The following intro was written on January 26, 2017–

January 22, 2017 is an important day in the life of Kara because it is the day I first became someone’s girlfriend. Before this date, I had been single my entire life, so my head and heart had to go through a transition before it felt real.

The following is what happened during the days, weeks, and months after I became a girlfriend.

Why am I writing this post?

Well, since I was struggling with transitioning from being single to being a girlfriend, I googled “transitioning from singleness to dating” and I couldn’t really find anything helpful that applied to my specific situation.

You see, it’s not like my boyfriend and I are starting from square one. We’ve known each other for about nine years and have been best friends for 4.5 years out of those eight.

And somewhere over the years, we started liking each other. We’ve slowly progressed to the point where it made sense to call what we were doing “dating,” but that still didn’t make it any easier in my head.

So many questions bombarded me in regards to dating that I never thought of while single. “When do I eventually start to go to church with him?” “When will he hold my hand?” “Can I tell him I like him whenever I want now?” “What does ‘dating’ even look like??”

So, this post is the journey I took during the first few weeks of him and I dating (written as things happened for the most part for the most transparency and realness)… and hopefully I will be able to answer a few of those questions by the end of this.

Here we go…

Day 0:

Caleb asked me out today! (Read how here.)

The rest of the afternoon was a blur.

Tonight I asked him if we were “dating” or “going on dates.” He said he figured “going on dates” is for people to get to know each other, and since we’ve been best friends for years, we were beyond that.

So he said we were dating, and then said, “Shall we make it Facebook official right now?”
“Sure!”

So we did… and our friends started freaking out, because they’ve been waiting for us to officially start dating for FOREVER, apparently. But that’s a story for a different day.

Day 1:

First full day of being a girlfriend.

I woke up this morning, feeling like yesterday had been a dream. So I hopped over to Facebook to see if we’re really official.

We are!

Yay!

Caleb and I had lunch today. My brain still felt foggy, as if it were all a dream. It hasn’t hit me yet.

I also asked him if I could make it “Instagram official” by posting a pic of the two of us LOL! (He hates pictures, and thus never does Instagram.) He said yes! Yay!

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Batman and Anna: The best of friends and officially official. 😊💗

A post shared by Kara | Joy Because Grace (@kara_beth17) on Jan 23, 2017 at 5:08pm PST

And again, my friends’ comments cracked me up LOL!

Day 4:

It still feels like a dream.

Day 7:

One week later, and it’s FINALLY no longer feeling so much like a dream.

My aunt died today, so I went over to his apartment to hang out for a bit and take my mind off of the sadness. We watched a TV show and he made us tomato soup and grilled cheeses.

This is the sort of hanging out we would do back before we were dating… so it’s not really a date LOL!

But then again, what is a “date?” Is it just hanging out??

Day 13:

Our first official date. :) :) :)

We went to the zoo, and had so much fun! Yay! :)

It’s still somewhat weird to think that he’s now my boyfriend in addition to being one of my best friends. Or that we can go places, just the two of us, and it is okay… because I’ve gone to the zoo with him before, but with a few of our other friends too.

I like hanging out just us. It feels normal :)

He agreed to take a picture with me! Yay!! :)

Day 14:

Today Caleb and I hung out with my roomie and her boyfriend.

And through watching the four of us interact together as a group and then individually as couples, I noticed that there is a difference between how Caleb and I act towards each other (who just started dating two weeks ago) vs. the two of them (who are nearing engagement).

Well, duh, but let me explain a bit :)

I once heard someone say “Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.”

At the time when I heard that saying, it was used in the context of blogging. I loved that quote; it helped me adjust how I viewed Joy Because Grace at the beginning. No longer was I comparing, say, my 30 Facebook page likes to someone else’s 3000. I realized I wasn’t there yet, but maybe that time will come.

Well, my roommate and her boyfriend have been dating for a while now, so of course their relationship would look different than Caleb and mine. They are more open about how they feel about each other, whereas Caleb and I are more reserved right now.

In fact, not only is there a time-difference, but there’s also a people-difference. He and I are not them. They are not us.

I’m glad I’ve associated the above quote to dating. I think it will help me not rush ahead into the future and the realm of someday.

Taking it slow is a good thing. Our relationship can slowly progress. Besides, this is entirely new to both of us. It’s a good thing we’re going slow. ;)

Something unrelated–

I don’t know what to wish for anymore! Lol! At 11:11 or on dandelions… As lame as it sounds, my wish for the longest time was that Caleb would ask me out. Eventually, I realized that was kinda a lame wish, so I transitioned to “wishing” (more like praying) that Jesus will help me become contently single.

But now when 11:11 comes around or I see a dandelion, I don’t know what to wish for. So I just stare at the clock or the flower, thinking of something to wish for as opposed to when it was so automatic.

I’m sure I’ll think of something, eventually. This is just something I wasn’t expecting to run into LOL!

Day 23:

Today was Valentine’s Day.

As strange as it may sound, it was kinda weird not being single on Valentine’s Day. I’ve never spent Valentine’s Day with a guy unless you count my dad and brother.

I guess this is just another one of the unexpected surprises that came with now dating. I kinda missed being single on Valentine’s Day. My family and I have some Valentine’s Day traditions that I look forward to every year. (I went home from college yesterday so my family and I could do our Valentine’s Day traditions then.)

Please don’t get me wrong- Caleb and I had fun; I love hanging out with him! :) It was just strange not being able to hang out with my family or with my girlfriends because he and I had plans. And it was even stranger that I missed it.

I also felt sorta guilty for having Valentine’s Day plans with him.

For years I have watched as my friends went on Valentine’s dates with their boyfriends and felt twinges of jealousy when I didn’t have a significant other to spend the day with. I was afraid I’d be making my single friends feel sad if I advertised he and I had a date for that evening. So didn’t say anything unless asked.

I know it’s not my responsibility to make everyone happy- or, at least, I’m learning this- but I still don’t want to rub it in people’s faces that I’m in a relationship. That’s not cool. And it’s something that really annoyed me when other girls do that and I swore to myself when I was single that someday, if I ever had a boyfriend, I would try not to rub his and my relationship in other people’s faces.

Anywho.

For all of you who were single on Valentine’s Day- I hope you had fun today! You never know when your last Valentine’s Day as a single will be. {But then again, you might not be as sentimental as I am so you might not miss your singleness on Valentines Day lol!}

Our Valentine’s Day dinner before we went to see Lego Batman

Day 53:

Oh my goodness.

I feel like THE most awkward girlfriend. Of all time.

When it’s just Caleb and me, or Caleb and me and my roommate, or Caleb and my family, I’m great! Totally normal. Everything feels natural.

BUT when he and I are around a big group of people, such as mutual family friends, THEN I feel awkward. I don’t know how to act haha!

Let me back up.

So, Caleb and I have been friends since middle school, right? And he and I went to the same church until we graduated high school. All of our church friends and their families and our families have get-togethers on a regular basis.

I love those get-togethers! …But nowadays I don’t know what to do at them haha!

Do I stay at his side throughout the evening? Seems like that would be annoying…

Can I chill with my girlfriends who I haven’t seen in a while, for the majority of the time? Would he/other people think I had forgotten about him?

Or at a movie.

If we all (20ish people) go to see a movie together, in the past I’d always sit in between my two “sisters” (these two girls who I’ve practically grown up with since they were born since our moms are best friends).

But now where-to-sit is much more complicated. Can I sit in between my two sisters? Do I need to sit by Caleb? (The latter is what Mom says I should do.)

Ugg.

I’m so awkward!

I’m sure I hope someday I won’t be so awkward. That maybe I’ll know how to relax around him and other family friends without overanalyzing my every move.

But, I’m not quite there yet. *Sighs*

I think this does go back to never having a boyfriend before. I’m not sure how to be a girlfriend and I’m afraid all my family friends who have known us for ages will judge us on how “couple-y” we are. [And I don’t really want to seem “couple-y” because that could be awkward for 3rd (or 20th) parties.]

So I overanalyze.

And forget to relax.

And think that everyone is better at relationships than I am.

**Thinks to self: This post has become deeply personal. I may not publish it for a while LOL!**

**But then again, Kara, you may never be ready to publish this post…**

(Please tell me I’m not the only one who has conversations with oneself.)

Again, I share all of this with you in the hopes that if you’ve never had a boyfriend before and you run into these struggles as you transition from singleness to dating, that you’ll know you’re not alone. I’ve been there too :) 

Also- I had to add a “counting days since” app on my phone so I could now how many days he and I had been dating LOL! 

Day 1,209:

(AKA- 3 years and 3 months-ish. I still use my counting app to keep track of days LOL!)

I think it is finally time to schedule this post to be published.

Reading through these entries made me laugh, as I haven’t looked at this post since March 14, 2018 (according to my WordPress editor).

Dear Past Kara,

Congrats on your new relationship!

You seem to be overthinking things a lot LOL! So let me help you now that I have a tiny bit of experience with dating Caleb. 😉

To answer the “what is a “date?” Is it just hanging out??” question I asked on day 7:

Yes, past-self. It is just hanging out. Eventually, you’ll stop questioning and categorizing “This is a date, this is not a date.” It’ll become just normal day to day life.

Sometimes your dates will look like making plans and buying tickets or making reservations. Most times your dates will look like him studying for seminary while you grade quizzes and tests. And you’ll love those dates just as much as the more adventurous ones because you’ll find that you love being in his presence even if you’re doing “nothing.”

On day 23, your first Valentine’s Day while dating, you realized that you don’t want to “rub it in people’s faces that [you’re] in a relationship.”

You will stick to that goal and rarely post about your relationship on social media. And it’s not because you’re ashamed of him or y’all’s relationship at all, but because you want to keep your adventures with him private and just between the two of you (and your best friends who you’ll gush too after your fun dates LOL).

And on day 53 when you felt so insanely awkward because you didn’t know how to act around him when in a big group of friends?

Don’t worry, the awkwardness will fade. Soon at those parties with mutual family friends, you will hang out with your girlfriends some and with him some. It won’t be awkward because you’ll no longer be concerned with other people judging your relationship and what it looks like.

You’ll be confident in the two of you and unconcerned with other’s opinions about y’all.

Hang in there, past self. I promise it gets better.

Love,

You three years from now.

And now I have a question for you dear reader-

If you have dated before or are dating now, what was it like for you when you started dating?

If you’ve never dated before, what fears or concerns do you have about dating?

Let me know either in a comment or DM me on Instagram!

Posted by Kara Beth & filed under Dating. This post has 6 comments.