The acting life can easily become all-consuming. Emotions flying everywhere – nerves before auditions and shows, not knowing if I’ll get the job or not, excitement on opening night, heartbreak when I’ve worked so hard for a job and then find out someone else got it! Having performed in shows like ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ on the London stage and ‘Mary Poppins’ internationally, I know it’s a rollercoaster, unpredictable, a whirlwind, and a joy.

The dating world can be very daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Preparing yourself and having the right mindset can be the difference between success and failure when it comes to dating, especially if you’re starting dating again. There have been inspiring stories of people finding love even during lockdown, so if you’re one of the many people looking for love after you haven’t dated for a while, here are a few things to consider.

Rejection is God’s protection, as the saying goes, but when we’re on the receiving end of rejection, it feels anything but heaven-sent. Rejection can be painful and if we’ve been rejected before, we can become fearful of it happening again. So how do we overcome our fear so that we can enjoy the dating process?

“Our number one tip to be successful is to be honest with each other,” Alexandra and Carl, who got engaged after meeting on Christian Connection, told us. Telling the truth about yourself and your hopes for a relationship can feel risky. Yet, many of the couples who’ve found love on CC tell us how important it was to them to keep honesty at the centre their dating and relationships, from the very first step to their happy-ever-afters. Here are some of their stories.

Whenever I prepared for a date, I was nervous (of course) and excited (sometimes!) but I would get very anxious about certain areas of how the date would go. Would I run out of conversation? Would it be awkward? What if he tried to kiss me? My brain would go on overdrive and I would often consider backing out so I wouldn’t have to deal with the uncertainty.

The desire for marriage is a good thing but what does one do when you’re waiting for marriage to happen? How can you enjoy singleness, even though you have a vision of marriage at some point in your future? Here are four important points I think will help, based on my own experience:

“Another one bites the dust!” a friend commented after her daughter’s romance broke up. She wasn’t being unsympathetic, it was just that with her mature wisdom she was confident that ‘another one’, a more permanent one, would come along in due course. Her daughter could have been experiencing it very differently. Not interested in ‘another one’ when she felt as though she had just lost ‘The One’. Grief at the end of a promising relationship. Lost expectations. Hurt self-esteem. It can feel almost as though our personal relationship with ourselves has been affected.

Taking the first step to join a dating site can feel intimidating. Couples who’ve met on Christian Connection often describe how they felt ‘prompted’ to become members, and overcame their reluctance to do so! Here are some of their stories – including the surprising results.