of each day on being mindful.

Oh, and when John the Greek text me yesterday, 10 days after being an arsehole, I told him where to shove it.