Don’t forget to change your sheets if you’re going to modern date!
I’ve recently conducted an experiment with myself: I tried modern dating. What does that mean? It means I saw a guy multiple times, knowing he was seeing other people. Now I have never dated multiple people at once, let alone slept with more than one person at a time.
My girlfriends and I decided to all read Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance and discuss it over dinner. Reading this book and having indulged in too much holiday booze in an outing back in December and hooked up with a guy (aka slept with), I was intrigued when he reached out in January. Now I thought that if a guy hangs out with you intimately 3 times in one week and then drops off the face of the earth for a month, that constitutes as “ghosting”, but I was wrong. Having started the book, I decided to accept his invitation to get together come end of January and see if Aziz preached the truth.
I was already painfully able to relate with the book just from my few months of testing online dating last year. No judgement and I tend to encourage single friends to online date, but not for me. I’m simply awkward when it comes to virtual communication and I take things too personally.
Dating this guy, let’s call him CJ, I was checking boxes left and right while reading the book. The inconsistent communication, the one foot in and one foot out approach, the texting….Ah it’s all so strange. The complaining about how flaky women in San Francisco are, the inability to connect because you never get a true sense of who the person is…and why would you? CJ was after all not only showing himself to me.
Anyway, it was fun but just like my inability to separate body from mind when it comes to men and intimacy, I am unable to not speak what I feel. Thus I stated my mantra from the start, “man gets his woman.” I also voiced my inability to deal with inconsistent relationships, no matter what shape or form: family, friendship, romantic, etc. Somehow it was not common that I needed to hear from this person soon after spending 10 hours together…it made me wonder, what are women putting out there that men think it’s ok to behave like this? Why is there no more courtship? Why is it ok to inconsistently date someone in our 30s? No, it’s certainly not old, but it also ain’t 20.
I sensed from the start that CJ had not had many experiences with women who not only know what they want, but speak what they want. Which by the way, I was not sure of. All I knew was that I was willing to find out, which I think requires putting both feet in. After 6 weeks of major emotional stress and me very much out of my comfort zone, CJ texted me that he was not interested in monogamy with me and respected my honesty and wanted to reciprocate. In the end, I had no hard feelings at all since none of that was news to me, but I as left with some sad realizations. Again, all underlined and highlighted with the fact of reading Modern Romance in parallel to this experience.
1. Women date just as inconsistently as men and it’s truly a generational thing, not gender specific. This shocks me because no, I do not think women and men are equals and no, I do not think we should behave the same. Yes I care about women’s rights and voting and equal pay and all that important stuff. But no, I do not think our roles in relationships are the same and no, I don’t think we are emotionally built the same. We have different emotional capabilities, psychological constructions, and very different life pressures to deal with. CJ briefly told me about his previous “serious” aka 3 month long relationships in San Francisco and both sounded like the women were ok with the inconsistency with which the encounters took place. Ok, so I now realize that it’s tough for men too!
2. People have an altered perception of love than what I’m used to. In fact I genuinely am not sure to what extent it’s valued. It’s as if love and sharing one’s life with someone are not priorities for men and women in their 30s. Or if they are, they want to be 100% sure that they are picking the right person before they decide to stop seeing others…um…ok. Good luck with that Gen “paradox of choice.”
3. Everyone complains about the paradox of choice and people’s flakiness but they are unaware of what they project. In fact,
4. People are not self aware and individualistic.
5. Men and women have very different interpretations. For example, it wasn’t until the first time (and last time we saw each other actually) that CJ came over that I realized that he is definitely sleeping with more than just me. In my apartment, I needed some time to figure out the process. Almost as if I didn’t know how to behave because it’s not everyday a man I am interested in and like is in my home. Whereas at his place, it was smooth sailing from the start. What I had interpreted as romance (candles, music, massage), I realized was just his moves. And let’s just say the routine was fluid. Whereas I felt awkward. Not that I have never brought a man home, but not in the context that it’s 2nd nature to me. CJ was clearly just a little too comfortable, definitely not a once a year happening for him. And not saying it should be, just realizing the differences in interpretation was so interesting. Another example: awe he never looks at his phone when he is with me because his attention is on me. Um, wrong! Sorry, it’s because his phone is blowing up with messages from the other 5 girls he must be seeing!
6. People can have sex and be intimate (I’m talking conversation, sharing of past experiences, massages, intimacy!) without getting attached. This one utterly baffles me because I am so incapable of the such. It’s not to say I fall in love with every man I’m intimate with (I wish, then perhaps I would fall in love more often), but I get attached, even if I know it will wear off and not go anywhere. The idea of spending moments as such and going out with someone new the next day is utterly impossible for me.
7. Dating today is like reading the first 10 pages of one book, then another, then another, and another, etc. Of course by book 4 you won’t remember what the first 10 pages of book 1 were about, no matter how captivating book 1 was. And actually, I have never been the type of person who could read more than one book at a time.
8. I’d rather be the soft hearted, blatantly honest, hopeless romantic, deeply sensitive dreamer that I am than what appears to me as a heartless, incapable of opening up, ADD tangent dating, and honestly, cold person. Yes, that’s the impression I get from modern dating based on my own experiences the last year and Aziz’s book.
I’m by no means saying everyone is like this and I truly believe everyone finds their lobster eventually, which only means there is someone out there who feels the same way I do about all this. But this experience and Aziz’s book truly shocked me and quite honestly, saddened me.
My married friend did ask me something that I keep reminding myself of when I think “what if…” or feel down in regards to CJ. She asked “do you think people who sleep with multiple people change their bed sheets in between partners?” OMG! Given the dirty roommate experiences I had in my 20s, people’s laziness, and the fact that not everyone feels the need to dust every week let alone clean (neat freak over here), I’m thinking “definitely not!” The thought of having rolled around CJ’s sheets after someone else, or before someone else, or good God, in between 2 people…well it makes me feel grateful to be a one book at a time type of reader who will someday meet her lobster.
So people, please! Think about the sheets, and for goodness sake, change them between partners.
