Category Archives: Dating

My new lover takes my breath away. However, I feel a sense of dread. How do I stop this?

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It is hard to loosen the tentacles that dread wraps around the mind, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, the goal is to live on despite them

I am a 50-year-old queer woman, embarking on a new relationship after leaving my previous partner of eight years. My new lover is beautiful, smart, insightful, passionate and she actually takes my breath away. We have been dating for about three months. I like what we have and I am extremely fond of her. However, I find myself catastrophising our relationship.

I feel a sense of dread a lot of the time and suspect that there is a part of me that might be self-sabotaging us, based on the belief that she will eventually break my heart. I don’t know how to stop this. I just want to enjoy the relationship, instead of being constantly worried and jumping to the worst conclusions about our future.

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The relationship sabotage scale: quantifying why we undermine ourselves in love

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Developed over the course of five studies, the relationship sabotage scale is designed to give analytical rigour to a term more common in pop culture

Do you feel constantly criticised by your partner? Do you sometimes check their social media profiles? Will you admit to them if you know you’re wrong about something?

If you strongly agree or disagree with some of these statements, you might find yourself with a high score on the Relationship Sabotage Scale.

1. I get blamed unfairly for issues in my relationship.
2. I often feel misunderstood by my partner.
3. I constantly feel criticised by my partner.
4. My partner makes me feel a lesser person.
5. I get upset about how much time my partner spends with their friends.
6. I believe that to keep my partner safe I need to know where my partner is.
7. I often get jealous of my partner.
8. I sometimes check my partner’s social media profiles
9. When I notice that my partner is upset, I try to put myself in their shoes so I can understand where they are coming from.
10. I am open to finding solutions and working out issues in the relationship.
11. I will admit to my partner if I know I am wrong about something.
12. I am open to my partner telling me about things I should do to improve our relationship.

Items should be randomised.

The scale is a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), is employed where high scores indicate high levels of the measured dimensions.

Defensiveness subscale = 1, 2, 3, 4.

Trust difficulty subscale = 5, 6, 7, 8.

Relationship skills subscale = 9, 10, 11, 12.

Reverse questions 9, 10, 11, and 12 to represent ‘Lack of relationship skills’.

Subscale scores between 4-11 (low)

Subscale scores between 12-20 (moderate)

Subscale scores between 21-28 (high)

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Crash and burn: the intense and fleeting romances of the Covid era

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The unspoken rules of dating went out the window as people found themselves deeply alone – perhaps it’s no surprise these couples didn’t make it

On 4 July 2020, 34-year-old Samantha Higdon, a tech worker in Austin, Texas, was swiping through the dating app Hinge when she came across a profile that made her thumb pause and hover over the screen.

His smile struck her as warm and somehow familiar: “He just felt right,” she says. And so it began.

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I’m dating a woman old enough to be my mother. Should we split up?

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Successful relationships don’t have to be ‘textbook’, but they do need purpose, drive, passion. Take a close look at what this woman means to you, advises Annalisa Barbieri

I am 31. Three years ago, I fell into a relationship with a woman who was 50. We lied about our ages (I said I was 35 and she said 45). What started off as a casual encounter has evolved into a relationship that isn’t exactly conventional. I don’t know many people who have been able to sustain a relationship with this big an age gap. My friends are all finding their partners, marrying and having kids, while I am still casually dating someone who is older than my mum.

The other problem is that she is married. She and her ex are separated and due to divorce at some point. It’s been a source of frustration that this woman, whom I love dearly, has the security of a home, living rent- and bill-free, while I work and pay for myself like most people my age. She also has children closer to me in age. I have never met them, thanks to embarrassment on her part and reluctance on mine. Her friends are in their 50s and 60s, while mine are in their 20s and 30s.

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‘Now I know love is real!’ The people who gave up on romance – then found it in lockdown

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Dating apps can be difficult and daunting at the best of times, and many users give up on them entirely. But for some the pandemic was a chance to reassess their priorities, and they were able to forge a much deeper connection


When the country first went into lockdown, I – reluctantly – reloaded my dating app. With the world on pause and friends navigating the choppy waters of home schooling, I needed something to pass the time. I had never had much luck with the apps but, this time, I connected with Bart, a Dutch PR manager who lived in Windsor. To begin with, I assumed our conversation would follow the same pattern as most of my chats on the apps – last a few days, then fizzle out. To my surprise, this time was different. Instead of ending in the great bin-fire of Hinge matches lost, a friendship grew. We began to have regular Zoom cinema nights – watching the same film online and chatting about it afterwards. As we got to know each other, I began to notice how kind and thoughtful he was, and I appreciated his interest in my life. Slowly I found myself opening up, something that had not happened for years.

Before the world turned upside down, I was happy with my single life. I have never wanted children, and spent my time with friends, occasionally dipping my toes into the murky pool of online dating. The process was always the same. Dates lasted an hour or two, before I would slink off home to catch up on Love Island. Every few years I would find that elusive spark but it was always with a charismatic, gym-honed banker who would allude to a string of heartbroken ex-girlfriends and send me aubergine emojis at 3am. I knew this penchant for unavailable men was unhealthy, but despite my efforts, I somehow never managed – or bothered – to break the cycle.

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‘Sales funnels’ and high-value men: the rise of strategic dating

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While courtship handbooks have always existed, for some women new technologies have both facilitated and necessitated a change in approach

Rebekah Campbell remembers the moment she knew things had to change. “I got to age 34 and woke up one Christmas morning on a fold-out bed in the garage of some friends of my parents and was like, ‘I don’t want to live the rest of my life like this,’” she says. “I could see that I was potentially going to miss out on having a family unless I did something drastic.”

Campbell was single and had not been on a date since the death of her boyfriend a decade prior. In those 10 years, she focused her energy on building a successful business career, including founding the order-ahead app Hey You. So she resolved to begin dating the same way she launched brands: by sketching out a plan that resembled the “sales funnel” she used in her work.

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Bennifer is back, but don’t rush to contact your ex, say experts

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J Lo and Ben Affleck did it, but experts urge restraint after lockdown prompts ‘rekindled romance’ dating trend

Relationship experts have warned against romanticising the idea of getting back with your ex-partner, after it was confirmed that one of the most famous celebrity couples of the early noughties – Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck – were indeed back together.

Last week, the actor and singer thrilled fans when they recreated a famous intimate image from J-Lo’s 2002 music video for Jenny from the Block to mark her 52nd birthday, 17 years after their break up.

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‘I had a crush on my sexy manager’: seven readers on their summers of love

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A virtual lockdown date that blossomed, an encounter on a backpackers’ bus and a school trip to Spain – readers share their most memorable summer romances

After just one week of living in New York, the city locked down, and a summer of love seemed unlikely. I did go on a series of virtual dates, with around 20 guys over four months; some were funny, kind and smart, and some were a little weird. One or two of them became my friends. Then, I finally got a call from Mr Right on the long weekend of 4 July. We started talking and he was everything I’d hoped for – except he was in Michigan, hundreds of miles away. In early August, he casually mentioned he’d be coming to NYC to meet me, and the next day he drove for 10 hours to take me for dinner.

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Sexy Beasts review – would you want to date a white mouse with a mullet?

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In Netflix’s dating show, contestants dress as animals, insects, demons and dinosaurs – so they’re not chosen for their looks. The results are so screamingly awful, you’ll end up weeping into your sofa

Sometimes I think it makes sense as a covert government anti-Covid strategy (now that they’ve given up on overt, data-driven, scientifically sanctioned ones): give the public a new dating show in which people are done up as figures from a plushy fetishist’s (look it up, I don’t have time to explain everything) malarial dream. This will keep them spellbound with delight, or weeping silently into the sofa at the thought that the western civilisation we once hoped for is over. But, either way indoors, alone, spreading nary an airborne droplet to the young and vulnerable.

I believe it to be a multi-pronged public health strategy. First they softened us up with last week’s Apocalypse Wow on ITV2, which left the nation staring bleakly past its television screens into an unknowable future that seemed suddenly not to brim with overwhelming possibility for humanity and its endeavours. Now there is Netflix’s Sexy Beasts, a reworking of a BBC show from 2014 with no other possible justification. What comes next, I cannot imagine. After a nugatory attempt, the mind quails and halts, unwilling to go further. Thus, do I fight to explain the advent of this monstrosity into our lives.

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Looking for love? Dress as a shark! Is Sexy Beasts a new low for dating shows?

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A disturbing new Netflix series makes dates dress up as animals – from rhinos to insects – so that choices are made on personality not looks. So why is everyone involved so hot?

“Ass first, personality second,” says a deadpan beaver at a bar. Meanwhile, a panda with pleading eyes says she wants a baby by the age of 26. A rhino in a dress shirt chips in with “Vulnerability is our biggest muscle” – and gets a high five from a delighted dolphin.

What fresh hell is this? Are we not, for just one moment, deserving of a rest? Netflix says no. After holding us hostage for three weeks with Love Is Blind – in hindsight, not a good use of our last days before the pandemic – the evil-genius algorithm has come up with another “dating experiment”.

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Iran unveils state-approved Islamic dating app to boost marriage

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Users of app Hamdam have to take a psychology test, and successful matches will be accompanied by a consultant for the first four years of marriage

Iran has unveiled a state-sanctioned Islamic dating app aimed at facilitating “lasting and informed marriage” for its youth, state television reported.

Called Hamdam – Farsi for “companion” – the service allows users to “search for and choose their spouse”, the broadcaster said on Monday.

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My summer of love: ‘I’m in search of the perfect fleeting encounter’

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Who needs for ever? I want a summer of beautiful vignettes. As a friend told me, the length of a relationship needn’t reflect its significance

A friend of mine told me about this guy she met in the queue at Tesco Metro. They both lunged for the same meatball wrap, and he said: “This is like the part in the film where we fall in love,” which didn’t happen but they did go to the pub and then to a nightclub, where they stood so close to the speakers they could feel the sound in the air as if it were wind. When the lights came on, they headed back to his flat and had great sex, watched by a Simon Cowell cutout he had left over from a party. After climbing out of a window on to the roof of his flat, she stayed until the sky turned from flamingo pink to lilac, to dark blue, and it was time for her to go home and get some sleep.

“I was going to ask for his number but it was so perfect, I told him, ‘If it’s meant to be, I’ll see you out again.’”

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I am living with my ex. Should we have some physical distance between us? | Leading questions

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You can’t move frictionlessly from being in a relationship to being close friends, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Something needs to change

I’m living with my ex-partner after mutually deciding to break up a few weeks ago. We rent a two-bed house and have a cat. The issue is my ex wants to stay in this living situation for the next few months and has no urgency to find alternative accommodation. I feel the urgency but don’t know what to do and whether to move back with my parents or stick it out.

I feel this is very unhealthy and the ritualistic habits developed over time are still happening … dinner, sleeping in the same bed, cleaning duties, shopping. Am I unrealistic in thinking that we should have some physical distance between us, or is this normal? I’m not sure what to do. It may sound selfish but I don’t want to be the one with all the upheaval, especially as I have worked so hard to make this house a home.

Eleanor says: I think you already know this, but might want permission to really believe it: as a fairly firm rule, you can’t move frictionlessly from being in a relationship to being close friends.

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My summer of love: ‘I went to Florida for Mickey Mouse – and ended up with the Makeout Man’

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While my teenage friends were going wild in Faliraki, I was in a serious relationship. But at 21, I broke up with my boyfriend and flew to Disney World for romantic adventures

“So, you want Mickey Mouse to help you get laid?”

I knew it was a mistake to attempt small talk with the man at immigration. Or to tell him the real purpose of my visit.

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