21F Dating is so tiring and stressful and I am so sick of it

I (21F) struggle so much with dating and I am wondering whether it is even normal to get exhausted by it. I am currently talking to a few guys and all of them honestly frustrate me a lot. The rest of my life is very fast-paced so I get annoyed when these guys play games and don't text me back within a reasonable amount of time, don't keep their promises, and send me stuff that is honestly just creating more stress in my life. Like this man I have been talking to has kept suggesting we go out to dinner, but he keeps ghosting me for days and then rescheduling. So I cut him off. Another man told me that we could meet today and now it's 3 PM and he has not confirmed anything, it's been an entire day. And another guy gave me his number and told me to text him so I did immediately and he ghosted.

I have actually never been on a date or kissed anyone before because I've never actually had a man follow through with anything. Never been past the talking stage. I tell every single man that I would be happy to call them/facetime so we can make plans to go out, but they just want to keep sending me random shit all day, never spend quality time together, or actually get to know me.

I am a full time math and physics student. This summer I am taking two courses which is 12 hours of lecture per week with weekly assignments, each have a midterm and a final/final paper. Plus I'm doing a full time engineering internship with weekly meetings/presentations. I work closely with a grad student and another undergrad and get messages from them all the time about lab info and projects so I try to text them back ASAP. Also my supervisor tends to do things last minute and if she wants me to send her something I have to drop everything and send it. My group is aiming for publication so I have a lot of ML/data analysis/lab work to do. I am trying to get straight A's in my classes as I am aiming for a competitive master's program.

I also have 3 close friends that text me a lot and go out with me every other week to cafes/brunch/restaurants. So I also have to help decide on a place and time and also reply to their daily updates. One of my friends recently had her phone stolen and did not qualify for a uni sports team she wanted to do and another friend recently broke up with her bf so I had to support both of them through that. And my long-distance friend recently reached out because we are planning a trip together a month from now so I had to send her some places to visit and suggest a few brunch spots.

Is it normal to have this much stress around dating? Why does it feel like having another part-time job? I have always hoped that I could date someone that actually wanted to see me and someone I genuinely looked forward to making plans with, but now it feels like I'm chasing these men all the time just to get a reply and it is so tiring. Do people actually have partners that make their lives easier?

Posted Jul 10, 2026, 7:29 PM UTC

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