Deconstructing the Date
Finding the one is a colossal waste of time. This had been my mantra until recently, when I decided to get back on apps in order to find “a” one. Someone I wanted to see again. Someone I wanted to kiss. Someone to share my nights with.
What I have found is that we’re no good at meeting each other. Yes, once we’ve gone through matching and messaging, we may agree on place and time — and actually go through with it. But once we’re there, who is to say that we’re actually wanting to be seen for who we are or to truly see the person before us? Who’s to say we even know how to do that?
That we can bring basic decency to the process is a win for humanity.
My relationship ideal is to create a “here.” A third place — where you and I meet. A place that feels connected. Where there is no spiel. No rote run down on what we’ve done and where we’ve been. In my bedroom, woodcut letters read be here with me. I’m not trying to kidnap anyone — I just want to find a present with someone else.
While it’s easy to complain about dating, it’s close to miraculous that we’re willing to meet strangers at all. In several decades time, we have adopted a completely new behavior. That we can bring basic decency to the process is a win for humanity. But the fact that we don’t know how to be in our own bodies and connect with someone else is a loss.
I only want to be with someone if we add something to each other’s lives.
This isn’t a problem with no name, but it’s certainly a problem with no solution. If you don’t know how to be with yourself, I can’t help you. If you don’t know how to be with me, I can try to guide you, but I can’t do it for you.
While I used to bristle at the idea that we don’t need to teach men, as I look at the landscape of patriarchy, the systems that support an ignorance of the self and others’ needs, I see that the whole thing is rigged. I have spent a decade of dates playing therapist, trying to help men understand their emotions and reactions, and I’m officially done — not from a place of anger but one of clarity. I don’t know that we ever got anywhere anyhow.
On Valentine’s, when I told a guy I had been dating for a month that I wanted to feel more connected to him, all he could say was, “This is awkward.” That he grabbed his things and walked out, while shocking in and of itself, didn’t really surprise me. I haven’t heard from him and I don’t expect to. A previous version of me would try to repair this, try to help him figure it out — what was he scared of? Where was the wound? But that’s not my work. That’s his work, whether he chooses it or not.
I don’t need to date. I don’t need to marry. I only want to be with someone if we add something to each other’s lives. If we can inhabit a space of our own making.
This essay is part of a series about relationships, dating, and friendship, sponsored by Chorus, the matchmaking app where friends swipe for friends.
