So, a friend of mine had a discussion with me about love. More like it was a debate on why I should go out and date and find love, or let love find me. I don't know why he just wants me to return to the dating market. He legitimately wants me to fall in love, and I’m not understanding why that is so important. I even had to say, “Look…I’m a recovering junkie of being in love. Can’t anyone just accept that I just want to be single and not date?” And the words that get tossed around are that I fear falling in love, or love in general. I kinda just smack my head. I compromised, saying, “Alright. On my 40th Birthday, I’ll toss myself back on the market.”
I gonna be honest about it.
A lot of the reasons I don’t bother dating, and I’ve been single for about 7 years, are because I’m exhausted. This entire 7 years has been me trying to recover from absolute burnout. And even when I had the energy to date and be in relationships, it was exhausting. It took a lot of time and energy after a long day, and money as well, because it’s difficult to get around without it. Dating was easier when I was younger and spunkier; I could push myself beyond exhaustion, but it wasn’t all that fun. It kinda felt like going to another job, and more work, and it was nice to find a companion, even though it was a lot of work as well. Because when that honeymoon phase faded, the actual work began, and I have to it, I could have gone about things better in weeding out the women who were incompatible with me. But when you’re young, you’re basically young. I’ve dated women a decade older than me, and I dated women 3 years younger than me. When I say to people I lived in the fast lane, that’s part of it.
Once I hit 19 and was out working and in the college setting, the world opened up to me. I was basically a late bloomer in dating and romance. Dating multiple men first, even though I had no attraction at all to them. It was just a way for me to act like the everyday person, even though internally I wasn’t. And I had the scars of being bullied most of my life, because I went against the gender norms, and I didn’t want to follow anything. Therefore, any threat to my well-being, I went into survival mode. Sometimes, I think I still am in different ways, but now I’m ok with being verbally bullied by others, and my body is still strong enough to handle even physical altercations. So, it doesn’t bother me in any scenario. Just keep my arms up and shield my face and head, because damn, getting punched in the jaw hurts more than anything else. So, by the time I hit 21, I itted that I only wanted women. But I started dating women at 22.
I spent most of my teens just doing me, and that’s the part of my life I missed the most. Just going about life, enjoying the things that brought light into my eyes. The dating and relationship world dimmed everything into dull colors. And that was my fault because I didn’t know any better, and society wasn’t informative. After all, they expect people to follow a blueprint, and they bombarded the masses with fantasies of romance. I look back on the show “The L Word” and as a woman my age now, I thought, “Yeah…This show didn’t give me anything other than what I desired at the time.” Something with a bit of representation, even if it had a lot of toxic tropes in it, and it was still playing on the notion that Lesbians are the objects of hyper-sexualization for the male fantasy.
So, despite my friend talking to me about the whirlwind of emotions of love, which he still didn’t grasp that I know that feeling too well, he believes it would be good for me. Maybe it could be something going through him to tell me these things, but dang, I’ve become a pragmatic person in life. Nothing about the situation today would convince me that falling in love will solve my issues. I’m still gonna have all my mental and emotional problems. I’m still gonna struggle to get through the physical realities in life, including all my health issues that I’ve struggled with most of my life. Literally, the pitch seemed like “just get drunk on love again.” But like I mentioned before, I compromised. I set a date for when I’ll try again, and I stick to my promises, which is why I don’t make them often.
I think the issue these days is not so much about my sexuality, even though it’s an ongoing discourse in society as a whole, but for me as an individual, it’s about getting people to accept that I find peace in being single. It’s not about me being unloved. Because he mentioned, “Don’t you want to be loved by someone?” Personally, it’s not my obligation to get people to love me. It is solely up to everyone else if they want to love me on their own accord. Therefore, I don’t expect love from anyone, and I hope they don’t expect love from me. That has to be told through time and a lot of everything else.
I think in his mind, he just wants to think what he wants to think. But that’s ok. I still consider him a decent friend, especially if he’s concerned about my well-being.
Comment