I had a friend tell me that being attractive must be nice because it’s easier to date. It’s true, I started online dating again and have 2 profiles up, one on Tinder and one on Hinge. I’m inundated with matches, to the point where I had to pause my profiles so I could manage them. The grass is always greener on the other side though. Being able to attract attention isn’t always a gift. What is the nature of the attention? Is it healthy? Abusive? Does it seek to use and dispose of a person?
For a lot of people, control is pretty central to how they romantically attach to you. For some strange fucking reason, the concept of you being your own person with your own identity, needs, reality, thoughts, and opinions suddenly becomes a threat. If you’ve spent enough time on the romantic circuit in NYC, if you’ve gone through the throes of rejection, dismissiveness, and abandonment, you eventually start to whittle yourself down so that you’re palatable to more people.
I restarted dating though. The first date typically feels like a job interview. I’m sussing out the person’s energy, their intentions. I’m reading how they’re texting me. Is it too much? Is it too little? Personally, I hate too much texting, especially if it lacks substance.
There are guys that aggressively bond through texting. “Hi, it was nice meeting you. How is your day? I’m at work in the studio” Proceeds to send multiple photos of his workspace. Meanwhile I am sitting at my desk trying to hammer out emails at a frenetic pace. Mr. First Date, we’ve known each other for a week, why are you blowing up my phone?
This morning I got a message from someone I only recently matched with “Hope you got a good nights rest.” That sounds sweet, right? A gentle message hoping I am doing well. I would love to close my eyes, to think that the simplicity of that is genuine. But I have romantic paranoia. I can show you my scars. They’re big and they run deep. Someone asking me how I slept isn’t cute anymore. It triggers fear. Why is he so concerned about my well being when we haven’t even met?
A part of me wants to turn off the apps and walk away from dating, hide in my apartment again for several years and watch way too much foreign film and anime. Get lost in a creative project, forget the realities of love, and then re-emerge onto the dating scene only to be slapped in the face with them again.
I don’t feel like running this time though. I feel like walking back out and seeing the beast for what it is and learning to tame it. It’s my life and I am responsible for it. This is adulthood.
a soft death 