This is a collection of writings from a few sessions that just kind of sat here gathering cobwebs, and Valentine’s Day seemed like an appropriate time to scrape it together and shovel it out into the world. It’s been about a year now since I have felt a strong connection with someone, and that year felt like a long time until I wrote the words just now and looked at them. Now it just feels like the exhalation of a breath that was held for too long, perhaps for fear that I might never take another. Which is ridiculous, by the way; there’s plenty of fucking air.
Anyway, on to the slop…
MAY 2016
Observing a Syzygy
On a sunny morning in San Diego this past October [2015], I was making a new friend over breakfast. While our encounter was, in truth, a Tinder date, there was absolutely zero expectation of a romance springing from this rendezvous. She had a photo shoot afterwards, and I had to drive to Orange County by way of Torrey Pines to keep on track with my travel itinerary. It was perhaps the lack of expectations, and the lack of pretense, that allowed for us to have the most riveting conversation, completely devoid of small-talk, and to make a connection that endures meaningfully today, paying more dividends in its platonic distance than most of my other affairs of late.
It’s been about a year now since I began a foray into the world of online dating. In that time, I have seen a wide gamut of humanity, and feeling some fatigue with the process now I am considering a sabbatical, perhaps even from dating in general.
For many of us who have used these online services and apps, there is a pattern that emerges and it’s a frustrating one: we matched, we liked each other, we had a good initial first contact, a good chat, exchanged numbers, maybe even had a wonderful and engaging first date. Then, nothing. A chasm opens up and we stand across it from one another, paralyzed, gazing into the silent, still darkness of uncertainty.
But why? Why are we so risk averse? Is it the veil of insecurity, that once lifted exposes us as the fragile, imperfect creatures that we are, and which relegates us to being tossed upon the scrapheap of undesirables where we will languish, rot and die alone? Is it the toothed jaws of commitment, lurking agape in the darkness there below, waiting to ensnare us as we fall into them and imprison us forever, stealing our dreams, tormenting us with the doubt of the better life we could have had instead?
Or is it the hook of plenty, which corrals us back from the precipice, and lures us further down the road, beckoning, promising, that somewhere else hidden in the forest of chance, perfection awaits? It compels us to keep swiping, keep looking, stay high upon the ridge to preserve our superior view of the valley below, and never descend into the mires, the confusing fog, and the messy undergrowth of real human relationships.
I’d say that I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but maybe that’s not fair: I have actually met quite a few women online and I surmise that there are at least a few people out there who will never make an effort to actually meet anyone at all. It would be easy, and perhaps tempting, to use these services solely as a tool for self-validation: collecting and hoarding matches without ever exploring any of them. This could, for a certain kind of person, produce a feeling of being wanted. I get that. I also see how maintaining distance might enhance that feeling. I even experience it myself sometimes, when I’m looking over thumbnail photos of women who found little old me attractive enough to move a single finger this way versus that way, and whom I found attractive enough to make the same deep and meaningful commitment to in my moment of boredom, loneliness, or perhaps intoxication. This is one of the most empty pursuits that I have ever devoted this much energy to, and yet, here I am: observing the abundance in the pastures below.
JULY 2016
Solstice of the Zero Sum
Abundance. Our breakfast conversation had largely centered around the idea of the abundance mindset, which had allowed her to leave a career as a civil servant and become a professional photographer instead, with some impressive clients. Basically the abundance mindset is the attitude that there is enough success, happiness, recognition, and personal value to go around, while the scarcity mindset is the attitude that life is a zero-sum game. Abundance allows us to take risks and live more openly when we believe that our entire life is not riding on this one job, or this one partner, or this one moment that we stand next to some cute stranger in the grocery aisle who might one day rip us apart in divorce court.
More people have written more about this shit than any of us could ever read, so I’m not going to add to that here; search the Internet for more about it or read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey.
Talking about the abundance mindset with someone who had been so empowered by it was a real inspiration to me. I brought that home to Ohio with the rest of Southern California’s lessons, and incorporated it into my everyday existence, as much as I could. I’m not quite ready for a major career or location change, but I think I’ve been ready for a change in my outlook for some time, including my outlook on dating.
It feels good to know that if this one doesn’t respond, I can go on to the next one. If that one is annoying, I can go on to the next one after that. It might seem obvious to some, but it was breaking news to me. I had spent four years in a dysfunctional relationship that made me miserable because I didn’t believe there was anything else, but the scars from that were fading and I was beginning to see in a different light. By the time the Sun entered Scorpio, I had resolved to go on 25 dates before the end of the year 2015. I think I got to 22. I did keep going after that, and I lost count somewhere along the way.
As I did descend into that valley, I saw that there is plenty of cause for reluctance, but there is plenty of cause for moving forward as well. What I have seen, and what I have gathered from the stories of others, is that much of the stigma of online dating is well-deserved. Many of the people there are detached, and too aloof to engage with. Others have an air of desperation in their need for a quick response, or their apologetic nature. Still others seem angry, bitter, and frustrated: hostile towards the very people they are supposedly there to meet, and still hanging on to the hurt of their prior relationships, which commonly ended only months, weeks, or even days ago. The old adage about kissing frogs is as relevant as ever.
I have plenty of flaws myself as well, and plenty of my own baggage. We all do. As I experience the more froggish parts of my own nature, and of the nature of others, there grows a deepening sense that most of us who are engaged in this experiment are being influenced by it, in similar ways. There is something about the landscape of online dating services and apps that engenders this. Never before has there been the possibility of seeing so much of others, while exposing so little of ourselves. I do not think it is particularly healthy, just as other indulgences which produce a jolt of dopamine are generally not. It has done dreadfully little to satisfy the needs that I have enlisted it to fulfill so far, so I’m not certain where this all goes or what I expect to get from it. The only certainty I do experience right now is doubt. There is a lot of doubt.
OCTOBER 2016
A Balanced Orbit is a Narrow Path
I wrote most of the above in the spring and summer, and now as I edit and rewrite this entry with the intent of actually sharing it, I am going to leave out the parts where I wax destitute about what I perceive as this bidirectional reciprocity-of-liking crisis I’m facing personally. I think it’s just kind of ugly and dark where I tend to go with that, and it’s best left unsaid for now. Basically I’m frustrated by being either the pursuer or the object of pursuit instead of being both simultaneously with the same person. I doubt that this feeling is uncommon, and maybe it is fodder for another post someday, but it’s too exhausting and tangled and unseemly for me to take on right now.
Now I’d rather just express my curiosity about how the endless smorgasbord that we now seem to have been presented with affects our appetites. Do those of us who are less inhibited gorge ourselves on the plentiful options? Do those of us who are more cautious peruse to the point where we become overwhelmed and abstain from eating altogether? Have extremes emerged that were not there before? Is abundance a good thing?
It’s actually impossible to date this many people in any respectable amount of time, or even to talk to them with any sense of depth, meaning, or purpose. The logical way to deal with a problem like that is to stop taking on more matches, to stop piling food onto our plates that we cannot eat. That is not what I have done, though. What I have done is pile them on, one after the other, and I suppose on some kind of subconscious level I save them to eat later. Not literally, of course.
Just some of the people you match with and never talk to.
As I remotely view these actual human beings through the tiny keyhole of six photos and 500 characters or less, I find myself largely unmoved.
I find myself even less moved by one blurry profile photo of three people and no description, which makes starting a conversation beyond “hey” kind of impossible. The person who put that profile out there must have done so with such little effort so as to say “I’m not actually doing this.” Some others inspire suspicion, with carefully-framed photos that obscure what I must assume to be heinously deformed or morbidly obese bodies requiring concealment should their occupants have any hope of a real-life encounter.
There are always more profiles however, and so what harm does it do to mosey down the primrose path towards what will perhaps be the one who ignites a true fire in my belly? If I run out of profiles to view today, there are always more tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day after that. And as I keep looking at these profiles, waiting for one to really arouse me, they all start to look the same. Everyone is easy-going. Everyone is laid-back. Everyone likes dogs. Everyone seems happy. But almost nobody seems special, do they? And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? We want someone special. Someone who stops us in our tracks. Someone who was put on this planet just for us. That is the promise: a promise upon which online dating fails to deliver.
February 2017
Occultations
There is no conclusion to this cobbled-together amalgam of thoughts, which is why I probably never published it. I have no new information to report, and no forecast on when there might be some. And that’s cool. It’s cool because there’s always going to be uncertainty, whether you have doubts about your current relationship, hopes for your new relationship, or confusion about your part in the failure of your past relationships. Even if you’re single, like me, you never know what’s around the corner. Every beautiful, calming sunset precedes the dark envelope of night’s mystery, and yet tomorrow always comes.