Act I: Our heroine steps outside of herself
I am not the sort of girl that ends up dating three men at the same time.
It started as a game: how many dates can you collect in as short a space of time as possible? A lot it turned out. More than I was physically capable of arranging in fact. I don't even know why I decided to do this. Something to do with distraction thought my therapist. I was more of the opinion that I was experimenting; seeing how far I had come. I had spent so long being miserable and now finally finally felt like I was getting somewhere. This had been a slow then a sudden process:
not ok, not ok, not ok, not ok, ACTUALLY YES I'M FINE, not ok, NOPE THAT WAS JUST NORMAL FEELING SAD - I'M STILL FINE AS IT HAPPENS. LET'S DO THIS.
I worked really really hard to get my shit together over the course of two years and suddenly turned around one day and found that, although not yet together per se, my shit was starting to get a little more organised (I am, obviously I hope, talking metaphorically).
So I decided, let's start dating again. Just to see what happened. I was expecting... nothing. For the first time in my life I made myself available romantically with no end goal. (That is a nice way of putting that I had previously slept with a handful of guys I had no interest in, pined after a bunch more that had no interest in me, and rounded this off by destroying every facet of my emotional core with the last guy I dated. You know, the usual) The way I wanted to play it was casually date around (the key word here being 'date', do not replace it for 'sleep') for about six months or so and then sort of stop to look around and see where I was with it all.
It didn't really end up that way.
I should preface this by saying I have always been terrified by commitment. I was never the little girl that grew up wanting to be married. I didn't play games with white tulle I'd found in my mum's sewing basket and hand picked flowers from my neighbours garden. I didn't daydream about what my wedding would be like. I panicked attacked the idea of having to be the centre of attention in a stupid white dress that was uncomfortable as all hell and tying myself to another person for the rest of my life with no real hope of escape. I definitely did that (though only later). But I certainly never found myself doing the former. Some of that might be to do with having divorced parents but I didn't do any of those 'normal little girl playing at weddings' things before they were divorced either so that little psychological insight seems somewhat null and void to me. It's just something that's not in my genetic make up. I get (thankfully now, quite mild) panic attacks whenever I hear that girls of my age grew up dreaming wistfully about their one-day beautiful white wedding. My games as a child were all intergalatic space wars and international kidnapping rings. I was the hero, never a bride; never even a bridesmaid. Falling in love, being whisked away by the charming prince - none of that has ever appealed to me. I've always dreamed wistfully about running around space kicking ass.
But I say all that and yet, and yet, there must have been something of that which appealed. Was I just kidding myself previously; thinking I didn't deserve such devotion from another human being so not entertaining the notion of it? Were all these unfulfilling, unsatisfying dalliances I'd indulged in since my late (very, very late) teens a form of protection? Was my choosing the wrong men (or allowing the wrong men to choose me) a way of making sure I never had to deal with the reality of romance?
I carried these questions around with me, examined them, looked into and around them, and then left them discarded on the floor. Who gives a shit now? I thought. Let's stop thinking and start doing and just see what happens with this.
So I set up an online profile on a free dating website. It took me less than half an hour to fill out. I set it up with the intention that I would come back to it in a couple of weeks and start doing things 'properly' but, for now, it was worth just setting it up so I could cross that off my to do list (one of life's greatest thrills is crossing items off a to do list. Something which, yes, I believe I did mention in my online dating profile). It was late so despite the immediately addictive properties of looking at boys and rating them based on their faces, grammatical errors, and things they professed to like; I went to sleep not really giving much thought to what lay ahead.
When I woke up the next morning I was awestruck to discover I had been contacted a lot. Like, a lot a lot. By loads of different guys. The majority were; 'hey baby xxx' and 'hi beautiful xx' but it was still a thrill. I suddenly understood better why girls felt the need to snog other girls in nightclubs or flirt outrageously with people they had no genuine interest in: GETTING ATTENTION IS AWESOME. Like, really awesome. To begin with. Then, maybe a little annoying, but still awesome in its own way. For the first time in my life I felt truly desired. And special. And it was awesome. Now, logically I know that these 'hey baby xx' messages were probably sent to every single female who appeared on the site. I was not really desired or special. These guys had not bothered to read my carefully constructed (in around 20 minutes) profile. They were just throwing out their bait and seeing who nibbled at it (so to speak...). I suddenly found myself bouncing around with confidence. I was one of those girls who men like. Not one of those girls who men think are sort of ok but could do with losing some weight, or one of those girls who are too weird to consider as a serious option. I was ok! Men, who it would be kind to say had somewhat broken English skills, were contacting me(! ME!) for dating purposes.
Then it got really fucking annoying.
I started off feeling the need to reply to every person that contacted me and was spending upwards of 2 hours a night just keeping up with the correspondence (this is in addition to the multiple times a day I checked the site on my phone just to see how many people were looking at my profile - to begin with on average 80 a day (EIGHTY!! A DAY!!! Why aren't all 80 contacting me? I'm awesome? Because you might not be every single man's type or he's shy or you're mental; you're already struggling to keep up with the correspondence, why would you willingly invite more of that? Because! Men!! EVERYWHERE MEN MORE MEN MORE. Shut the fuck up, you crazy person. Point taken.) This figure dwindled within a couple of weeks but I still remember the thrill of clicking onto my the app on my phone and seeing I had new messages or more views or had been added to someone's favourite list. I hadn't let a man touch me or even really talk to me for about two years at that point (well, not one that wasn't gay or a friend or related to me - and I hope, again, it goes without saying that any of that was strictly platonic). It was a thrill; getting chased, being made to feel wanted, being made to feel like maybe I was one of those 'normals' who are normal and do normal things like have boyfriends and go on dates and don't spend an inordinate amount of time in their heads thinking about episodes of Gossip Girl.
But then, then, it got really fucking annoying. There are only so many hours in a day, as you might well be aware. A large chuck of those I have to devote to earning money so can buy ridiculous dresses and piles and piles of books. Another large chuck of them I have to devote to sleeping, because sleeping is the best. This leaves with with but a few hours that I like to fill up with lounging, cross stitching, and staring idly into space thinking about Gossip Girl. These are my most precious of hours. And here I was struggling to keep up with my lounging schedule due to the influx of interest from the opposite sex via the internet. having responded to yet another 'hi baby xx' message with 'Hello Good Sir, What a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I see from your profile you enjoy kayaking and mountain climbing? Both of these pursuits sound like my own personal vision of hell! What's the closest you've ever come to death? Yours sincerely, Me' (or something equivalent) I just decided out loud to myself 'fuck that shit'. I was only going to respond or encourage guys who actually interested me and who were interested in me enough to make references about stuff in my profile. I wasn't going to hate on the other players (don't hate the playa, hate the game) but I was going to ignore the shit out of their messages. This pairing down process was actually pretty easy and fun. I had leaned two important rules of dating very quickly:
1. Put your dating beacon on and they will come a-flocking (that's f-l-o-c-k-i-n-g)
and
2. Don't put more time and effort in than they have ('hi baby xx' leaves me to do all the work! I would be left to ask questions and encourage discussion only to get one word responses back. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that then? Ask more outlandish questions? One-sided conversations are not enjoyable for me!) (I still honestly have no idea how that sort of conversation is supposed to work or how these men end up picking up chicks. Maybe they don't? Maybe that's the point).
But with that came the next stage: Meeting Guys. Outside of the computer. Where the trees and coffee shops are. The actual real life world. Shit.
To be continued...
Stay tuned for Act II: Our heroine actually steps outside
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