On dating

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It’s been nearly a year and a half since I last dated anyone. That saga, as some of you may recall, ended in a tearful extended metaphor about fallen trees and a pretty solid sad girl playlist.

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So why now? What’s changed?

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First of all, what I know now that I didn’t know then is that being single does not mean I am a horrible, broken, hopeless, useless person. This fact, that you, dear reader, may have long been well aware of, has eluded me since I was a child.

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Because I, from as young as 10-years-old, ascribed success and goodness to romantic partnership and failure and brokenness to singleness, I took every rejection (and even unrequited crush??) personally as an explicit reinforcement that I was incapable of partnership, that I would never measure up to desirability standards, and that because of who I was (namely, the child of divorced parents), that I was bound to fail at partnerships no matter what I did, condemned to want to be in a healthy romantic relationship but to never actually see the day.

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Now I don’t believe that anymore. Informed by a framework presented in Jessi Kneeland’s book Body Neutral and backed by a strong journaling practice, I now have what I need to strip singleness and partnership of the moral weight I was ascribing to them for so long. I don’t think it was actually being single that ever bothered me, it was what I thought being single said about me that brought me so much grief and shame.

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Being neutral is taking a step back and not pouring on a label of "good" or "bad," but seeing it as it is, taking your feelings about it as information, and not letting it cause you distress. I wasn't ever objectively looking at my singleness. I saw it as a blemish, something to hide or be ashamed of, something that othered me, something people would see and think something was wrong with me. I saw my singleness as proof that I was broken and I tried desperately to change or conceal it.

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But now I see my singleness like I see any other experience I'm having. I'm single (now), I live in Reynoldstown (now), I'm a designer (now). Like none of those things are set in stone forever, but all of those things are true about my life right now today. I’m not a designer because I’m not smart enough to be a surgeon. I don’t live in Reynoldstown because I’m not well-connected enough to live in Midtown. I’m not single because I’m a bad, ugly person born to a husband and wife who couldn’t quite figure it out. And now that I’ve neutralized my view of singleness, I can approach dating without the desperation that comes when you have something (as serious as your self-worth and character) to prove.

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Now that my relationship status no longer has to do the impossible work of carrying my self-image, I can take a much more confident, easeful, and patient approach to dating. That’s what led me to do two very random things on a recent weekday afternoon: download Hinge and ask one of my friends to set me up on a blind date.

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I hated dating apps because they made me feel bad about myself. Going on a blind date would’ve terrified me for the previously stated rejection issue. But now that my self-image is not affected by the opinion of men I literally do not know, I can focus on honoring myself and my values in everything I do, rather than impressing somebody whose opinion of me should have no impact on my opinion of myself.

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So that’s what’s different, friend. I, for the first time in my life, am able to see singleness neutrally, and not as a reflection of something bad about me (and likewise seeing partnership neutrally, and not some gold star that means I’m a good person). And now that I’m able to do that, I can date from a position of security and healing, a thought that would bring joy to 10-year-old Thalia, who uncharacteristically burst into tears at the dining room table in front of her confused and concerned parents, overwhelmed with grief (too heavy for a child) at the tragic realization that “[she] was ugly and nobody would ever like [her].”

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I just wish she knew how wrong she was. I just wish I hadn’t spent so much of my life banging my head up against that lie. I wish I hadn’t spent so much time facing this grief alone, hiding its true depth fiercely from even my closest friends. It’s been a long, long time coming. But I think we made it. The work continues, but I pray to never go back.

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Second of all, after this work, I was finally able to get a clearer and more honest idea of what I wanted in a partner. It’s not that I never thought of it before (I famously had an elaborate set of “standards” as a college freshman that were much more of a spirited poem than they were actual dating guidance I used).

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But what’s different now is that they are, as I said, clearer. I can more easily connect what I’m looking for in a partner to the values I hold in my life. There’s representation of what’s important to me now and what may be important to me later. In my previous dating experiences, I very rarely gave thought to the latter. But it is precisely that — not giving thought to the needs and interests of future Thalia — that so often left me in conundrums I almost certainly could’ve avoided had I been less short-sighted.

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Not to say I’ll never make a mistake in dating ever again. Surely I will. I literally just got back out here fr. But what I pray is that I will not make the same mistakes again. What I know is that I have a very different perspective than I did before. What I know is that I don’t have to do what I was doing (chronic crushes, sad girl vibes, woe is meeee) and that I can do something new (more empowered, more clarity, less attached to outcomes).

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