The Date with Confidence Podcast - How To Know When You're Ready To Date Again

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

EPISODE 64: How To Know When You're Ready To Date AgainIn this episode of The Date with Confidence Podcast, I open up about the grief, healing, and realisations that shaped my decision to return to dating after a tough year. After losing two grandparents within weeks of each other and navigating the fallout of a painful dating experience, I took a long, conscious break. Now, I'm back—dating with intention, clarity, and a renewed sense of what I truly want. If you’re wondering whether it’s time to get back out there, I’m sharing the signs, mindset shifts, and standards that helped me know I was ready.Here’s what we discuss:1. Dating After Grief: How loss and healing shifted my priorities and energy around dating2. Conscious Dating vs. Dating From Habit: The difference between dating with intention and dating out of boredom or distraction3. Signs You’re Ready to Date Again: What to look for emotionally and mentally before putting yourself out there4. Dating With Standards: Why I no longer believe in giving people “chances” or ignoring red flags5. Using Dating App Discernment: The new approach I take to swiping and filtering matches6. Burned Haystack Dating Method: How learning about rhetorical patterns helped me decode dating profiles more effectively7. Navigating Anxious vs. Avoidant Patterns: Recognising old wounds and shifting into secure dating energy.Improving your dating life with The Standard Is YouThe Standard Is You is a 12-week coaching programme to help you stop feeling behind, raise your standards, and become the love of your life in your 30s. This group programme is for the 30-something who’s done with settling — in dating, in career, in friendships, in everything.If you're done with dating Chads who ask for photos before you've met, ghost you after a week, put in zero effort to actually get to know you and think that inviting you to dinner at their place is an appropriate first date, this is for you.Mentioned:How to Overcome Anxious Attachment When Dating Someone NewBurned Haystack Dating Method Facebook GroupGet Involved!You can contribute your stories to the Date with Confidence Podcast here. Share your best or worst dating stories, your biggest icks, dating tips you think everyone should know or ask me anything about my dating life or a burning question you need an answer for.  Support The Date with Confidence PodcastIf you'd like to show your support for the podcast, you can do so in these ways:1) Share the podcast with your friends2) Leave me a review on iTunes stating what you love most about the podcast so more people can find it3) Buy me a coffee to express your gratitude for the episodes if you found them helpful, inspiring or entertainingVisit The Date with Confidence website here. Follow Rebecca on Instagram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've been out of the dating game for a while, maybe something's happened in your personal life, maybe you had a bit of a dating disaster that put you off people for a little while, and you think you might be ready to get back in the dating game, but you're also not so sure, this is the episode for you because we are going to talk about how to know when you are ready to date again. Welcome to the Date With Confidence podcast, a place to come for dating advice, support and stories that will either fill you with hope or relief that your dating experience wasn't as bad as it could have been. With practical episodes that will provide you with easy to implement tips to help you feel confident AF on your next date alongside light-hearted catch-ups where your host Rebecca,

that's me by the way, shares her own experience dating after four years of the single life. You are guaranteed to end each episode feeling less alone in your date and struggles, empowered to never settle again and confident that the best is yet to come. And if it all falls to shit there's a special first season dedicated to breakups, you are welcome my friend. Subscribe, review and share with your single friends. I have missed you so much. I have been gone for a little while, I know that. I last shared with you in December I believe it was and then literally the worst thing of my life happened. My granddad died on Christmas Eve and then nine weeks later my nan died so it has been a really fulfilled start to the year it wasn't that they weren't a couple it wasn't the same nan and granddad

that died it was my granddad on my mum's side and my nan on my dad's side so when I shared on Facebook everyone was a bit like oh they've died together kind of thing I'm like no they didn't it was one from each side so yeah it's been it's been rough and as you may remember last year I was dating someone for a couple of months and it was a bit of a horrific experience and I've been dealing a lot with that since took a massive break from dating I went on one date after him then I took a massive break from dating. I went on one date after him, then I took a massive break from dating because my granddad was ill and then obviously an angrana died so I was not ready to date in any way shape or form

and then a few weeks ago at the end of April I did start dating someone new and I didn't realize that there was still some remnants of last year's experience remaining in my mind and my energy so had to deal with that with my coach and energy healer and I'm actually gonna do a whole episode on that because I think it is so super important if you really want to move on from anything previous whether it's a long-term relationship or a short-term situations situation. So this episode I want to talk to you about knowing when is the time to start dating again because I've been through breakups then grief hard times in my personal life and I felt like last year although I went on a date after

last year's experience and the date was fine but it just wasn't, he just wasn't my person and I don't think I was his either and I very much made that conscious decision of I don't want to be dating anyone at the moment, I want my focus to be on my family, I want my focus to be on spending as much time with granddad as possible, I didn't have the energy to date or the desire so I very much took a conscious break from dating and after the grief again I wasn't wasn't in any state to date but then towards the beginning of April I felt like actually I am ready. I am ready to spend some time dating again, to consciously date again and things were very different this time. This time I knew I

wanted to date with intention in terms of meeting a husband. When I first started the podcast I remember sharing that I wasn't worried about Mr. Right, I just wanted Mr. Right now, I wasn't fussed about meeting my person when I first started the podcast, whereas now I'm very much in the energy of I'm dating for something serious and long-term and I'm ready to meet my husband. Now part of that scares me a little bit, I'm not gonna lie. Part of that I had a freak out a couple of weeks ago where I was like oh my god I don't want to commit, I don't want to be stuck

down, I don't want to be tied down to anyone. I feel absolutely terrified at the thought of actually committing my life to someone. I freaked the fuck out. I feel like I've gone from being a very anxious attachment person to the whole opposite end of the scale where I suddenly became a voiding and now I feel like I'm back in that secure place which I've actually never been in before I don't think in my life maybe my first boyfriend for a little while until some things happened but I've never felt like this secure. Having said that, we're not serious right now.

I've been on three dates with this guy. I'm not about to marry him. So I was very much in this place where I felt ready, and I think that's the biggest thing. If you feel within you that curiosity and that desire where you're thinking more about wanting to date than thinking about the past or you find yourself more in the energy of yes I'm ready than the energy of oh my god I don't ever want to see another man again or woman again then it is definitely a good sign that

you are ready to date again. So for me, thinking that consciously like, okay, I'm ready to meet a husband, I'm ready to put myself back out there. I have the capacity to dedicate some time to this. And I think that's really important. some time to this and I think that's really important. I think a lot of people date and start dating again because it's something to do, it's boredom or it's habit or it's a distraction from what's going on in your daily life and I've very much been in that category before. I think a few times when I've been on the apps I haven't really been that fussed about meeting the right person. As I said I was dating for Mr. Right Now and because of that I just didn't really put that much effort in. I wouldn't

respond to people's messages, I would ghost or I would disappear for days and then come back. I got the thrill out of matching with people and out of checking out other people's profiles as opposed to having that mindset of I'm dating with intention I'm dating with purpose and realizing that I was in that space now of no I'm actually looking for someone was a nice space to be in because it also meant that when I was on the apps, when I went back on the apps, I was pickier than I've ever been. I'm not a numbers game data.

I know there are people who say that dating is a numbers game and you just have to date as many people as possible and then you'll find your person. I don't believe in that. I don't have the energy to be dating five different people a week or the desire to actually be communicating with that many people a week. That's not me. That's not what I want. So dating isn't a numbers game for me. Dating for me is more about my standards and what I desire and looking at people's profiles and weeding out anyone that doesn't fit part of that. And I'm not saying that they have to have the perfect profile.

I'm not saying that images have to be spectacular and they have to have something magical in their profile. But I mean anyone who instantly doesn't qualify for what I want in terms of topless selfies, in terms of the language they use, if they're a smoker, if they have kids, if they haven't filled out their profile properly because it shows they're obviously not that interested, they're an instant no, not interested at all. If they comment on my appearance above anything else that's in my profile, I swipe left. And my dating habits have changed since I joined the burned haystack dating method Facebook group run by someone called

Jenny Young and she talks a lot about rhetorical patterns and the language that men use in their profiles and how to use that to determine whether they are a green flag or a red flag. And I cannot tell you how eye-opening it has been for me. It is incredible the double meaning that language patterns have and these rhetorical patterns have about that person. And if you join any dating groups or follow anyone about dating, it needs to be the burned haystack dating method. I'll put it in their show notes because before that I was very much part of the other Facebook groups that were created to protect women as such but I find them incredibly

toxic because now it just seems that people are sharing pictures of men left, right and centre saying any tea, do you know anything about this person and then it's just a ton of people in there asking questions about is this a red flag is this a red flag and it's the most basic red flags possible it's like of course that's a fucking red flag why do you need to ask a group of people that makes me sound like an asshole I get it if you only know what you know and I didn't know a lot of the stuff that I know now without places like that or without actively following dating coaches or not necessarily dating coaches but people that talk about dating in a certain way I didn't know

that so okay maybe it is still helpful but I find that a lot of it can be quite toxic and it's more gossipy as opposed to the burn haystack dating method where it's about really analysing the profiles and recognising the language being used and then interpreting what that actually means, what the subtext to that means. Highly, highly effective. So learning from that group and then getting super clear on what I wanted and knowing exactly what I was looking for helped me to know that I was ready to date again because I had that crystal clear image in my mind of the type of person I was looking to me. It made it easier for me to also go back on the apps and be really discerning about

who I was matching with from a place of these are my standards, this is what I desire and I refuse to settle for anything less than that. I am not the person that believes in giving people chances. My giving men chances attitude is long gone. I don't believe in second chances, I don't believe in allowing people chances because maybe things will change, maybe I might feel differently, maybe a connection might develop, maybe that one comment that they said was a one-off, I don't do chances anymore and many people would disagree with that, many people would say well

you're narrowing the pool you're making it impossible your standards are too high but let me tell you standing strong in these standards has made my dating experience a million times better and maybe this is an episode that I need to do completely separately because I promise you your standards aren't too high, you just haven't met that person yet. And I also want to caveat that by saying that doesn't mean you don't compromise, that doesn't mean you're so rigid in your standards that you ignore the potential in everyone. Now I don't date for potential, I date based on who's in front of me and what they're showing me there and then. There is

always going to be room in any relationship you have, there's always going to be room for compromise, there's always going to be room for compromise there's always going to be that need to make decisions together to be flexible in some standards and this is what I talk about standards and expectations in the confidence calls there's going to be a difference between them there's going to be the non-negotiables which for me are smoking is a massive one I can't think of any others off the top of my head now but there's the non-negotiables and then there's the wish list which is your expectation so the things that would be amazing to have but also if they don't have it you're not gonna lose any sleep over it if they are ticking all the other

boxes and if they are someone that you truly connect with. What you don't want to do is meet someone, have that connection, fill that bond with them and know that they are a good person and they are a good person for you and then dismiss them because there's one box that they don't tick unless it's your non-negotiable. I've gone such a roundabout way of saying that. So let's get us back on track. Another way that I knew that I was ready to date again was feeling really secure in who I am. I am so deeply secure in who I am right now that I would say it is pretty much impossible for any man to come in and wreck that and

that's why I know that I'm in this good place to start dating again. If I had continued dating last year, let's imagine that my granddad wasn't ill and I decided that I was gonna continue dating after the experience that I had with a guy from last year, if I was going to get straight back on the horse and I was going to start dating someone again. There were things from that experience that I hadn't addressed and wasn't aware needed addressing and if I'd gone straight back into dating immediately I think that would have been really detrimental for my mental health, for the person that I was dating, and for my next dating experience because I wouldn't have been in this secure place that I'm in now,

and it would have negatively impacted the entire thing. I believe that I still would have been quite anxious and in an anxious attachment state which I've got a whole episode on how to stop feeling anxious when you're dating someone which I'll share the link to in the show notes because I think that episode is really valuable for you and actually it's one of my most listened to episodes so I know you guys are loving it if you haven't listened to it already then you can go and listen to it now but I think if I hadn't got to the place within me where I was back at my most secure,

I am more confident in myself than I ever have been, this is a really amazing place to be dating from and I'm not saying you have to have reached a certain place in your personal development before you can date because I don't believe in waiting until we're fixed as such to put ourselves out there but I do believe that the more confident and the more secure you can be in yourself the better your dating experience will be not just because of the way that you will connect with someone but also because you will notice red flags sooner you will be able to maintain that energy of I am not settling for anything less than I deserve and it will be easier for you to walk away from something that isn't

right for you because your self-respect will be higher than your emotions. And I think that is really important. This is something I've talked about before. Your self-respect always needs to be top tier. It needs to be stronger than your emotions, than any physical connection, than any chemistry. And I feel like that's much easier to do now I'm in my 30s than it was when I was in my 20s. So much easier. I very much believed that a

connection was about the chemistry when I was younger and now especially with the person that I'm dating now I've realized that that's not the most important thing. I have not been in an anxious headspace or have felt any feelings of anxiety in my body Since I started talking to this person and again, I really want to preface this by saying it is very early days I don't know what the future is gonna hold because I'm being a lot more I Don't want to say skeptical But I'm being a lot more, I don't want to say skeptical but I am being a lot more sensible with my feelings, with the pace of things, with my vision for the future, whereas last year if you remember and it honestly

makes me cringe so much thinking about this but some of the episodes I shared last year I was in that giddy excited phase and that was reflective of how I felt at the time but what I've come to learn about the person in those following weeks when we first started dating, it really does make me feel a bit sick now, what I came to learn about that person completely destroyed any of those feelings and now for me I'm not in that giddy state. I'm in a place where I'm very comfortable with the person that I'm dating right now. I'm really enjoying spending time with him. I'm really enjoying his company. I'm really enjoying getting to know him but I'm also not having those excited feelings of oh my god this could be it and

and I create that for myself in my mind right I make those feelings happen in my mind because I over romanticize things and I'm making sure to be I'm making sure to keep myself at that steady level of being present, of enjoying the moment, thinking to the future slightly but not getting ahead of myself and not over romanticizing into something where I allow myself to get carried away and I like that and I think because I am in that place it was a good sign for me to start dating again. To get myself to that place also before going back into dating, I think has been very good for me.

I also wasn't looking for someone to fill a hole for me. This is one of the biggest signs that you're ready to date again, is if you are in that energy of, I am so content on my own if I don't meet anyone it will be fine and I will start dating again because I want to because I'm interested in it so for me I was very much looking for an addition to my life not someone to fill a gap that felt empty. And again this is so important. No matter who you meet, nobody is ever going to fill a hole for you. You have to come

to that place of wholeness on your own and then invite someone into your world. Because what happens if you don't is you meet someone, you expect them to feel that whole, and they may very well do that temporarily, whether it's for a couple of weeks, a couple of months, a couple of years, it may be that they feel that whole, you get married, you have a long-term relationship. But if you are always

relying on that person to make you happy, then whatever happens in the future, whether that is the relationship breaks down, you are never going to feel good again without them. You will always rely on them and lean on them and if they exit your life for whatever reason you won't feel whole again. Whereas if you can feel whole as you are right now, where you are right now and add someone else into your life as a wonderful addition then even if they leave your life for whatever reason in the future, you can still maintain your wholeness. And that's not to say that it won't hurt to lose them, of course,

in whatever capacity, it would be horrendous to lose them. But you will know in yourself that you can still handle anything that life throws at you. So sometimes, and very much in my twenties I felt this, sometimes it can be good to date before you're ready. Sometimes it is the necessary thing, the whole get with someone else to get over someone. I've very much felt that at different periods in my life and that's why a couple of times, I think if you remember in 2023 when the podcast first launched and I dated that guy for a

few weeks and I had those very much intense feelings, thought it was going to be something special. I went out on a date with someone within a week of that ending because I knew I needed to get straight back on the horse immediately to distract myself from what had happened with him. Whereas last year, yes I started dating within a couple of weeks of ending things with the other guy, but after that one day I very much felt like, do you know what, this is not my time. And again, with grandad and stuff that was going on, I just,

I knew that I wasn't ready to deal. I wasn't ready to date, I wasn't emotionally ready or mentally prepared to date again, I didn't have the headspace, I didn't have the desire. So I think sometimes rushing into it can be triggering and it can set your helium back a little bit. However, you know yourself best. So I can give you all the advice in the world, you know yourself best, you know your intuition, you will know when you are ready to date again and you will know whether you need to throw yourself straight back into something for the distraction to remind yourself that people still want you and that's very much been a reason that I've dated in the past. I've needed that reminder that I'm still

desired and I don't think there's any shame in that at all. If you need a bit of validation from outside sources there is a time and a place for that I do think that's okay as long as you are simultaneously working on validating yourself because I think self validation is crucial. But at the end of the day you are going to know if you are feeling right now that you are ready to date, amazing. Test the waters, go on the apps again, see whether you feel like you're there, see whether it feels good. If you go on the apps for a couple of days and think oh my god I can't be doing this again, come off. That's okay, it pulls your profile again. You don't have to commit to dating if you start dating and then realise actually I'm not ready for this, that is okay.

If you are in the same state of mind that I very much am now, you want to date with intention, you want to build something meaningful, you are ready to let go of red flags and people who just don't give you a positive dating experience, the people who don't put in the effort like you do, if you are ready for something serious and you really want to get to a place where you know that you will never settle again in a relationship, where your standards are the highest they've been and you feel confident you will meet someone that meets you at those standards. If you want to become the love

of your life so that you can be the best partner for yourself and the best partner for a future partner and if you are ready to raise the standards you have for all areas of your life I would like to invite you to check out The Standard Is You. It is my brand new 12 week coaching program designed to help you stop feeling behind in life, to stop settling for okay in any area including dating and relationships. It was designed to help you raise your standards and to help you really feel confident in who you are, what you desire, and know that you deserve the world.

If that is something that sounds interesting to you, then I'll leave the link in the show notes. The program starts on the 25th of May. I am beyond excited to be running this. This is very much a culmination of all the work that I've been doing on my sale for the last four or five years. It is very much reflective of the space that I've been getting myself to for the last few years. And the evidence in my own life of this work that I've been doing is very apparent,

especially with the guy that I'm dating at the moment. You know me, you know that I always believe that my dream relationship is out there. You know that I have so much faith in my fairy tale relationship that I'm not stressed about the timeline. I know it's gonna happen. You know how high my standards are. I talk about this a lot. You know I don't give people chances and I don't date people for their potential and me maintaining those standards and maintaining that faith in the fairy tale has brought someone into

my life who's literally the first person in my life that has matched my standards and now I have the proof and the evidence that what I desired does actually exist. So even if I date this guy for a couple more weeks a couple more months and we realize we're not compatible, it's not gonna work out, to me this experience is the evidence that I needed for myself that what I desire does exist. It's the evidence that my standards aren't too high and it's the evidence that the type of man I desire is out there. There are men like this guy out there. I use the trick of finding evidence in everything to help me

believe that what I desire is possible. So when I see women making a shit ton of money through their online businesses and it looks easy and it and it feels easy to them, I see that as evidence that I get to make money through creating things that I love and that it gets to feel easy for me. When I see women in their late 30s in their 40s meet their dream person, get married and have children, I see that as evidence that I get to have that too. I see that as evidence that I'm not behind at 34 being single and childfree. I see that as evidence that I'm not behind at 34 being single and child free. I see that as evidence that my fairy tale future is possible and is inevitable so I don't feel behind. I don't need to worry about the timeline, I

know it's gonna happen. When I see people whose business is their podcast I see that as evidence that the Date with Confidence podcast and the confidence show can at some stage become my full-time job if I desire and now I actually have my very own evidence that the type of man I desire exists and the reason that that has happened is because of all the work that I've done on myself which is exactly what we'll be going through together for the 12 weeks of the Standard Is You program. So I'll leave that in the show notes. It has been so wonderful to chat with you again.

It has been such a long time. I've missed you so, so much. As you know, I'm obsessed with this podcast and it was hard taking such a long break but I just didn't have the capacity to show up. When I was in the depths of grief obviously I'm still grieving but it's not the continual can't get out of bed grief at the moment it hits me sporadically random points of the day and I just embrace the good moments and today I'm having a really good day so I'm back. I've got a plan for the episodes coming up over the coming months. I think we are going to be going

to two episodes a month because I want to make sure that the episodes are higher quality rather than churning out things just for the sake of churning them out. I mean obviously I've got so much that I could talk to you about, there are so many things I want to say, so many episode ideas, but I really want to make sure that everything I produce is of high quality and is super valuable for you because you're the reason that I do this podcast. I'm doing this for you to make sure you're getting something out of it whether it's entertainment from a funny dating story or whether it's a

perspective shift or whether it's a confidence boost I just want you to walk away from the episode being like oh my god that was great can't wait for the next one and if you do feel that way then I would really really appreciate you leaving me a review on iTunes because that's something that I'm really looking for more of this year I would love to generate more I would love to receive more of you if you have been a listener for a long time please do go and give a review it does mean a lot and whilst it might not seem like much to you it means that we can rank higher in the iTunes chart so we'll get more listeners and it's just nice for me... okay let's be completely honest

it's just nice for me to have that bit of validation that what I'm actually creating is something that you're enjoying so please go leave me a review. And of course we will still do our community episodes, I obviously haven't done one for a long time, we will still do these probably once a month now. If you would like to contribute to the Date with Confidence podcast go to datewithconfidencepodcast.com slash contribute there is a form there where you can share your stories you can talk about your it's and you can ask me questions that you would like me to answer on the podcast there's also episodes that you can go back and listen to if you haven't listened to

those community episodes so far but ask me anything I'm an open book it can be something about my dating life it can be a question that you're struggling with It can be something really nosy if you just want to get to know me more whatever you like go there I am so happy to be back. I've missed you. I love you, and I will see you in the next one Thanks so much for listening to the date with confidence podcast. I hope you've enjoyed this episode Subscribe, rate and review and share it with your single friends. you