What Creating An Intentional-Dating Course Taught Me About My Own Patterns

Dating with intention means not losing yourself in pursuit of connection, something many of us are craving more than ever in the midst of a loneliness epidemic. Platonic, romantic, familial, or community-based, we’re searching for love in all its forms, but the emotional energy to actually pursue it often feels scarce.

That contradiction is at the heart of modern dating: we’re more self-aware than ever, fluent in therapy-speak and boundaried to the brim. But as we all know, we’re also more burnt out than ever. We’re doing more, working more, stretched to our very ends. And by the time we open the apps or show up to a first date, it’s often with the very last spoon we have left.

I’ve felt that contradiction deeply. As a South Asian woman dating in mostly white spaces, I always knew on some level that I was "othered," even if I didn’t know the word for it yet. There was always a sense of being looked at differently, exoticised, or treated like I was a character in someone else’s narrative. In one of my most painful adult relationships, someone I loved — who said he loved me too — told me he couldn’t see a future with me because I didn’t have blonde hair, blue eyes, or white skin. But he still wanted me around. That kind of contradiction buries itself in you. It’s hard to trust a romantic connection when you’ve been made to feel like someone’s compromise.

After that breakup a few years ago, I did what a lot of people do: I tried to outrun the grief. I re-downloaded the apps. I told myself I was ready. But the truth was, I wasn’t dating to connect, I was dating to distract myself. I was looking for validation, not partnership, and while I didn’t know it at the time, I was still spiralling. Still asking questions like: Am I enough?

That’s part of what makes dating today so exhausting. It’s not just the logistics of swiping or texting or timing, it’s the psychological weight. We’re doing all of this while trying to protect our peace. And sometimes that becomes its own performance.

Which brings me to Tinder Love & Care, a free online course I helped co-create with Tinder and Sera Bozza, launched through their School of Swipe. TLC is for anyone who’s ever felt unsure, stuck, overwhelmed, or depleted by dating culture. And if you’re anything like me (or literally any of my friends), that’s probably you.

When we started building TLC, I was in a very different stage of my love life than I am now, and by the time we finished, everything had shifted. It forced me to take stock of how I’d shown up in relationships before, what I tolerated, what I gave too much of and what I always avoided. It also made me think about how heartbreak isn't just a rite of passage, but something that can rewire how you trust and connect, but most importantly, how you show up in your own life.

The online course takes about thirty minutes to complete and is split into four parts: Protecting Your Peace, Dating in All Directions, Green Flags & Ghosting, and Supporting Others. It covers everything from setting boundaries to navigating ambiguity to recognising the difference between your gut and your fear. And it’s not prescriptive, it’s reflective. There’s no “wait three months before dating again” advice. Instead, it asks: Why do you want to date right now? Are you ready to be seen? Are you ready to see someone else?

I think that’s one of the questions I care about most: Am I dating to connect or am I dating to distract myself? I’ve answered that both ways over the years. And I’ve learned that it’s okay to need connection, but it’s dangerous to seek it without checking in on your intentions.

Right now, if you were to ask, my relationship status is a little bit complicated. It doesn't have a clean label in the traditional sense, but it is a situation that’s taught me that love doesn’t always look like the synchronicity we see in movies. It can also look like two people moving with the same care and respect for one another, even if the pace and location are different. It’s also taught me how to hold my boundaries with compassion, which is one of the hardest but most rewarding things we can do for ourselves. How to communicate honestly when I’m overwhelmed and how to stay present and safe when I want to run (which is very often).

Globally, I see dating playing out so differently across cultures. I travel a lot, and in Australia especially, the relaxed lifestyle bleeds into our dating approach, sometimes in ways that help, sometimes in ways that harm. We ghost, we coast, we keep things breezy. But what I’ve really noticed across the board is that dating is just one more thing on people’s overflowing plates.

That’s why I believe in TLC. It’s not about “fixing” your love life. It’s about giving you the space to pause and ask yourself: Am I bringing my real self into this, and am I being honest with myself about what I want?

One of the most affirming things I took from helping to build the course is that we don’t need to be “healed” to date. We just need to be honest and intentional. We need to show up in society in every aspect, not just because we’re lonely, but because we’re ready, or at least curious to see what’s possible when we don’t abandon ourselves in the process.

TLC helped me name the things I hadn’t fully processed. It reminded me that dating is allowed to matter. That romantic love, in all its forms, impacts how we show up in the world. And that when something goes wrong, it can change your brain, your body, your spirit. So much of this journey for me has been learning how to be kinder to myself. Dating in the therapy era is weird. It’s language and reflection and questions and spirals and hope. And at its best, it’s a mirror. One that asks: Can you still be yourself even when someone else is in the room?

Because every single one of us at the end of the day is just trying to take care of the person they know best. And yeah — we’re still trying to hook up too. But we’re learning how to do both without losing ourselves in the process.