Sunsets
Hey! Alex here!!
When I started the Urban Dater, it was on a whim. I wanted to learn how SEO worked, so I wrote about something I had thought about. Dating.
Within months, the Urban Dater grew, and it grew. It became a popular blog in the dating and relationship niche. I appeared on the Huffington Post and was interviewed here and there based on this site's popularity.
the Urban Dater introduced me to other bloggers, people who became friends, and some of whom I'm still friends with today.
It was fun while it was fun.
I've always seen this website as a platform for folks to share their stories and heartaches. “If you bleed it, people will read it,” I often said. For a long time, that was true.
Today, this site has very few and infrequent contributors. And I haven't done much to market this website and Twitter, where I once was active and cultivated a small but enthusiastic community, a ghost town.
While this blog started as a place to share my thoughts, I can't do that here any longer. It's not safe for me to write here. Partly because I've dipped out of the dating scene (once again) and partly because I need to move on, and I can't do that by writing here anymore. I'm ready for the next act.
The truth is that I'm also not interested in continuing to maintain the Urban Dater. It's unlikely it will ever have a buyer, but I plan to Sunset this website like the Mid-South Raves forums did a couple of decades ago.
This site will go by the wayside, and I don't think anyone will care, and that's okay. Amid the countless paid/sponsored posts on this site, there are real peoples' stories of anguish, letting go, saying goodbye, finding love, and so on.
In the coming months, I'll likely decommission our site submissions tool and other functional items and focus on placing this site in “maintenance mode” (it kinda already is like that)
Coming to this decision, while sad, is also somewhat freeing. I've felt lighter the last few weeks, and I didn't notice that until a few days ago. I've dealt with many things that have been weighing me down, and it's starting to feel like I can untie that string from the rock and untether that balloon.
A lot of small, consistent changes and choices have brought me here. While I wouldn't say, I'm happy; I am happier than I've been in a long time. Happiness is a choice, which I hear and read all over the place. That phrase makes me fume because it's dismissive in its nature. What I feel is true for me is that becoming happier is the result of many small choices made consistently that, over time, can help result in more positive shit. Very eloquent of me. Right?
I'm looking at my work, myself, what I want, what I fear, and just trying to do the thing.
To those of you who have contributed to the Urban Dater. Thank you! Thank you to anyone who has given this website your time and attention.
I'll see you all at the next thing.
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