A date is a enjoying some company , some conversation , some activity and perhaps some food.
Something you could do with a friend or a stranger.
Nowhere are we saying have sex or fall in lust.
We are saying. Enjoy your life. Live. A very hard part of depression is dealing with pleasures. We turn them off. I bbq. I love to cook. I have not bbq'd once since D-day. Not once. I have just started to cook again. I invite friends over and I make them diner. If its just one I treat it as a date. I expand my circles of friends. I meet new people.
Maybe one day I go for a coffee with one of them. I prepare for this evening as it was a date. Then I go and enjoy coffee. I engage them in conversation. I enjoy myself. I go home. If I had a good time and I find the person interesting. I call them up and say I had a good time and would like to do that again sometime with them or with a group of friends. Thats a date as well.
Maybe someone goes... Hey I have a friend and they seperated or they are single and never married. Would you like to meet them. I say sure. But let them know that I am only interested in good food, good company and good conversation. Nothing more. If they agree to this then I have a blind date. If I enjoy it. Then I had a good evening. Perhaps I will do this again.
I am living my life. Enjoying the company of others. Some old, some new in my life.
Nowhere have I fallen in love , lust. I am healing. This is helping.
And if by chance I do get emotionally attached to some one at this time ( and yes I have , and realized it because I am healing and learning about relationships and myself )I space out the meeting with this person. Hell if I am strong enough I use these feelings to help heal. But I deploy DB on that person and loving detatch from them. Deal with my co-dependancy issues.
Then test the water again with them. But always keeping to my boundaries on friendships and dating.
