How to date when... you have a rigid type

I recently went on a date with someone whose profile I know I probably would have swiped left on if I’d seen it on a dating app. I say this not to criticise him, but myself. He was an outdoorsy type, worked in sales, liked golf and fishing, and I strongly suspect I would have seen this data presented in profile form and decided that we’d be too different to make anything work. The date was great, in fact, and it left me feeling uncomfortable, as though I might have been short-changing myself for years by being so rigid in my preferences.

I think this is true for many modern daters. So many of the apps require that we package and present ourselves in all of these narrow and limiting ways, and that we look at other people’s profiles through a highly discerning, businesslike lens. It can be savage and automatic, ignoring so much of what connects us. A marathon runner may be a fast no to someone who likes to rave until 6am, despite both enjoying pushing their bodies to the limit. Someone spiritual may give an agnostic a wide berth, despite both likely finding discussions of theology and spirituality more interesting than most. A metalhead may see a carousel of photos of someone at a Taylor Swift concert and think ‘not on your Nelly’, despite both living and breathing live music and enduring a great deal of judgement for their taste. Difference isn’t just awkward silences and impossible gulfs – it can also be a fertile ground for curiosity, mutual discovery and intrigue.

Love is not an exact science and there is no mathematic certainty to chemistry. So many great and long-lasting relationships are built on difference, on challenging the other, on offering them a window into a new world of new experiences. Indeed, some of the best chemistry and most fun I’ve ever had was with people who were, on paper, not at all ‘my type’. As I get older I’m more and more ready to ditch my list of criteria and just see what’s out there and how it could make me feel. But how to do that?

Being less judgemental and having fewer superficial concerns is not the same as lowering your standards

One way is by slowly expanding your criteria on the apps; unticking a few boxes here and there until you’re free of all those things that felt like they really mattered when you set up your profile, but were actually just you attempting to micromanage your love life, and treat romance and dating like a Build-A-Soulmate workshop. This doesn’t have to be a total abandonment of your values and the things that genuinely excite you and turn you on – just an opening of your eyes and mind towards all of the possibility that can exist beyond the purely superficial.

Breaking the cycle of having strict rules and endless lists of must-haves for looks, personality, career goals doesn’t happen overnight, but rather in increments and gradual shifts. Changing your attitude involves facing reality: when you date the same type again and again – people in the same industry, with the same hobbies, who move in the same circles, who had the same upbringing as you – you’re inviting a level of repetition into your dating life that can actually be self-defeating and extremely dull. For new outcomes and new experiences you have to look beyond the norm and try something else.

If you’re currently dating someone a little left-field and unlike anyone you’ve dated before, it’s totally fine if you find yourself questioning if things can really work between the two of you. We spend so long assembling these long lists of non-negotiables that any negotiation can wind up feeling like self-betrayal or settling. But this doesn’t have to be the case! Being less judgemental and having fewer superficial concerns is not the same as lowering your standards. It’s just a lateral shift in tastes and types – a sign of growth and curiosity, not giving up or accepting less than you deserve.

Attraction matters, of course, and I don’t think it’s ever as simple as ignoring or suppressing what makes you feel giddy. However, when we tell ourselves we can only be attracted to people of a certain height or hair colour with a certain body fat percentage and a certain way of dressing, that becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy and keeps us stuck in the same shallow pools with the same shallow people. Dating outside of your type simply means letting go of an exact and highly strung fantasy and after years of scanning the room and the apps and coming up disappointed. And wouldn’t that just be a hell of a relief?