This is it. Time for some honesty. Time to let down the goofy sardonic persona. Here is me undone.
I've been dating in this big bad city for over a year and a half now. I have learned so much and yet nothing at all. I set out on this dating journey hoping to reach a destination, one where I could take down my online profiles for good, settle down, curl up on a couch and nestle my head in his lap, burrow away for a lifetime. I wanted to say goodbye to old patterns, pick someone available, do it right this time.
So where did it go so wrong?
Is it me? Is it them? Is it that the Internet dating system is as flawed as humanity itself?
In this process I have fallen hard, spilled open, closed myself off, fallen hard, spilled open and closed myself off again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Over and over and over.
It goes like this: I meet someone attractive and seemingly lovely. We have a fantastic first date. They contact me right away for a second one. I do things right. I don't call them, I wait patiently to hear from them, I look pretty, I talk nicely, I am myself, I open up, I don't act like a psycho or a bitch. But without fail, after 2 dates or 2 months, they find something they don't like and go away. Sometimes they say goodbye in a text message, sometimes a phone call. One time a guy came back crying, asking to be with me again, only to break it off again a month later. Sometimes they want to remain my friend and have. Other times I hear from them months and months later online or through text asking me for a purely sexual relationship. And other times they say goodbye and are gone without a trace, like a ghost I only dreamed of.
I'm lost in this whirlwind. I deeply connect with each of them, I show myself, I'm always honest. I'm too pure and too kind for this game. I'm sad, I'm lost. The highs and lows of this world are laughable at best and disturbing at worst. I'm finally to the point of slowing my dating life down that it's almost non existent, and for once, that is totally and completely okay. I throw myself on the alter of surrender. I let go.
One of my favorite quotes about love seems appropriate at this point:
“Why do you suppose the poets talk about hearts?' he asked me suddenly. 'When they discuss emotional damage? The tissue of hearts is tough as a shoe. Did you ever sew up a heart?'
I shook my head. 'No, but I've watched. I know what you mean.' The walls of a heart are thick and strong, and the surgeons use heavy needles. It takes a good bit of strength, but it pulls together neatly. As much as anything it's like binding a book.
The seat of human emotion should be the liver,' Doc Homer said. 'That would be an appropriate metaphor: we don't hold love in our hearts, we hold it in our livers.'
I understood exactly. Once in ER I saw a woman who'd been stabbed everywhere, most severely in the liver. It's an organ with the consistency of layer upon layer of wet Kleenex. Every attempt at repair just opens new holes that tear and bleed. You try to close the wound with fresh wounds, and you try and you try and you don't give up until there's nothing left.”
― Barbara Kingsolver
