Having anxiety is bad enough in everyday life — say, when you're having a panic attack at a Fed-Ex Kinkos or popping benzos before a meeting with your boss. As for dating, it tends to make an already-awkward situation way worse.
1. You could have a panic attack at any moment. Especially if you're in a big crowd of people. One minute, you're having a great date at a free outdoor concert, and the next minute, your heart is pounding and you feel like you are trapped in a Ziploc bag. Crying and hyperventilating on a park bench for no reason apparent to anyone but you realllllly gets those dicks up!
2. You can't hide your nerves like some people can. "Playing it cool" is straight-up not in your repertoire. (At least, not in America. There's gotta be a country where "sitting at a bar staring into space and inevitably sweat-staining the pits of your expensive Madewell top while your brain moves 100 miles an hour" is considered playing it cool. Right?)
3. You have to plan way ahead to figure out your tranquilizer/wine situation. Anyone familiar with benzos (that's an #INSIDER'S term for anxiety-alleviating tranquilizers) knows that they don't mix well with alcohol. Best case scenario, you fall asleep. Worst case scenario, you black out and wake up at the Formica table at an Arbys in another state. But hey, at least you're not anxious anymore!
4. You're inevitably teased for your compulsive nervous habits. Mine is hair-twirling. Asking me to stop is like asking a normal human being to stop breathing, or stop talking loudly about politics at a party where nobody cares. Utterly fruitless.
5. You're never really excited for dates because you're too busy obsessing and being worried. And you're so worried about whether they'll like you that you barely pay any attention to whether you like them. Did you like him? It's hard to remember. He was tall, at least? Was he even tall?!
6. Your friends without anxiety don't get it and think you're being ridiculous. "It's just a date!" Yes, thank you for clearing that up, it IS a stupid thing to have anxiety about, because I do have an anxiety disorder.
7. You indulge in magical thinking, often consumer-based, before the date. ("You know what won't make me anxious? Buying and wearing this overpriced Gwynethy cardigan. NOW IS THE CARDIGAN OF MY DISCONTENT.")
8. If you go on a dinner date too early for your comfort level, you can hardly eat and the guy assumes you have an eating disorder. No! No! You'd be amazed at the amount of food I can consume once I'm comfortable around you! But for now, you scare the shit out of me, so I'm slowly nibbling on a lettuce leaf with fear in my eyes.
9. You drink to calm your nerves, and since you can't really eat (see above), you get really shitfaced really fast. At least you're not nervous anymore!
10. Oh, and if you forgot you took a Xanax earlier, you're on the floor. Even if you have pre-planned (#3), these things do slip your mind occasionally. Just to give you an idea of the potential catastrophe, on the side of my Klonapin bottle it says that mixing with alcohol may cause "erratic personality changes." Awesome. One glass of prosecco and I'll turn into Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.
11. Every time a guy doesn't text you back in the early stages of dating you assume the worst and immediately go into crisis mode. More than a normal person would.
Calm down. Take a Xanax. Watch Law & Order: SVU. That's what I do.
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