Dating with chronic illness

[MewithME]

I got MEcfs in 2021 after covid and my last relationship broke down just before then. I haven't bothered with it at all since then.

Occasionally, I have a window shop (ha !) on dating apps as I'm still registered from ages ago. I don't know what possessed me but I swiped right and now have been chatting to a guy who's interesting. It's rare I would find anyone remotely interesting or attractive on there. But... I feel like I'm wasting his time and I don't know what I'm doing. Part of me wants to see where it goes and part of me thinks I'm being ridiculous and I can't date now as I rarely have energy for anything other than work and parenting.

Should I just explain and bow out gracefully? I don't know that I want to date and don't know that I don't.

Partly still think I'm also hungry up on my ex so maybe I'm testing my boundaries a bit.

You'd think I'd know better by my age but chronic illness has been the hardest thing to come to terms with 🙈

I was diagnosed over 20 years ago. Changed my life beyond recognition and hid away from the world.
Ten years in, decided I would like to try and meet someone and did. He was very understanding for a hot minute and then got bored. Not after attempting to ‘cure’ me with some whacky programme he’d devised. Which did more harm than good.* At some point he said it wasn’t a condition, just invented so ‘weird’ people could drop out of life.
As you can imagine, it put me off dating full stop. I was so devastated, not because he was the right person but because I had hoped somebody might understand.
Three years later I was introduced to someone by a mutual friend.
Several years later - still together! It’s not always easy as my condition has deteriorated but we work around it.
My advice would be don’t give up, but if you are vulnerable at the moment, give yourself a break.
I met my other half after I’d been to therapy, and also had started to build my own life again. It’s not a big life, but good friends and ways of living in the world.
Good luck! As my nan used to say, there is a pan for every lid!
Also - it’s also perfectly fine to be single. I was for many years, it has its upsides. There is nothing worse than being alone in a relationship.
*Said person changed careers from being an engineer to being…. a life coach! God help his clients they are going to need it 😂

Thank you v much @PeggyMitchellsCameo for your lovely reply. I am ok on my own. Not looking as such. Just a moment of what the heck and then matched with the guy and accidentally stumbled into chatting a bit. Not sure I want to try and date or not really. Probably tending towards not, as I'm so tired but then I don't have many people in my world and wonder if I'm just not making the most of my life by not even trying.

I don't want to mess anyone around either.

Glad you met someone ☺️