You don’t want to date me

Dear whoever,

I imagine you checking me out across a crowded room, along the street, on an online dating site. I might be a viable dating prospect.

So next, you try to find out what I’m into. It’s the normal thing to do with someone you want to spend time with. I tell you that I teach Shakespeare, that I read Archie comics, that I think Sherlock is the smartest series I’ve ever watched (though I say nothing about the sexiness of Benedict Cumberbatch, because it’s not something we can or will or should bond over). I’ve piqued your interest.

In further casual conversation you learn that I own a PS3 and play popular Blizzard games on occasion. I have broad and non-eclectic listening preferences and I haven’t expressed distaste over any of yours. So far so good.

I make you laugh. My dry, sometimes self-deprecating humor makes you feel that I’m easy-going. I don’t insult, or belittle you or say things that make you uncomfortable, like telling you how many children I would like to have after we get married. I listen, eyes wide, smiling, nodding at opportune moments. And I do listen because I respond with sympathy, laughter or indignant anger on your behalf, as is appropriate.

Wow, you say to yourself. I think I might really want to see more of this girl. In fact, you might’ve already thought that from the first time you laid your eyes on me. I’m not discounting the possibility that the physical expression of my particular set of genes has set off all your physical triggers. This is a statistical likelihood, given the millions of people in the appropriate age range and sexual orientation to be attracted to me, and also the fact that I’m not hideous.

Maybe you’ve been nudged further in the same direction by the last sentence I just wrote. There’s no way of telling what turns a person on, after all.

But, gentle reader, you’re wrong. You don’t want to date me. You want to date this idealized version of me – because it IS my ideal self. It is the person who goes out and meets people casually, the self who is polite and funny and smiling. The self that is charming and enjoys listening to lengthy descriptions of how you dominated Torment VI with your Whirlwind Barbarian.

I can be a bit of social chameleon when I’m in the mood – the sort of person who tries to fit into the mold of what I think you want, who you want to talk to, especially when it’s a one on one date. (I get confused when there are too many people around.)

Sure, some of the basic features of my personality are there, but they’re all geared for the Good of Man. Wit is great when it makes you laugh, but not when you’ve suddenly become the object of biting criticism. Independence? Wonderful because I’m not one of those clingy girlfriends, until you start wondering why I’m not one of those clingy girlfriends at all. Oh, and the way I always listen and remember what you say? Damned if you’re not going to feel a bit put out at a different time when I throw back at you all the stupid/nasty things you’ve ever said.

Can you take that? Can you understand that there are sides to me that you will not see right at this moment? That I am a flawed person, just as you are, that there are mornings you will see me with my hair in a mess and my eyes blurry, that sometimes I can’t bring myself to care about you, that sometimes I will tell you that your taste is terrible and I’m not the least bit interested in how amazing your last golf game was? That sometimes my faith will suffer, that I will lose confidence in myself, that I will say and do and think self-destructive things. Could you understand it if I became a lost, miserable child (and I do mean child) or a cynical jaded bitch whose response to your own misery is a smirk?

I am not the person you saw when we first met. I am not nice. I am not sweet. I am not generous. Not all the time. Instead, I am complex, and with each passing date, I WILL get more complicated to deal with. And I think you’ll get more and more disappointed.

You don’t want to date me. You want to date the Barbie me, the self that comes pre-packaged in a shiny box with accessories. I can’t be Barbie for all time. I’m sorry that’s the way you found me, because being nicely packaged is the only way you would’ve wanted to take me off the shelf anyway. Would you really have picked me up if I appeared in the discount bin, neck broken, hair in shambles, out of the box, shrouded in makeshift plastic wrap with half my accessories missing?

I doubt it. I don’t blame you for not wanting that. And you shouldn’t blame me for wanting to present my best self. But before you decide to buy something – remember that you don’t always see what you’re getting into. And even if it is as advertised, time will wear it down. Rough handling will break it. Anything will become older, faded. Things change.

Can you honestly say that you would not mind that, and this one purchase is all you’ll need for a long time to come? Would you really commit to being happy with what you got, even if not perfect, broken but still working?

If not, put me down. You don’t want to date me.