A friend who married later in life once told me, "Simone, you have to approach dating like you handle your job. You set goals, objectives, benchmarks etc. and work towards them. Set a goal to have a love life." I shrugged then just as I am shrugging now. I don't buy the idea that women should have to work so damn hard at love. That's too much work for so little in return, and yet, like a fool, late last year, I took her advice and tried my hand at online dating. I was forewarned that dating in NY is hard and that you only really do it to shake off the rust, presuming that there is rust. Granted my coworker met her husband on one of these sites, but even she admits that it was kismet. So I thought that I was going into this with eye wide open. I'd lowered my expectations of what would come of setting up dating profiles and I kept an open mind about the kinds of men with whom I would be willing to interact because this is the one area in my life where I truly do not know what is best for me. I am more particular about toilet paper than I am about men, and to be honest I think that is because I've never really been one of those women who truly needed a man. I need accessories. I need wine. I need coffee. A boyfriend, and certainly a husband, have always been optional, not necessary. The men in my life and around me always seemed to have a sense of entitlement and predilection for a certain kind of woman, usually someone totally unlike myself. I am not thin or classically pretty. I don't suffer fools lightly, and although I am all woman in every sense of the word, I have a very powerful and dominant energy that is usually synonymous with masculinity. I've been known to make men cry. No seriously. I have. I rarely cut people slack, especially if they walk around swinging a dick. Now let me be clear; I don't hate men. Quite the opposite. I like sizing up builds, beards, and bulges. I am the woman who will look a man up and down, make eye contact and show no shame. I admire the granite-like nature of the male aesthetic, but I struggle with the delicate constitutions of their ego. Blame it on upbringing or the constant enabling by other women who do in fact need a man; whatever, the cause, I am not gentle enough to be the glue that holds a man together. I am a supporter and protector by nature, but I am less of a consort and more of a co-regent. Come already put together, ready to withstand life's blows, or stand aside and let me handle this on my own; in my own way. For a while, I thought Breon, maybe you are being too hard. Soften up girl. So I tried the softer approach, and to be quite frank, that doesn't work for me. I am not a background player. While I admire him, I am not cut out to be the Hurts to your Tagovailoa. Either we both shine or he needs to be secure enough to not ask me to dim mine. At any rate, we need to find some common ground that allows us to both be franchise players. I know. I am asking for a sort of unicorn, but I know that they exist... they do.
And that brings us to now...
After 3 months of online dating, I am taking a page out of Tracee Ellis Ross's playbook and learning to be happy just being my own fabulous self. I'd rather take amazing selfies on a vacation that I paid for myself than sit across from a guy who believes that the Netflix Kevin Hart docuseries was - and I quote- "triumphant". That says to me that you too are emotionally stunted, and a disappointment waiting to happen. I have found a lot of emotionally and conversationally stunted men in these virtual New York streets that cant seem to get past a "good morning beautiful" text. I've met some freaks that I had to calmly remind that nothing on my profile says that I am into polyamory or fetishes. Thanks but no thanks; I don't want to finish my drink. I just want to leave. There have been the baby mama bashers, the "I like having sex with women but women are the problem" types, and my favorite "I have a girlfriend but she aint ackin' right, but hold on; this is her texting me" characters. There are the posers who have a polished introductory routine but once you spend time getting to know them, you realize that they can barely form a coherent sentence. Then there are the "oh you are a lawyer, so you ballin' right" guys, for whom, everything you do is an exhibition of your spending power. My dude, Navient gets most of my check. If I would've known that you were this kind of date, I would've save my time and money (because he didnt pay) and drank the free wine I have at home. I did meet a nice school teacher, but he has a rain cloud over his head that just wont let up. No, I cant stand the rain, and I have given up trying. Dating was supposed to be fun, but its work, and as I have already established, work is ghetto.
So where does this leave me?
I still communicate with the school teacher, but when I imagine my life a few years from now, I don't see him in it. John Mayer has a line - one of a zillion- that I love: "...and I can't remember life before her name." Life before him and the others was calm. It was something that I could balance and keep stable, and while I am fond of him, his name I can remember... his face is growing fuzzy. The thing that sticks with me the most is during a moment of loss, him in the dark, bending down to rest his head on my shoulder and me briefly holding both of our weight. Although I care for him, I am not the glue that will hold him together. If anything he has shown me that it takes all that I have to simply hold me together. My singleness makes more sense now than it ever did before.
Dating in and of itself, made me realize that people pair off for a few reasons, love not always, if ever, being chief among them. You find someone who adds to you what you have yet to grow in yourself. You find someone who is on a similar journey and needs a traveling companion. You have so much to give that not having someone to shower it upon is a sin against God's nature. For someone like me, I am hyper self aware and everyday I learn something new and invaluable about myself such that I find myself still falling in love with newly found pieces of me. And while we are communal creatures, I have found great joy living life in my head, content to walk alone for as far as I can just to see if I can do it. My, how many miles I have walked alone, and amazed the hell out of myself. But yet through all of this I am still learning what it means to love myself as fervently as I have loved others. Right now, I can't be anyone's glue but my own. It's hard to type this but its also liberating to know this.
I haven't thrown in the towel on companionship of the romantic sort. It's just not a goal of mine. Ambivalence is the word that comes to mind when I think of being in a relationship, and angst with regards to dating. I am open to whatever the Most High sends my way, but I am simply not pressed. I deleted all of my online dating accounts and blocked numbers. I feel lighter and more in alignment with myself.
The teacher occasionally reaches out but we keep it light. Its for reassurance, I guess. Its pleasant and not a bother. However, sometimes I don't respond, and we both know why.
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