4 Ways to Make Dating Feel Exciting Again

Jay Shetty (0:01)

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Hey, it's Jay. I don't know what your day has been like, but I was just thinking about you for a minute. And I hope you're being a little patient with yourself because you deserve it. And yeah, I'll talk to you soon.

I want to start today's episode by asking you a simple question. When was the last time you actually felt excited about dating? I mean, genuinely excited to just meet someone new, hear their story and spend an evening getting to know them. For a lot of people, maybe it's been a long time. I know so many people feel burnt out, exhausted and just over trying to find their person. But if you're listening to this because you're about to delete the dating apps, all I ask is that you give me the next 30 minutes and I will convince you how to get excited about your love life again. I know that sounds like a big ask, especially if you've been ghosted one too many times, sat through too many painfully awkward first dates or found yourself thinking, I just don't have it in me anymore. But before you decide that dating isn't worth it, before you convince yourself that maybe love just isn't in the cards for you, or before you accept that you're happier giving up than trying again, I want you to stay with me. Because I don't think you're tired of finding love. I think you're tired of the way you've been experiencing dating. And those are not the same thing. If I ask you whether you still wanted someone to laugh with after a hard date, someone to build traditions with, someone to call first when something amazing happens, or someone to grow old beside, I don't think you'd hesitate for very long. Most people haven't stopped wanting those things. But what they've stopped believing is that the process of finding them can still be joyful. Somewhere along the way dating stopped feeling like an adventure and started feeling like an obligation.

That's what I want to change today.

Not because I have a perfect formula for meeting your soulmate. I'm sorry, I don't. And anyone who tells you they do is probably selling you something. But I do think that somewhere between dating apps, bad experiences, endless advice online, and trying so hard to protect ourselves from getting hurt, we've accidentally forgotten what dating is actually supposed to be.

Think about it for a second. On a first date, you're about to sit across from someone you've never met before. They have an entire childhood you've never heard about, friendships that shape them, heartbreaks that chains them, dreams they're still afraid to say out loud, and stories you'll never know unless you ask. That's incredible. Somehow we've taken one of the most fascinating experiences life offers, meeting another human being, and turned it into a performance review on both ends. And look, I get why. When you've been disappointed enough times, your brain stops looking for possibility and starts looking for proof that this one won't work either. It's not its fault that it's trying to protect you. The problem is that when your goal becomes avoiding disappointment, instead of discovering people, dating loses the very thing that made it exciting in the first place. Curiosity. That's when every date starts feeling the same. Every conversation feels repetitive, and every swipe feels like more work instead of another chance to be surprised. So that's my hope for you by the end of this episode. I'm going to take you through four things you can shift right now in your dating life to get excited again about finding love. I don't just want you to leave this episode with better dating advice. I want you to leave feeling hopeful again about meeting your person. And I want you to remember that somewhere in your city today, there are strangers living completely ordinary Tuesdays who might one day become one of the most important people in your life. And if by the end of this episode I have convinced you to open your heart just a little wider before closing that out forever, then I think it will have been worth it. For the first shift, I want to start with something I just mentioned, the role of curiosity. I think one of the biggest reasons dating feels so exhausting today is because we've turned it into a game of optimization. Everywhere you look, someone is teaching you how to date more efficiently. Your TikTok feed tells you the signs they're emotionally unavailable. Your group chat analyzes screenshots of text messages like they're criminal evidence. Dating apps encourage you to make a decision about someone in the time it takes to take a sip of your morning coffee. We have more information than any generation before us, and yet so many people will tell you they've never felt more confused, more discouraged, or more burned out by dating. The strange thing is, none of these resources are inherently bad. I've shared advice on healthy relationships for years because I believe wisdom matters. Boundaries matter. Learning to recognize unhealthy patterns is extremely important. But every tool has a downside when we rely on it too heavily.