You have to be willing to be hurt and trust people not to hurt you.
But also go out and do regular activities with people who share similar interests. I’m extremely unromantic in terms of how friendships and relationships are built. Go out and spend time with people who are into the same stuff that you are into and eventually you will probably find someone in that group who you are romantically compatible with and who is open to a relationship at the same time you are.
Like there are tons of jokes about various communities being insular and socially incestuous but, like, the reason improv groups have all dated each other is because they spend a lot of time together doing things they like and that’s actually a pretty good foundation for a relationship.
Also, real talk: you have to be okay with being alone. You have to like yourself enough that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you were all you had. That is really difficult for a lot of people, but genuinely one of the ways to start liking yourself more is to go out and do things that you think fun and interesting people would do until you discover that you have tricked yourself into becoming a fun and interesting person.
But also take that with a grain of “I lucked into a long-term relationship at eighteen because I met someone cool at a coffee shop where I worked.”
(however, being regulars at a coffee shop did legitimately used to be a way to meet people, I know lots of people who met at the coffee shops I worked at and found their partners there, but that’s because coffee shops used to be the kind of place where people would go and hang out for hours after work every day and interact with new people and I’m not sure how much that’s a thing anymore, which is why you have to manufacture it by, like, joining an adult kickball league or getting deeply involved in your local larping scene or whatever)
If you’re so traumatized that you can’t trust people then you SHOULDN’T be dating, you should be working on getting yourself to a place where you are able to trust people. You can do this by spending a lot of time in low-stakes interactions and building friendships and acquaintanceships with people who you aren’t investing romantic interest in. Build trust with other people in a way that allows you some resilience if you do end up having your trust betrayed by a partner.
If you’re mentally ill to the point that you believe you can’t have interests or hobbies as a result of that mental illness, you ALSO shouldn’t be dating, and should be working on getting to a place where you are interested in the world around you and can enjoy doing things for the sake of doing them.
It’s not “nobody is going to want to date you if you don’t have hobbies” it’s “it is fucking terrible for you and for any potential partners if they are the only thing you have going in your life.”
Those are really really good indicators that you *aren’t* in a place where a relationship would be good for you. If that’s where you are, you SHOULD be alone because you need to work on being okay with yourself.
“I’m so depressed that I can’t have any hobbies” – my friend, you don’t need someone beside you in the lifeboat, you need to start bailing out the lifeboat.
“I’m too traumatized to trust people” – then why on earth would you open yourself up to the potential for further abuse by trying to date people who are interested in a relationship with no trust?
“You have to love yourself before you can love someone else” is trite advice that I don’t think is necessarily true, but you are not going to find good relationships if you are so alienated from yourself that you think you can’t have *interests.*
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