By Catrina Satterwhite
For some Dallas natives or implants, when you mention the topic of dating in Dallas you may hear responses like “it’s trash”, “challenging”, “not worth it”, etc. Yes, no one can generalize to that degree but you just may hear it. Some may tell you that you must leave Dallas to find a proper mate or even exit the country. Some have given up altogether. To add insult to injury, social media is saturated with relationship coaches that throw information down your throat like high-value women/men, how to be a submissive woman, owning your feminine energy, and looking for the three 6’s (makes six figures, six feet tall, six pack abs) in male candidates. So, there is a lot of information floating on the scene that may not be exactly helping, especially if you don’t like a rule book.
I had the opportunity to chat with Theeany Shannon who hosts the series appropriately called Dating in Dallas with Theeany, an Instagram Live that occurs every Tuesday at 8:30 PM. Theeany’s mission for Dating in Dallas is to bring a balanced perspective on love and relationships to the television and social media space and to bridge the widening gap between men and women through having fun and meaningful discussions, thus helping people heal and find love.
Theeany covers some topics that aren’t necessarily the regular run-of-the-mill topics. Oh, quite the contrary. She dives deep into topics like How to love a Black woman, how parents deal with your dating woes and being a strong Black woman.
Dating is a pretty hot topic on social media but the irony is that there are more people of this generation choosing not to marry and of course it makes you wonder if it’s because the dating part truly is the worst. According to Pew Research Center, in 2019, roughly 4- in- 10 adults (38%) ages 25-54 were unpartnered or living with a partner. Are dating perspectives generally worldwide or specifically an issue within our culture? But, that’s another topic for another day.
So how did Theeany come up with this amazing idea for a series? Well, for starters she’s not originally for Dallas, but she relocated here five years ago. She’s originally from New Jersey. She hit the dating scene pretty quickly after separating from whom she calls her “wusband”.
She started going live on her social media platform talking about her horrible dating experiences with her followers. A friend later suggested she make this a regular thing discussing her dating experiences as a Dallas implant because there were so many.
The lives started to gain traction and she’s been keeping it going ever since.
“I prayed about it. God if this is what you want me to do, I don’t want to just talk about horror stories. I want to get into the ins and outs of dating and what that looks like. And that’s how Dating in Dallas with Theeany was born,” she said.
Of course, I needed the tea on the types of dating woes she’s experienced.
“It was a lot of perpetrating. A lot of men were lying. They didn’t have the basic necessities that I thought an adult should have, even lying to me about being employed like let me call you back, just finishing up at my job and there was never a job. I felt like the ring leader at a circus. It was hard trying to find a genuine connection with someone who wasn’t out to sleep with you right away or men who had multiple children trying to find a mother for their children,” she said.
With Theeany coming from New Jersey, she found differences in the men in New Jersey versus Dallas men.
“As a plus-size woman, I am more well received here. When I first moved here, I was going out on dates every other day. They like some meat on their bones. To some men, I was just considered thick, not plus-sized. But, I have to say that I found more maturity on the East Coast. The men were a little more cultured or exposed to culture and the arts. They had more knowledge of current events and politics. Of course, this could have changed in five years as more political and cultural topics are arising these days. This is just my personal experience,” she says.
But her experience isn’t uncommon as many of these types of experiences have been heard from her audience as well. So why is dating in Dallas as well as other locations so rough?
“When speaking with my audience, men and women, I hear their stories, and I hear their hearts and desires. They want genuine, true connection. They want to support and be supported. On the flip side everything they say and do is antithetical to their desires. A large part of what I’m seeing is people showing up in dating situations out of their brokenness, out of what they’ve been through, past traumas from childhood, rejection from high school, and divorced parents. It’s heartbreaking which is why I want to change the focus of Dating in Dallas to not just talking about horror stories but helping people to see and to heal and then find love which is the motto of the show now, let’s heal and then find love. You can’t expect to be in a loving, whole healthy relationship if you are not whole and healthy,” she stresses.
Theeany is a huge advocate for doing the work whether that’s counseling or therapy. When dating she suggests that you ask yourself if you can be with this person just as they are at this time. This will help you weed out and save precious time. In her opinion, some people date recreationally and not with an intention that won’t be an aligned relationship opportunity.
As you can see, Dating in Dallas with Theeany is a hit for a reason, She’s real, raw, and carving a place in Dallas to help the dating world heal one Instagram Live at a time.
Be sure to hop on Theeany’s next Live on Instagram to have fun and kumbaya with like minds.