One Year, Two Suitcases, Seventeen First Dates: The Highs, Lows, and WTFs of Travel Dating
In the Fall of 2023, I traveled around Europe and went on dates with 5 men (read about that here). I had such a fun time that I decided to try it again, starting the official Romance by Rail project in March of 2024. I would travel from Paris to Istanbul mostly by train, stopping in cities along the way, working remotely for my consulting company, Tend Collective, and trying to find a date in each city. My ultimate goal was to find a soul-mate type life-partner.
Me at the Orient Express train station, Istanbul, Türkiye, October 2024.
Technically 1 suitcase, 1 duffel bag, and 1 backpack.
My intentions were to:
stay curious,
cultivate gratitude,
make solid plans, but be flexible and go with the flow,
talk to strangers, and
prioritize staying in and working at (coworking offices, for example) places where I can meet and talk to people.
Between August 2023 and the end of March 2024, I met 17 men for in-person dates. I chatted with countless more online and was approached many times in person in public. In the summaries, everyone is “John #” to keep everyone anonymous but “John” was in the the language of the country they’re from. I wrote about a total of 22 “Johns” and 4 pre-project “Johns” but I probably chatted with 3x that number that never resulted in a date or being included in a write-up. August 2023 - March 2024 were the pre-dates (before RxR project) and Year 1 of the project was March 2024 to March 2025. I’ll put all these dates together for a “Year 1 Summary” here.
Get all caught up here:
Romance x Rail project page with intentions, route, inspiration, and recent blog posts
Part 1: France to Istanbul by train (dates in Switzerland, Hungary, and Bulgaria)
Part 2: Türkiye (dates in Istanbul, Cappadocia, and Antalya)
Part 3: Norway and France (dates in France)
Part 4: France and a shot at love (more France!)
Fall 2023: The Trip that Inspired the Creation of Romance x Rail (dates in Spain, Poland, Slovenia, and Croatia)
Wrap-Up Summaries
I dated 17 men from August 2023 to March 2025. This is a rate of exactly 1 date per month! (I honestly think this is kind of weak—I could do better!)
When did the dates cluster?
2023
August - I
September - recovering from broken ribs
October - I
November - I
December - II
2024
January
February
March
April - III
May - III
June - I
July - III
August - II
September
October
November
December
2025
January
February
March
-
In summary, once I started my journey in March of 2024, I made 12 dates happen in 5 months. In September I committed to Jean 1 and stopped going on new dates. We broke up in December and I took early 2025 to mend a broken heart.
Professions - what did they do for work?
Architect, designer, or engineer (of physical things) - III
Software engineer or data analysis (coding-based) - III
Editorial & Visual Storytellers - II
Government (internal and foreign affairs) - II
Physicist - I
Finance/banking advisor - I
Personal assistant - I
Tech start-up entrepreneur - I
Athlete/Coach - I
Medical doctor - I
Lawyer - I
-
So, a big engineer/designer trend, even though I mentioned that my friend KK said “No” to my dating these types (read that here).
Deal Breakers
Did they read books? (Not reading books is a deal breaker for me.)
Yes - IIIII III (8)
No - II (2)
It didn’t come up (does this mean it’s a no?) - IIIII I (6)
📚 🏆 Well-Read Award: Jean 1
There were men who said “I’m reading x book,” but then couldn’t really converse about the ideas in the book. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the slight language barrier.
Jean 1, with whom I got into a relationship, read books, talked about books, and we often spent evenings sitting in his living room, reading our respective books. So, Jean 1 wins the “Well-Read Award,” and it’s probably a main reason I decided to keep dating him and get serious.
When we first started dating, he shared that he had read one of my favorite therapy/self-help books, No Bad Parts, by the founder of Internal Family Systems therapy, Richard Schwartz, which was appealing to me. Jean 1’s bookshelf:
Jean 6 gets runner-up. We never talked about specific books per se but we talked endlessly about ideas—the most interesting ideas! The reading was implied.
No surprise that French men were the intellectuals!
Would they hold hands?
I need my boyfriend to hold hands with me! This was often irrelevant since most of these were first dates.
Out of the 17 men, I went on second dates or more with only 4. But then you may remember that Ivan 16 and I sort of instantly fell in love, so we also held hands, so I’m including him. So, of these 5:
Great hand-holder: III (Jean 1, Ivan 16, and Can P2)
Medium:
Wouldn’t hold hands: II (Jean 6, Can 14)
🤝🏻 🏆 Hand-holder award: Can P2
Honestly, when people ask me why I live in Turkey, I can’t say, “Well, in the fall of 2023 I met and had a whirlwind romance with a Turkish man who held my hand so lovingly that it healed at least a year of my trauma and I’ve been chasing that high ever since,” but that’s somewhere close to the truth.
On Not Holding Hands…
Towards the end of my week-long love affair with Jean 6, he asked if I saw a future with him, and I said, “No, because you don’t hold hands.” “Are you joking?” he asked. “No.” And I was and I wasn’t…
With Can 14, on our second date, after dinner, we went to a pub to watch one of the Eurocup soccer games, and he wouldn’t hold my hand while we were sitting there watching. “This is OVER,” I thought. But I didn’t tell him that.
Were they Athletic?
I realized this was pretty important because our lifestyles should overlap. I prefer to always be moving. My activity of choice is trail-running, but I could be convinced to try other movement-based activities.
Seemed to work out a lot: IIII
Worked out sometimes: III
Seemed to probably not work out much: IIIII IIII
I would put myself in the “work out a lot” category. I run 20-40 miles a week and when given the choice, will choose stand-up paddle boarding, hiking, cycling, or yoga over other activities.
🤾🏻🏆 Most Athletic Award: Janos 5
Janos 5 was a competitive swimmer and triathlete. He talked a lot about the swims and races coming up on his calendar. “It’s too bad you’re leaving and we can't go trail running together,” he said. I wondered, though, if all of these competitions were the #1 focus of his life and he had no room for a partner. I’ll never know…
But I would have loved a trail running date, that’s for sure! One of my ex-partners and I used to go trail running a lot together and I loved it.
👩🏻❤️💋👨🏻🏆 Best Date Award: Jean 6
There were so many dates that felt really good, so it’s hard to choose!
But I have to pick the night with Jean 6, where we watched the Olympic games at a big viewing area at the Trocadero in Paris with 2 of his friends. Everything was just right: the weather was perfectly warm but not too hot. Jean 6 brought me the cutest gift: tiny sandwiches wrapped carefully in bright Mexican pink paper. I didn’t really date many thoughtful men—men who thought in advance if they could do something extra that would make me feel happy. Jean 6 was very thoughtful, and he knew all the best things. I stayed at his place many evenings, and in the morning, he would always think of the very best place to get a croissant and coffee in the morning that I would enjoy.
☢️🏆 Worst Date: Janez P4
You may remember my sharing that the date with the Slovenian guy was a bust. Read about that here.
It was a screening issue on my part—I had misread his texts as being clever and sarcastic, only to find out he was being dense and literal. Lesson learned! Even though this was an awkward date, he still showed me that he was listening to who I was as a person, offering to show me the anarchist block in Ljubljana. So even this “bad date” was with a man who somehow understood a part of my essence. Trauma expert and author of The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, often talks about how good it feels to be seen and known. “Being known, being seen, being respected, being listened to is terribly important.” Even my worst date was not that bad!
👻 Ghosted?
The only date to ghost me was Jean 1 on our very first scheduled date, the first week of my RxR official adventure in March ‘24. I wish I could go back in time and believe him for who he showed me he was. Maya Angelou’s famous quote says, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
He ended up ghosting me after being together for 4 months, refusing to talk to me as a way of breaking things off. I had already been living with him, helping him parent his 11-year-old, met his dad, and we had plans for me to move in more of my things the following month. We were even starting to look at homes for sale to see if we wanted to buy something together and start new. But when I traveled back to California for the holidays and we were apart for 2 weeks, he vanished.
People who can’t say, “Hey I’m so sorry, I can’t meet up even though we made plans,” are the same people who can’t say, “Hey, I’m so sorry, I’ve had a change of heart about our relationship.” Lesson learned.
The German guy who left me on unread after our night of talking until the sun came up…I deleted his contact from my phone. At some point he was suggested as a FB friend I deleted that prompt. Good riddance!
Did I ghost anyone? I would never. But Can 14 and I just faded out. We just never texted each other again after our second date.
Stayed in Touch - Who Still Texts Me?
The strangest follow-up text I got was from Ioannis 8. He texted me a lot after our fun date. I was curious if he would ask me about trying to meet again. He was not that far from me in Sofia while I was in Istanbul.
One night he texted me, “Hey can I ask you something?”
“Oh, here it is,” I thought. “He’s going to see about things moving forward.”
I prompted him to shoot.
“Have you ever been in a threesome?”
Oh. It was like that.
I mentally put him in the category of “most definitely not my guy” and “we are in totally different places,” and that tapered off.
Juan 2 texted me a few times with really sad sappy songs telling me that “this reminds me of you,” which was alarming every time! “Uhh, thanks….?”
Ioannis 3, the guy who asked me out at a hamburger shop, asked if I wanted to come see a Greek play he was in in Zurich, which was cute. I mean, I did want to see a Greek play, but I wasn’t in Zurich. And I wasn’t devoted enough to this particular date.
Janos 5, the Big Gulp guy (welp, see ya later!) who said “let’s stay in touch,” to no one’s surprise, did not stay in touch. I can see on Bumble app that he’s still there and single.
The Iranian guy who asked to split the bill followed up to let me know that he’s polyamorous. “Ah ha!” I thought, “So it was a just-friends meet-up.” (I think I would have consented to the poly thing in advance for this to be a true date). He never told me he was poly before or during our encounter. It just didn’t feel like a regular date, and my intuition was correct.
The Canadian guy I was super clear with that I didn’t feel a connection. I love clear breaks! They feel so good. No leaky follow-up texting there.
Ivan 16, the instant love connection—we were in communication a bit for a couple of weeks, but it wasn’t realistic to meet up again with him being all the way in Kazakhstan (and not reading books…)
The doctor who emotionally supported me during my crisis in Norway kept texting me a lot, even when I said I was seeing someone else seriously. I am very loyal so once I had let him know I was seeing someone else, I stopped responding to his texts or kept my responses curt. But after Jean 1 and I broke up, I reached out to him to see about reconnecting. We continued to text a lot. I’ll share more in a Part V RxR blog.
I secretly wondered if any dates had found and read my blog or if the men who knew about my blog were reading my updates.
What Was the Hardest Thing?
I was not mentally prepared for heartbreak and disappointment. Can we ever be? I went into this challenge feeling excited to meet people and explore people, places, and cultures. I brought a very soft and open heart with me, and I think I forgot that there are good reasons to guard the heart sometimes.
I’m going to write another blog about processing what happened with Jean 1 and my quest to resist bitterness.
Dating comes with disappointment! We get our hopes up and we fall in love and we yearn and daydream…but it’s just been so, so hard to actually feel the disappointment and sadness when things don’t workout and I had high hopes.
What was surprisingly easy
The men I ended up dating—most of the dates were so easy to set up. When you click, you click! When both parties are excited to meet up, the conversation flows, and it all comes together.
Gotta remember that if it’s feeling forced, let it go. There will be someone else with whom it feels easy.
What Else Was Surprisingly Hard
Originally, I was going to ask friends to set me up on dates with their friends, since I know a lot of people throughout Europe. I ended up feeling a little shy about this, and it felt constricting somehow. It felt easier to use dating apps on-the-go—like I had more flexibility and didn’t have to plan as much.
Letting things go when I found a deal-breaker. If someone didn’t read books, for example, and I just knew it could never work, but we had a nice date, I had trouble not ruminating about it and letting it go. Typically, the cure would be to go on the next date with someone else.
Traveling too quickly through cities. I’m glad I designed it the way I did—I wanted to see so many places! But it was way too hard to find a good date while staying in a city only 1 week. I thought, “I’ll see where I want to come back and spend time,” which I did do. I went back to Paris and ended up starting a committed relationship there. So, it worked out, but it was hard!
My Big Takeaways
A lot of things have to come together to create a strong connection. There has to be physical attraction, magical chemistry, emotional maturity and availability that’s on par, roughly equal IQ, the same life goals, and the same level of ability to show up and create love and a healthy relationship. These types of connections are rare! It’s kind of a wonder that anyone pairs up at all.
There are a lot of emotionally immature men. We’re in a bit of a crisis, and I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic. This is what I get when I talk to women friends—those who are single and those who are partnered. Many partnered girlfriends have had to make big concessions in their relationships. Not all, of course, but many. Those of us who are single are left wondering which crumbs we should settle for. I dated hot men. I dated brilliant men. I dated creative men. I dated hard-working men. I dated overwhelmingly nice and considerate men. But I hardly met anyone who seemed to be able to talk easily about intentions and feelings. With certain men, I was like, “hey, you gotta go to therapy for this!” and they just froze. No therapy, no self-help books. Even spoon-feeding them the exact right resource, I didn’t see them taking the next step forward to become more emotionally healthy and thereby a good dating candidate. I regularly checked in with my single and married friends. Some married friends said I should lower my standards. “Ali, every man hates women a little bit! Just get someone to father your child,” I heard. Some women told me not to lower my standards. “You’re so cool and beautiful and amazing, someone will be excited to meet you!” But it hasn’t happened yet (with someone who both reads and can talk about books, will hold hands, and is emotionally available), so…
I have some inner work to do still. There’s a part of me that is still reaching toward emotionally unavailable men when emotionally available ones do exist. Despite the fact there there’s a global shortage, I know that men who want to show up and do equal emotional labor in relationships exist. Part of the reason I went for Jean 1 was because he pursued me and he talked about therapy and personal development. I thought he would be one who could be emotionally available. But talk and action are different and I have to be more vigilant about that. I did good by picking someone who picked me too.
✨More Awards✨
I asked ChatGPT for some award categories, and here’s what he gave me, with my responses:
🏆 Most Romantic Date: Jean 1
The Palace of Versailles with Jean 1, with opera singing, period musicians and dancers, and a garden fountain light show. It was our 2nd date.
🎭 Most Unexpected Connection: Ioannis 8
There was a date I went on solely because I thought he looked really hot. All of his photos were gym photos. I was surprised when we had the same sense of humor and spent the whole night laughing, totally in sync.
😬 Most Chaotic Energy: Can 18
With Can 18, I will still never understand what the misunderstanding was in setting up our date.
Here’s the transcript:
Alison: Can we do tomorrow evening? My meeting ends at 8 and this one doesn’t go over so I could meet at 8:30 or 9
Can: Sure thing no worries, I guess I’ll be ok for tomorrow evening
Alison: Cool :)
Can: Lemme know about your hours tomorrow
Alison: I can meet at 8:30 or 9 or morning. I start work at 12.
Can: I got that the first time :) I meant we can spot some exact place and time for tomorrow
IF ANYONE CAN TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED HERE, PLZ. Is it cultural? Did I misread his messages? What am I not seeing? He did not set up a date with a time and a place and I ended up calling him after my meeting. I have since asked him about it, and he said, “I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet you since you were leaving the next day” but I don’t believe that…?
If that’s truly the case, what prevented him from saying, “I’m not sure I want to meet up because you’re leaving tomorrow”?
💌 Best Communicator: Jean 6
Jean 6 for sure. When we arranged for me to come to Paris for the Olympics, his texts about it were too casual, implying he might be around. I called him out, saying that’s not the energy I’m looking for. I’m looking for someone serious and committed to meeting up and spending time together. He immediately apologized and said he would be there and was excited to see me. He then checked in every few days until we met up and planned a great 1st date.
I appreciated his immediate accountability and shifting the energy.
🧠 Most Interesting Conversation: Johan P1
This was the man I cold-messaged on LinkedIn because I had an influencer crush on him. I still dream about what it would be like to keep talking about all the things with him. He is so heartfelt about the causes he believes in (environmental and human rights) and he has rich emotional depth. Sigh…
🔥 Best Chemistry: Ivan 16
When we first encountered each other in the hallway of the Cappadocia hostel, it was instant sparks. Electricity between us. I was freaked out!
Our date was watching the sun rise over Cappadocia.
👻 Most Mysterious Vanish: Janos 5
I still have so many questions about the Budapest guy (Big Gulps huh?) just up and leaving after we went for a walk. It was so abrupt that I wondered if he suddenly got diarrhea! I often think about texting him just to ask (well, not about his bowel movements). I’m genuinely curious!
💔 Most Important Lesson: Jean 1
With Jean 1, my unfortunate lesson is that tiny words and actions mean everything and they could mean something big later. I noticed small moments where he didn’t keep his word and in the end, it turned out he was lying to me about a really big thing: being okay to have a child together. Painful!
🌍 Favorite Country to Date In: Switzerland
Switzerland was so gorgeous! The hiking date with Juan was insane. Then when Ioannis gave me a walking tour of Zurich, it was so romantic. There’s so much beauty in every direction.
📉 Quickest 180: Can 18
I thought Can 18 was aloof and distant when we first met up. I thought he was holding a lot stress in his body and seemed far away in his head. By the end of our date, I didn’t want the date to end. I was devastated that we didn’t kiss. He helped me schedule a taxi for the airport for my flight the next morning and it was so hot to watch him go out of his way to help me. A few days later when I had the scary thing happen in Norway, I knew I could call him and he would be a safe person to help me. He was.
👑 Most Emotionally Available moments:
The prompt was “Most Emotionally Available,” and no one wins that trophy.
There were moments though…
The moment when I asked Can 18 if I seemed like a crazy person and he reassured me that I was not crazy and my reaction was normal, then sharing a vulnerable moment from his own life. This felt so good.
In terms of really feeling what I was feeling, however, I would say 2 men did that: Johan P1 and Jean 6. I could see their eyes and hearts soften as they took in the emotional weight of what I was sharing. Those moments were rare and beautiful.
🚩 Most Red Flags: Jean 1
It’s hard not to look back at Jean 1 and not see every red flag. The first time I noticed that his words didn’t mean anything to him was when we had gone to bed and made a plan for the morning: “Let’s walk to the new coffee shop across town.” When we woke up, it was as if the plan never existed, the conversation hadn’t happened. It was eerie! Normally, when you say words out loud, you feel accountable to them, and if you need to change the plan, you say so. “Oh hey, I know we said we were going to walk to the coffee shop, but I realized I need to do x this morning instead. How about next week?” Just pretending a whole conversation didn’t happen is weird. This also happened with our first date. This also happened with our conversation about my wanting a baby…
🪞Biggest Growth Moment:
Maybe the fact that I’m still single after over a year of dating. In the past, I may have rushed into something, overlooking a lot more. I look back and past relationships that I got and stayed in because I didn’t want to be alone at that moment, or my standards were low. This time, I wanted to be more intentional, making sure our lifestyles and values were in alignment. It didn’t happen perfectly, but once I realized we weren’t in alignment, after 4 months with Jean 1, I got out. Part of that is having less time to waste, at age 40, but part of that is clarity, better communication, and boundaries.
What Will I Do Moving Forward?
I felt very sad this year with the breakup, and I wanted to wallow in it, but everyone keeps telling me, “just go on more dates! Get back out there!” So I’m doing it (update to follow).
What will I do differently?
I am staying in one city for longer periods
I am being extra clear about my dating goals from the very beginning
I am not doing any casual sex/hookups
If my intuition says something is off, I listen more quickly
I will try to meet more people “in the wild” by participating in community events. I’ve been making myself leave the house more and just go do stuff with people.
Maybe it’s time to ask my network to refer me to their single friends
I need to assume that not everyone is trustworthy. Offer some initial trust but not too much. People need to earn trust.
What will I keep the same?
I will still try dating apps
I will not lose hope or wallow in self-pity
I will keep writing about it
I will stay curious
I will stay open to learning and growing as a person
