Both online and in real life, I’ve been horrifyingly open about my love life lately. I never used to be this way. I used to be very private about who I was dating and falling in love with, but that was before I went on a seemingly endless string of bad dates. At first, I just needed to vent and to hear that no, I’m not crazy, the guy who wouldn’t stop talking about diarrhea during sex on our first date was crazy. After awhile, it also became about letting other women hear that they weren’t crazy either, that the whole system is just fucked up.
The support I’ve gotten has been invaluable, but if you’ve been single for long enough, you’ve probably gotten the unsolicited advice too. Well-meaning people telling you to just go out and talk to people in real life, or that your profile picture is inviting those dick pics, or to just stop looking and let love happen to you passively like it’s inevitable.
Most of these people giving advice are in relationships, have probably not been single for awhile, and think that they are telling you something you haven’t heard and are helping.
To all the people who have given me advice, whether it was useful or useless or downright awful, thank you for your support. Thank you for trying. Thank you for being helpful in a world of people who are apathetic. There are many times when I’ve asked…
