post-dating world
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In case you had any doubt that dating is dead, we held a funeral for it – and buried forever the harmful and irrelevant notions about romance, women and relationships that have plagued us for so long. RIP!
As Victoria from The Village Voice writes, we “have no problem bidding goodbye to bullshit rules of courtship.” Nope. Not at all.
(VILLAGE VOICE: dah GIRLS Jessica Donalds & REBECCA WIEGAND HOLD FUNERAL FOR DATING)
Every lady knows and loves and yearns for this guy. The One Who Got Away.
By definition, he’s not in my dah, but he’s been in my life for practically all of my 27 years.
We met – as it were – as toddlers in the mountains, where our families vacationed at the same rustic resort. There’s a photograph of five-year-old, platinum blond, chubby-faced me staring at him across a wildflower field. He had long, curly, silken dark hair and in the picture, he’s wearing a red t-shirt and looking back at me cooly, like a miniature rebel without a cause.
If you go up to the resort even now, there’s a piece of driftwood where we both wrote our names in magic marker, probably that same year. He’s a year older than I am, so his name is spelled correctly and mine has a backwards B and Y.
It wasn’t until much later that I consciously knew I was in love with him. I was 12-years-old, with knobby knees and ears that stuck out, but I was still a sun-kissed, freckled blonde and had happily evaded the awkward ‘awkward phase’ that had stricken most of my friends during this time. At home in the suburbs, I was making out against lockers and in his bunk-bed with Rob The Hockey Player, though refusing every day to ‘be his girlfriend.’ I had that compulsive desire for male attention (even adolescent, slightly be-pimpled male attention), but I knew I was saving up my “official” love life for someone truly epic.
That’s when I re-encountered him, The One Who Got Away, on vacation with my family in the mountains.
I’ll never forget the day I discovered that the last scene in Sleepless in Seattle was filmed on a sound stage. Remember that scene? It’s iconic. After months of admiring from afar, Meg Ryan is finally united with Tom Hanks– the widow with a heart of gold– and his precocious son at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day. Watching that scene is basically the best thing that can happen to your insides.
I’ll never forget that day because it’s the same day I visited the Empire State Building.
Flikr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/goodsophism/
Ten years ago, I was a senior in college just about to graduate. To celebrate, I went out with some of my best friends and my friend Jake, who had brought along his friend Mark.
We all spent the night dancing like crazy to hits of the 80ʼs, drinking and having a great time. Mark and I started dancing with each other and, as the night went on, he kissed me on the dance floor.
Finally.
I was finally one half of a couple at middle school dances that makes out like crazy on the dance floor in front of everyone not giving a fuck – except please remember I was a senior in college, like of legal drinking age.
I had never met Mark before, but I knew that he and Jake had been friends for a long time. If he had Jake’s approval, then I knew he was a good guy. Also, he super cute, so, yes please.
Ok, so I did know one thing about Mark; I knew he had recently broken up with someone. That was fine with me, as I was leaving town soon anyway. I was going to use Mark. Not in a mean way. It’s just, come on, this was the perfect opportunity for me to get some real dates under my belt before I headed into the real world.
As the night wound down, Jake drove us home as Mark sat next to me in the back seat holding my hand.
Ever since that moment in “My So Called Life,” when Jordan takes Angela by the hand in the hallway, in front of all of his friends, declaring their relationship; holding someone’s hand is all I’ve ever wanted.
As we got to the bottom of my street, I told Jake that it was OK for him to drop me off there. I kissed Mark on the cheek, got out of the car, and began to walk up the steep hill to my apartment. It was almost 4:00am, the moon was setting, and the sun was just starting to rise. The street and sidewalks were wet from the rain earlier in the night. The streetlights, still on, were making things very romantic.
It was like a fucking movie, yʼall.
Ever get tired of swiping left or right through a sea of people in your city who have been narrowed down only by an age range? Let’s get more specific shall we?
As always, the Internet has come to our rescue. Here are some incredibly specific dating sites to meet all your individual needs.
EquestrianCupid.com
Unclear whether you can sign up to find someone else who has horse posters all over their room, or if you can match with an actual horse.
I do not know this person. LinkedIn is officially not safe.
Perhaps at some point I accepted an invitation to connect with this man because we are relatively in the same industry, but I do not personally know this person. We have never met.
I don’t know about all you other professional adult people but, I’m on LinkedIn to engage in business. I’m there to make new connections, explore new opportunities, and gauge movement my industry.
I’m not there to flirt. (Even if I am the biggest one I know, I understand boundaries.)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/istolethetv/
Oh happy day! Finally a refreshing piece on why dating is so broken, from a MAN. A real man.
The conversation around the ills of modern dating seems to skew very feminine. It feels like women are the only ones brave enough to honestly question the current romantic climate. The result is the sad, desperate girl narrative, of which we’re all too aware. What’s wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? Am I just choosing the wrong men?
Finally, a man has spoken up! In his piece, “Is Your Boyfriend Muscle Out of Shape,” on NYMag’s The Cut, Jeff Wilser publicly questions his serial dating behavior. At 38, he finds himself repeating the same patterns and bad habits and wondering, “Is it me?”
Yessir. It is you! Thank you.
Even if we all texted exactly what we meant…it probably wouldn’t get us very far anyway. JUST PICK UP THE PHONE!
Like many women of the Internet, I read this week’s feminist pot stirrer on The Cut called, The Real Reason Women Freeze Their Eggs. I enjoyed it, and thought it raised some interesting fodder for a conversation that needs to happen.
“I suspected that, for many, careers were a socially acceptable excuse; if you froze your eggs because you simply hadn’t found a partner to have kids with, well, that was embarrassing.
But that was the truth of the matter. I continued to date, sipping listlessly at glasses of wine in bars chosen because I didn’t frequent them. Many of my closest female friends were doing the same. That they were excellent company to be in — smart, compelling, beautiful — did not change the fact that our collective situation was a drag. The people and situations were different but the broad outlines were all too often the same: The dude was cagey. He acted erratically, pursuing and then retreating. He was evasive when confronted with our wants and needs, or agitated, or defensive. Sometimes he simply disappeared. Of course, not all of the men we met and dated were commitment-phobes. But the numbers were significant enough to present a serious problem for those of us who wanted a partnership and children.”
For a while, we were all screaming at single girls that the only reason they were still single is that they were choosing the wrong men. Look inward, we said. Are you choosing the right guys? Are you only looking for unavailable men? It’s probably something YOU are doing to yourself.
What girl in her right mind looks for an unavailable man? It just happens. The real problem is, it happens way too often. How can we tell women that the solution to their problem is to just not choose unavailable men, when it seems like that’s their only choice.
Its not us. It’s them. They’re ALL emotionally unavailable/scared of settling down/stunted/selfish/fucking around.
Hey, it’s a cliche for a reason.
Love hurts
I mean…heartache is real. The worst is when your mind is taken off of it for a moment, and when you remember, it’s like a punch in the gut. OUCH. Also when you fall out of the tree in front of your ex’s place while spying on him in a rom com also looks pretty painful.
You’ll find love when you stop looking.
It’s true. If a watched pot never boils (MORE CLICHES), then focusing all your energy on finding a partner ain’t gonna happen either. You don’t have to be THE COOL GIRL, but have a little faith that it what’s meant to be happen without you running interference.
Butterflies.
Butterflies are real and they are a great appetite suppressant, amiright?
Hey, what’s better than a real human boyfriend? A fake digital boyfriend, obviously! Elite Daily announced to the world last week that, “A set of apps called Invisible Boyfriend and Invisible Girlfriend, now in beta, offer you the chance to create a significant other who will send texts and appear in photos with you.”
Um, wut? I get lonely sometimes (as all of us sad, sad, chronically single people do), but I don’t think having a robot text me sweet nothings at night would fix that. In fact, I think it would exacerbate my sadness, because it would be taunting me with what I don’t have.
The article points out the myriad uses for the app, which mostly concern tricking people. “The new partner also comes with a unique meet-cute story and shared photographs for your nosy aunt to see,” and “He or she will send real-time messages checking in on you, meaning your coworkers can watch a message exchange happen.”
But really, is it worth this whole kit and caboodle to lie to people who are just concerned about your wellbeing? Maybe I have a super-rad, mega-awesome family, but besides the occasional standard, “Is there anyone special?” I don’t get pestered about my personal life very much. Very, very, very occasionally, they’ll pry a teeny bit further, but who needs an invisible boyfriend app when we still have access to the good, ole-fashioned excuse? “Sorry family, I have a full-time job, a part time job, and a time-consuming hobby. No time for sweet, sweet lovin’.”