FOR LOVE OR PEANUT BUTTER
Let Me Introduce To You The Version Of Me That I Think You’d Like To Meet
The subtle yet super unhelpful habit I picked up from dating apps.
I did it. I deleted the dating apps. I marveled at the amount of free headspace I had reclaimed now that I wasn’t constantly wondering what strangers did or didn’t like about me.
It was refreshing, and soothing, and then it was alarming. If I was no longer focusing all that energy on the men that would never become my husband, I had a lot more energy to focus on the biological clock ticking inside of me like a stick of dynamite.
So, why hadn’t I found a man who loved me for me yet? Well, as it turns out, I was inadvertently hiding the real me from every man I went out with. Apparently, I didn’t think millennial men in Los Angeles would be keen on a woman under fifty who watches Jeopardy five nights a week.
I’ve always been a pretty confident person, so when people would constantly ask me, “How are you still single?” I didn’t have an automatic, mean-to-myself answer like, “My hideous face, my irritating personality, or my pronounced halitosis.” It’s hard to fix something if you don’t know what caused it, so I had to go back. Way back.
