Premature infatuation
My first tiptoes into dating had me feeling fairly good. I was enjoying a boost in confidence that I hadn’t experienced before. I was suddenly getting attention from lots of women. These were attractive, smart, and driven women… and they liked me?! I was trying to wrap my head around it all. But I still wasn’t fully sure of what I was looking for. Or who I was looking for.
Leading into that first summer of COVID-19, I came across Dylan on Bumble. Her profile was cheery and inviting, with some very captivating pictures. There was one of her dressed up like Winnie the Pooh in a classroom surrounded by young students. Another had her in a cute blue swimsuit that said Save the whales. But the best was this one of her sitting in her car and looking right at the camera. She had this coy smile. Her septum piercing looked great, her blonde hair cascaded down, and she had what I was soon discovering was my kryptonite: great thick eyebrows. Yowza.
We matched and started messaging. She told me about how she’d been to Thailand and taught English there recently (dressing up as Winnie the Pooh to show her students where she was from), and her brother was still living there and loving it. We talked about what we’d been up to during the pandemic, and I mentioned how I did some voice acting for a cartoon. Soon we were sending each other voice notes and I got to hear her sultry voice that I told her kind of sounded like Scarlett Johansson. The vibe was fun and playful right away, so within a couple of days I saw an opening to ask her out.
Yes, I actually very briefly went to the New York Film Academy like a decade ago
New york! I’d love to go lol what was that like?
I’d looooove to tell you about it over drinks some time lol
I’ve always wanted to see Brooklyn, did you go there? And yeah 😊 that sounds great lol, are there even places we can go
I did, I lived in Brooklyn! Yeah, patios are actually opening!
Do we dare try meeting up lol?
We set a date about a week into the future to meet for drinks at one of the few places that had an outdoor patio open to the public at the time, The King’s Head. The day before our date, Dylan sent a message saying that she had to admit something: she was a vegetarian. If I wanted to cancel, she said she understood. I flicked that measly excuse away and told her that didn’t remotely make me want to reconsider. She was probably just getting cold feet, I figured.
Then on the day of the date, it was looking a little gloomy and rainy, and she again appeared to be having second thoughts. She suggested we could postpone to another day. I assured her the weather wasn’t going to be too bad and said we should still meet. An hour before, she said it looked good enough, so she’d see me there.
I got there and waited a few minutes, sweating it out. A couple of texts later and finally she came by and sat across from me. I was so relieved. Right away, we ordered drinks and got into it.
The vibe from our texting translated perfectly. It was instantaneous and felt so easy. She was a big talker, so it made me feel more comfortable opening up with her. We talked about serious stuff and silly stuff, but all of it was total flirtation for hours and hours and hours.
We talked about our families a bit. She was Metis, and we found out we both had Icelandic ancestors (agreeing a trip to Iceland would be incredible). As the night went on, I got the feeling this woman was way too cool for me. She’d been in a band and had these colourful tattoos on her arms and thighs. She carried herself with confidence and loved to loudly laugh. And dear lord she laughed a lot. I was in heaven. She had a very cute giggle, usually accompanied by an “oh my god!” that quickly made me think I was the funniest person she must have ever met.
But she also laid out some insecurities to me right away. She said she felt so nervous to go on this date, which was why she kept hesitating before. She hadn’t had too many good dating experiences and it made her second-guess herself a lot. Someone in her past had been weird about her being vegetarian, and that’s why she wanted to check with me. She’d grown insecure all over again and had been thinking about a cancellation message that afternoon. When I said the weather was good after all, she decided to go for it and meet up. But even then, she drove by once first to make sure I showed up and looked like myself.
I felt horrible hearing her stories, but loved that she felt comfortable enough to tell me them. It was so easy to talk with her. It felt like there was hardly a break in our dialogue, we just kept talking and talking late into the night, until finally, the bar staff had to kick us out.
Her car was parked a few blocks down, and I offered to walk her there since it was late at night and I’m a goddamn gentleman. We got there, and then she said, “Why don’t I drive you to your car?”
Great idea. I hopped in and she drove 30 seconds the other way to my car. I guess we were both so energized from the great date and wanted to keep it going, even for just another small moment like those 30 seconds. I said goodbye, and we looked at each other. Oooh boy. We both did that quick evaluation in our heads. Are we hugging? A quick kiss? Just saying goodnight?
We opted for a full-on makeout, extending our date by a few extra minutes until finally some people walked by the car and their proximity snapped us out of our dreamy haze. I thanked her for the great night and drove home. Before going to bed, I sent her:
Dylan you drive me fucking wild.
We went on another date and I felt the magic from our first one continue. She told me she worked somewhere that provided wellness services for youth, and was very close to my apartment. As we flirted and laughed in a classic COVID daytime walking-around-with-nowhere-to-go-date, we cautiously checked who else we were both seeing from dating apps. I had just been on a date with someone else, while she had a date lined up soon. I encouraged her to go on it and see how it went.
But there really wasn’t much competition. We had a couple more dates together and some late-night after-work drop-ins after her shift was done. One time, something scary happened at work, and she came over all shaken up. I stayed with her for a while until things calmed down. I appreciated that she could trust me to provide a safe space for her. Before long, it was clear that other Bumble dates didn’t stand much of a chance.
We started seeing each other more and more, and it all felt very seamless and natural. The more I found out about her, the more I liked her. She was so open and uninhibited about herself. While I thought she was wildly stunning, she’d still candidly post about her pimples or other skincare issues on her Instagram, showing them off for all to see. She had a refreshingly positive outlook on everything, even when it came to negative thoughts about herself. She’d post things like “feeling low, bet this 30-day yoga challenge will make me feel better!” She wanted to do something about herself, so she would, full-steam ahead. I respected that about her.
There was a real Covid-tinge to how we dated at first. Lots of people were playing tennis that summer since it was an outdoor and socially-distanced sport. Dylan mentioned that she’d played a bit of badminton, and I told her that was more than enough experience to play an amateur like me. We went out and messed around together, and it was delightful. We didn’t take it too seriously, but it was fun to fake trash talk and see how we gelled.
The Rec Room had also just reopened from its initial COVID closure and was incentivizing people to come back with lots of free points. We went there fully masked up in a nearly empty building and played for hours, just racking up points and memories. We got to play almost every game we could see with zero wait time until we finally got to this Korean Dance Dance Revolution knock-off that had one woman playing it the whole time we were there. Dylan really wanted to try it (and I wanted to see her try it), so we’d casually walk by it after trying a few other games, but this woman never left. So we finally had to passive-aggressively stand right behind her until she finally got off. And then we danced! Not very well! The whole day culminated in a slightly inappropriate photo booth session where our masks came off and social distancing rules were highly disrespected.
With most things being closed for COVID though, we mainly hung out together at each other’s places. We’d put on random reality shows and spend the whole time talking together. RuPaul's Drag Race, Selling Sunset, Love is Blind, Queer Eye; we were packing in all these shows and using them to get to know each other better, using what was happening on the shows as launching points for deeper conversations. I got to learn so much about her.
Dylan was also a bit of a singer. She wasn’t in a band anymore, but she liked to record herself playing guitar or piano and singing along to it, then posting it on her Instagram. She had this throaty, soulful voice that sounded great. When she saw that I had a Rock Band set, she knew we had to play together. We would have many Rock Band “concerts” together, where she’d take all the hard singing parts and I’d do my best to keep up.
Only a month into seeing each other exclusively, she posted a story on her Instagram saying “One month with this cutie ❤️” with a couple of pics of us. I couldn’t believe it. I was so stoked. I hadn’t been with someone so public about their affection for me and so willing to “show me off” to her friends and family. She seemed so happy about being with me. I couldn’t help but feel super loved.
Things were just starting and they were going so well. I felt like this person had come out of nowhere and just knocked my socks off. But maybe I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was for it.
It had been a year and a half since ending things with Daniela. But there was still this push-pull going on between us. We were still talking somewhat regularly. It was awkward and guarded, but we tried to maintain a supportive relationship. We had this whole history together and I wanted the best for her. But because of that, it was like I was constantly keeping one eye outside of my growing relationship with Dylan. I wasn’t able to fully give myself to her.
I could see things getting serious and I pumped the brakes hard. One summer day, we were about to leave to go camping for the weekend for her friend's birthday. She drove to my place, and I sat her down on my couch. I said I didn’t think I could go. I didn’t think I should go. This was like an hour before we were supposed to leave. It was pretty heartless. I ambushed her. But I thought I’d cut this off before it got more serious and more painful.
Dylan was thrown off and really disappointed. She said she thought things were going so well. I said they were too, but that wasn’t enough. Then I word-vomited a bunch of my insecurities about Daniela, about Dylan, and about the whole situation. She’d known a little about Daniela, but not to this degree.
But she said we should try to work through it, instead of calling everything off. We could talk more on the trip and figure things out. You still want me to go on this trip with you? Are you sure? If she really wanted me to go with her, then I would. So that’s what we did. We went on the trip together. I felt so relieved that I got to tell her my feelings, but it was like I was having my cake and eating it too. I wasn’t committing to changing anything yet. I decided to throw those thoughts out of my head for now, and soldier on.
We ended up having an amazing time together that weekend. We stopped in Gimli, checking out the beach and the pier together. In our rush, I forgot my bathing suit, so we went to a store and saw one marked heavily on sale that we couldn’t say no to. This pair was printed to look like cut-off denim shorts that Dylan for some reason found hilarious, which meant I was more than happy to model them for her to make her laugh. Making her laugh was really easy (which I took full advantage of, of course) and very rewarding. She loved to keep the joke going as long as possible. Sometimes we would segue our laughs into kisses and she’d always try and say one last thing like “Oh, hello” before she transitioned her giggling into playful moans.
We drove to the camping spot and I met a bunch of her friends. We drank and did a bunch of outdoor activities. There was a gigantic set of Jenga, a rope tied between two trees to balance on, and Dylan and I did a competition to see who could juggle a soccer ball for the longest. She absolutely destroyed me. At one point, Dylan took me aside and told me to put on the fake denim swim shorts, saying that her friends would find them so funny. I put them on, and no one found them funny at all… which almost made me like the shorts even more. Now these shorts were a silly joke that was just for us. The night ended with everyone around a bonfire. It was great.
But all the issues I had brought up beforehand were still there. Talking about them was good, it put them in the open. But I hadn’t actually dealt with anything. And afterward, I basically did nothing and hoped the issue would sort itself out.
Later, she brought me to meet her very lovely parents. Her mom was kind and sharp, and Dylan would call her “mumsy,” which was really cute. Her dad was very laid back and easy to get along with. Almost right away he started inquiring about our Rock Band nights. I thought it was so funny that was a detail Dylan had shared about us.
One day I came for a barbecue with some of her extended family and neighbours. I, of course, was eating vegan in solidarity with Dylan and we brought some big vegan salad. As I put it down on the counter, Dylan ran off and got ready in another room, as her mom side-eyed our salad.
“You aren’t vegan though, right?” her mom said, with the slightest hint of a smirk.
“No, no, just around Dylan,” I replied.
“OK, great,” she said, smiling back at me, surrounded by dishes of meat.
After dinner, her cousin’s toddler was running around and Dylan and I were trying to entertain him. We were chasing each other and I was jumping around. Dylan pointed at me and said to the kid, “Did you know he’s the real Spider-man!” which got this young boy very excited. For the next 20 minutes, I had to do all these agile leaps and Spider-Man-like moves. It was exhausting. But Dylan was laughing the whole time, so that made it pretty worth it.
I subsequently returned the favour and brought Dylan to meet my parents for dinner. I told my mom ahead of time that Dylan was vegan, so it would be best if we all had something vegan-friendly. As I drove us there, we speculated on how the night would go and Dylan asked more about what my parents were like. I told her, knowing my parents, that I bet in the first five minutes my dad would make some “comment” about her not eating meat, while my mom would find some way to not-so-subtly bring up Israel (which was where she grew up).
We walked into the door and I introduced everyone. Within ten seconds, my dad went, “Dylan are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a big steak that we’ve got on the grill?!” as he chuckled at his own joke.
Dylan turned to me with a grin, as I gave her a knowing look.
My mom dismissed my dad with a wave of her hand. “Don’t listen to him. I’ve got a wonderful eggplant dish. It’s just like they make it in Israel.”
Not even one minute in, and my predictions were dead on. We made the briefest of eye contact and almost burst out laughing right there. Somehow we managed to save it for the end of the night as we got back into the car, where we finally howled with glee while I proclaimed that my parental clairvoyancy was unmatched in this world.
Dylan was so different than what I was used to in a relationship. For one, it seemed like she genuinely wanted to be around me. A lot. She’d send me loving texts and selfies, sometimes even spicy ones. She once sent me an Instagram post of an artistic interpretation of two people passionately having sex and was like, “We should try this position!” I did my best to match her energy and keep up. She just seemed so eager to be with me. I had been missing this for so long.
While I was dating Dylan, my mental health crisis was stabilizing into normalcy. I was a year and a half into being on SSRI drugs and was now much more familiar with their effects on me. One of those effects (as showcased in a scene with Pete Davidson in The King of Staten Island) was that it was harder to “finish” during sex. Instead of being a curse and source of frustration, I chose to accept this as a gift. “Oh no, I last extra long now, woe is me!” Psh! I figured I would man up, do my duty, and play my karmic part in closing the orgasm gap for all the times previously when I had finished and my partner hadn’t.
I hadn’t been with too many people since I’d been on these SSRIs, but it was enough to realize this pattern of “incompletion” was a likely outcome. So when it came time for me and Dylan to approach our first shaking of the sheets, I was prepared. Just before we started, I very confidently told her that it was going to last a while, thanks to the paroxetine in my system.
Ahem.
One minute later, I explained these things were actually very hard to predict, and most likely the next time would be the long one. Whoops…
First times aside, we continued passionately forward into paroxetine-tinged bliss. We’d find ways to spice things up whenever we could. Rock Band sessions eventually turned into strip Rock Band sessions. Our enjoyment of watching reality TV together even turned into foreplay, as Dylan found a British show called Naked Attraction, where contestants would strip completely naked as they picked who to go on a date with. While watching, we’d straddle between cuddling up with each other and gamely trying to guess which naked person would be selected or eliminated. Either way, we were enjoying the ride.
Things moved forward in other ways too. I eventually dropped the L-bomb on her (saying “I love you”) and she said it back. It was strange saying it to someone new when I’d been saying it to one person for 10 years before. But it felt right. And when she said it back it felt very real and warm and cozy.
One time we Facetimed with her brother in Thailand. He was awesome. The three of us laughed a ton, and our rapport was great. Her brother and I were making jokes back and forth like we’d been friends for years. I thought that was such a good sign. I knew Thailand was something special to her. Her brother and his partner were there, she’d visited before and planned to go back, and it held a special place in her heart.
We’d been talking about how I liked musicals (yes, I was your classic theatre kid in high school, fucking sue me), so for our six-month anniversary night when Dylan came over, I said we should watch The King and I, since it was set in Siam before it became Thailand. I think she appreciated the sweet gesture at first, but god, that movie was so boring… or at least, it wasn’t the type of vibe we were used to for things that we watched together. But she was very gracious in putting me out of my misery and mercifully stopping it early before it bored us both to tears.
But things were not destined to work for us.
I was still not sure about what was happening with my previous long-term relationship with Daniela. Because of that, Dylan and I stopped and started a few times, which was not a recipe for success. We’d cool off for a bit, and then re-kindle, but none of the underlying issues had been solved by me. I was trying to build the train tracks as the train was speeding ahead. My attempt to end things before that camping trip was a clear indicator of what would keep happening, and that just wasn’t fair to Dylan. Even when we were together, I never fully let her put her trust in me because I didn’t know what I truly wanted.
It was a shame. I could see that Dylan was this incredible person on her own and an amazing potential partner for someone. But I wasn’t ready to be the person she deserved. Her someone would have to someone else. After confiding in me from the start how her previous relationships had made her insecure, I was now doing that very thing to her. She became rightly frustrated with not knowing where I stood or what I wanted. The truth was I didn’t know. So I lost her.
In our last conversation, she was telling me all these things about how I wasn’t giving enough to her, and I couldn’t disagree with anything she was saying. But then she said, “And you stopped saying ‘I love you’ to me.”
That one stopped me cold. I had no idea. I thought I had still been so loving in person, perhaps hiding my uncertainty behind our steady affection. But I was constantly throwing casual L-bombs her way, right? Nope. I guess those had tapered off and I hadn’t even realized. It made me feel awful.
We ended our relationship and went our separate ways. Fortunately, she showed me some important things. I had a new standard on how I could be treated. There were legitimately many good times between us, and I could take those and move forward knowing what a great relationship could look like. What it was supposed to look like.
But I had put the cart before the horse. I had to do the work on myself, rather than searching for who to do it with first.
