The Most Important Date You'll Ever Go on Is with Yourself.
By Michele Flamer
I want to talk about something we don't talk about enough in queer dating culture. Not the apps. Not the situationships. Not the endless parade of almost relationships that leave us wondering what we did wrong.
I want to talk about solo dating.
Not as a consolation prize for the single girly or boi. Not as something you do until the real thing shows up. I mean, solo dating is its own practice. A relationship with yourself that you tend to, the way you'd tend to a person you were falling for.
Here's the thing about queer love: nobody hands you a manual for it. Most of us didn't grow up watching people who looked like us fall in love on screen. We didn't get the fairy tale. We had to build our own understanding of what love could look like, often later than our straight peers, often after years of hiding or performing or figuring out who we even were underneath all of that. So, when we finally get to date as our full selves, we're sometimes doing it with a version of ourselves we barely know yet.
That's where solo dating comes in.
Take yourself where you'd take someone you love.
Think about the places you'd want to bring a future partner. If you like to cook, hit up the farmers’ market, where you’d hold hands and pick out fresh produce and ingredients to make a farm-to-fork lunch or dinner. Yum. The hiking trail with a sunrise or sunset view, then hit up your favorite coffee shop, or better yet, find a new one each time to see if it’s too loud, if the coffee is great, or if it could be the perfect vibe. Act like a tourist in your own town on a solo date. Hit up a local jazz or comedy show. Check out a cool exhibit at a local museum, then treat yourself to an international food you haven’t eaten in months or years (Greek, Indian, Thai, Ethiopian). Hit up a thrift store, then create a TikTok lip-sync to rock the new look. Now ask yourself honestly, when was the last time you took yourself there?
There's something that shifts in you when you sit alone at a restaurant you'd normally save for a date and order the good wine anyway. You start to understand your own company. You notice what lights you up without someone else's reactions filtering it. You learn your own rhythm. Do you like to linger over dinner, or are you a two-course-and-done kind of person? Do you want music playing in the background of your life, or do you crave quiet? You cannot know these things about yourself if you're always waiting for someone else to show you around your own life.
This is not about romanticizing loneliness. It's about ending the practice of postponing your own joy until someone else witnesses it.
The relationship you have with yourself sets the terms for every other one.
I've come to believe that most of what we call heartbreak is a mirror. It shows us exactly where we abandoned ourselves to keep someone else close. We accepted less than we wanted. We shrank a part of ourselves to fit into someone else's comfort zone. We mistook intensity for intimacy. We believed what others said about us.
Solo dating interrupts that pattern before it starts. When you know what a good night feels like because you've given it to yourself, you stop mistaking crumbs for a meal. When you know your own worth because you've spent real time proving it to yourself through action, not just affirmation, you stop negotiating it down for anyone else.
This matters especially in queer relationships, where so many of us are still unlearning the belief that love must be earned through smallness. If you were told, explicitly or through silence, that who you are was somehow too much or not enough, the work of loving yourself first isn't optional. It's the foundation on which everything else gets built. Also, let’s start identifying why being mistreated might feel so familiar. Knowing you deserve more is part of the critical inner work to shape new beliefs with a knowing of your core self.
Getting to know yourself is not the waiting room before love
I think we've been sold a lie that says self-love is the thing you do while you wait for the real prize. Go to therapy, journal a little, take yourself to dinner, and then, once you've checked those boxes, love will arrive as a reward for your effort.
But that's backward. Self-love isn't preparation for love. It is love. It's the same muscle. The same capacity for attention, patience, generosity, and honesty that you'll need for a partner is being built every time you choose to be kind to yourself rather than critical, present with yourself rather than distracted, and curious about your own needs rather than dismissive of them.
When you finally do meet someone, you won't be bringing them a half-finished project, hoping they'll complete it. You'll be bringing them a whole person who already knows how to be loved well, because you've been practicing on yourself. Falling in love with a whole person is the prize. They know what they need and can articulate it. They understand what boundaries feel like and can uphold yours without pushback.
The love you're building toward
Somewhere out there is a version of you who has learned to trust their own company, who knows the difference between being alone and being lonely, who can sit across a candlelit table from themselves and feel nothing but ease. That version of you is the one who's ready for real love, not because you’ve fixed every flaw, but because you've stopped looking for someone else to complete a sentence; you are fully capable of finishing yourself. It allows you to feel this freedom that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s this feeling of, “I’ve got me.” I can’t get as hurt, because I’ve got me. I deserve reciprocity, not ghosting. I deserve kindness, not irritability. But if they can’t show up for me in the way that I know I deserve, then they are not for me. Because my person will be my peace, my person will also be curious. My person will understand why sometimes I stay quiet. My person will check on me and bring me a sweet treat from time to time.
Solo dating isn't the opposite of romance. It's the rehearsal for it. And if you do it right, by the time someone worthy shows up, you won't need them to make you whole. You'll just get to choose to share a life that was already full. Sharing from a place of abundance is where the juice is. Sharing your life with a whole person who wants you to know their nooks and crannies is where breathing rests. My hope is that you’re in your healing era and reading this gets you excited to intentionally spend time with yourself. Give yourself permission to let your guard down with yourself and decide what to do first! When you do, please tag me in your #solodate era. I’ll be here cheering you on.
Michele is a life coach, mom, and host of the Living OUT Loud podcast. Alongside her partner, Liz Burke, she co-founded Relationship Ready Lesbians, a community created to help women build deeper connections with themselves and one another.
Through workshops and group experiences, Michele and Liz create space for lesbians to explore healing, personal growth, and the patterns that shape their relationships. Their work is designed to complement therapy, spiritual practices, and each woman’s individual journey.
At the heart of it all is a simple belief: meaningful connection begins with the relationship we have with ourselves. When we become more aware of who we are, what we need, and how we show up, we create the possibility for healthier, more authentic relationships with others. Relationship Ready Lesbians is a place to do that work together, with curiosity, courage, and the understanding that none of us must have it all figured out to begin.
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