Have you ever been getting to know someone and started noticing little things about them... only to realize the bigger thing you needed to pay attention to was what was happening to you?
Yeah.
Enter Negative Nick.
Paragraphs, Alaska & Mutual
I met Nick through Mutual, an LDS dating app.
We started messaging, and almost immediately we discovered something fun we had in common: Alaska.
We both had connections there, which gave us plenty to talk about.
And this guy could MESSAGE.
If you've been following my dating journey for a while, you know I'm a paragraph girl.
Ask me a simple question and there's a decent chance you'll get a small novel in response.
So when Nick started matching my paragraphs with paragraphs of his own, I thought:
Okay...finally, someone who can keep up with me.
We messaged for a while, and eventually I decided it was time to actually meet him.
Instead of immediately doing a one-on-one date, I invited him to a watch party with my roommates.
It felt like an easy, safe way for us to meet in person, and it also gave my roommates a chance to get to know him.
He came over, and honestly, he was cute.
We talked, hung out, and things seemed fine.
But I started noticing something.
Nick was really negative.
Hmm...Interesting
Okay, maybe not every sentence ended with something negative...
But it sure felt like a lot of them did.
He'd tell a story, and somehow it would end negatively.
We'd talk about something going on in his life, and he'd find the downside.
He'd talk about himself, and there would often be some negative comment attached.
At first, I didn't think:
RED FLAG! RUN!
It was more of a...
Hmm...interesting.
So I filed it away in the back of my brain.
Let's keep watching this.
Because I've learned that one interaction doesn't always tell you everything about someone.
Maybe he'd had a bad day.
Maybe he was nervous.
Maybe I was reading him wrong.
So I kept getting to know him.
Then we hung out again.
And...
same thing.
The negativity was still there.
More Little Pieces of Information
As we kept talking, I learned something else about Nick.
He really liked horror movies and watched R-rated movies.
For some people, that wouldn't matter at all.
For me, it did.
I'd made a personal decision not to have that kind of media in my life, and it was something I wanted to share with the person I eventually married.
It wasn't about deciding Nick was a bad person because he watched different things than I did.
It simply showed me that we had a difference in something that mattered to me.
Another little piece of information.
Still, I kept giving things a chance.
After hanging out a couple of times, we eventually went on an actual date.
And we went...
thrifting.
Now, if you know me, you know this should have been PERFECT.
I LOVE thrifting.
Give me a thrift store and enough time to wander around looking for random treasures, and I'm perfectly happy.
Except with Nick...
I wasn't.
And that's actually one of the things I remember most about that date.
Nothing terrible happened.
I can't point to one specific moment and say:
THAT. That's why.
I just remember doing something I normally loved and somehow feeling uncomfortable doing it with him.
That stuck with me.
Then I Started Noticing Something Else
After our date, Nick left on a trip for about a week, which gave me some space to think.
And by this point in my dating journey, I had started doing something differently.
I'd made God my dating coach.
Instead of praying:
Please tell me if this is the person I'm supposed to marry,
I'd started asking a much smaller question:
“Should I keep getting to know this person, or is it time to let this go?”
That question took so much pressure off dating for me.
I didn't need to know the ending.
I just needed help knowing the next step.
So while Nick was gone, I thought about our interactions and prayed about whether I should keep getting to know him.
And as I did, something became really clear.
The biggest thing bothering me wasn't actually Nick's negativity.
It was mine.
I started noticing that after spending time with him, I was becoming more negative too.
And that scared me a little.
I Didn't Like Who I Was Becoming
There had been a time in my life when I was very much a glass-half-empty kind of girl.
I could find what was wrong.
I could worry.
I could focus on what wasn't working.
And I'd worked really hard to change that part of myself.
I'd worked on becoming more positive, hopeful, grateful, and uplifting.
Not in a fake “everything is wonderful all the time!” kind of way.
Life is hard, and sometimes things genuinely stink.
But I didn't want negativity to be the lens through which I saw my life anymore.
And suddenly, while getting to know Nick, I could feel some of that old version of myself starting to creep back in.
That was the moment things clicked.
This wasn't just about asking:
Do I like him?
I needed to ask another question:
Do I like who I am when I'm around him?
And my answer was becoming pretty clear.
I didn't.
That didn't mean Nick was a terrible person.
It didn't mean I was better than him.
We simply seemed to bring out something in each other—or at least something in me—that I didn't want to keep feeding.
And after praying about it, I felt like I had my answer.
It was better to end this early.
Ending It Before There Was More to End
When Nick came home from his trip, I asked if we could meet and talk.
I told him I'd genuinely enjoyed getting to know him, but I wanted to be honest that I wasn't interested in pursuing anything romantic.
I was happy to be his friend, but I didn't want to continue dating.
He was disappointed.
But he understood.
And that was it.
No dramatic breakup.
No horrible ending.
No giant explosion.
Just two people who had spent some time getting to know each other and one person realizing:
This isn't something I want to keep pursuing.
Looking back, I'm actually grateful I listened when I did.
What Negative Nick Taught Me
Nick taught me another question I think is worth asking while dating:
Who am I becoming around this person?
Do I feel more like myself?
Do I feel encouraged to grow?
Do I like how I treat other people after I've been around them?
Do I feel more hopeful, peaceful, confident, kind, adventurous, faithful, or motivated?
Or am I slowly becoming someone I worked really hard not to be anymore?
Because the people we let close to us influence us.
And I was learning that choosing a partner wasn't only about finding someone I liked.
I also wanted to find someone I liked myself around.
Negative Nick wasn't a bad guy.
In fact, there were things about him I genuinely enjoyed.
But getting to know him helped me recognize something important about the kind of relationship I wanted.
I didn't need someone who pretended life was perfect.
I needed someone who could acknowledge the hard things without letting the hard things become everything.
And maybe that was the biggest lesson from this particular Dating Detour.
I started out paying attention to his negativity.
But the real sign was when I started noticing it in myself.
And that was something I couldn't ignore.
Have you ever noticed yourself changing around someone?
Maybe nothing about them seemed dramatically wrong, but you started realizing you didn't quite like the version of yourself that showed up around them.
I'd love to hear what you noticed. ❤️
Negative Nick taught me that compatibility isn't only about whether I enjoy someone's company.
It's also about what that relationship brings out in me.
Because I don't just want to like the person I'm dating.
I want to like who I'm becoming while I'm dating them.
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