For The Love of Love: You Don’t “Love” Hiking

For the Love of Love is the fruit of an abundant crop of singles who continually shoot themselves in the foot while navigating courtship in modern society. Melissa Rogers, dating expert and matchmaker with Tawkify, will leave no stone unturned to discover where the hell it all goes wrong.

From ignoring bright, flashing red flags to telling little white lies on dating profiles, there are some universal missteps that plague singles of all demographics.
 

Melissa will explore all of the ways singles tend to self-sabotage their potential at finding true, lasting love. The aim? To turn dating destruction into going steady on easy street.

Column 1 — For the Love of Love: You Don’t Love Hiking

It’s 10am MST, and I’ve picked up the phone for my fifth screening call of the day. I double-check my brows to be sure I’m ready for an HD FaceTime chat (because Apple’s iPhone cameras are getting a little too REAL, if you know what I mean). Then, I go over my preliminary notes one more time. Cue a sigh.

Another single who has proclaimed in the ‘Interests’ section that they, in fact, love hiking.

I make a quick note to probe on this one. A few minutes into the call, we discuss the claim.

Me: “What kind of things are you doing on the weekends when you’re not recharging? I see here it says you love hiking! Where do you hike and how often do you go?”

Single Person: “Oh. Um. Well, I really like walking. I haven’t actually done a lot of hiking, but I walk a lot.”

Me: “So, do you do the whole ‘pack a backpack and plan to scale the side of a small ridge’ thing?”

Single Person: “Nah. I definitely don’t do that. I did once when I went to California a few years ago…”

End Scene.

OK, don’t get it twisted — I think there are legitimately people who LOVE hiking out there. I wholeheartedly believe that there are real-life hiking enthusiasts who actually own Tevas and have the REI co-op membership — but, I don’t think they’re as plentiful as the “interests” section might lead one to believe.

And that’s OK. What’s the big deal, anyway? It’s just a minor misclassification of a hobby, right?

Wrong. This minor misclassification is a major misrepresentation. You would be surprised by how often I unearth these kind of little white lies. And the person bearing false witness is almost always fantastic! So, the issue seems to be that all these fetching singles don’t know how to portray themselves when writing dating profiles. 

In a dating climate that promotes swiping left on someone whose profile photo isn’t thrilling enough, it’s hard to know how to stand out.

For the love of love, though, being straightforward from the start is the sage move. The best match for you is the match that actually matches with you. You know, the match that won’t care if you haven’t done yoga in 3 years or if you aren’t a daily meditator. They’ll like you for who you are today. If the sparks fly due to a fib, then the relationship is over before it begins.

Playing pretend in a new relationship is a big job, so why not give yourself the freedom to be unapologetically you instead? Initial attraction might be skin deep, but lasting relationships most certainly are not.

Ditch the old dating buzzwords and get real.

If you’re a pop culture fiend who hates the outdoors, just own it — someone, somewhere thinks that’s hot. Confidence and self-awareness will be your pocket ace in any dating situation. No one fell in love with someone just because they said they really, really, liked hiking anyway.

For the love of love, 

Melissa Rogers