APRIL - MAY 2018
Dating has never been any simpler before. You can go on many dates with different people over a course of one week because all you need to do is swipe left and right on different apps. Every night, before bed you go through Tinder, Bumble, Hinge and Grindr constantly. Just swiping and messaging new people. Some intrigue you and some annoy you. The superficiality of men using these apps never stop to surprise you. They don’t care about your intellect, personality or your life. All they want to know is your sex position. We live in a world in which people think sex is the most important part of the relationship. They think that your sex position is a compatibility question, making it sound like sex is just about penetration. Newsflash, sex is more than penetration. You spend your life avoiding ‘the compatibility question’ because it makes you uncomfortable. It makes you feel vulnerable. You haven’t come to terms with your sex position yet and you wish you could change it. Change so many things in your life because you still blame yourself for everything that happened to you. You blame yourself because you caught your first ex trying to cheat on you. You blamed it on your insecurities and assumed that you are fucked up in the brain. Even to this day, you still haven’t been able to control your brain. It keeps spiralling never endingly and you can’t seem to control your life. But nothing is stopping you from dating. You want to meet new people, have sex and get into a relationship and you believe that the next one will be different. But the world has other plans for you.
You are desperately in need of a relationship. This is how you feel loved. One thing you keep dismissing is that you do not love yourself. Relationships makes you forget that because if someone else can love you, that means you can get away with not loving yourself. You see this as balance restored. But you don’t want to admit that this is wrong. So, when you meet someone you would do anything to keep them. Even if it means ignoring some very important red flags. For context, red flags are a concept created by people to describe some very concerning issues that a person has and shows. This is an evidence of all the issues you could be facing in your relationship. When you first had the guts to come out, you go on tinder and start talking to this guy. He is French but blonde and blue eyes. You talk for days but never meet. He lives in Woking and you live in London. You cannot seem to arrange a time to meet, so you move on. You forget he exists. Exactly 2 years later, you finally experienced a relationship but it didn’t work and you are dating someone new. It is still fresh and he tells you he doesn’t want to see other people after a week. You let this red flag pass and not bother you. However, after 2 weeks of dating you cannot shake this feeling you have in your gut. You know that you will not see him again or talk to him after today. So, you want to go to his work to surprise him and see him for 5 minutes.
You are walking through Leicester Square with a friend, minutes before surprising the guy you are dating at the time. By the corner of your eye, you see the same French guy from two years ago. You don’t know how you remember him but you have always been good with faces so you don’t question it much. You just watch him walk past you and lock eyes for a little bit. You cannot stop yourself from turning around and checking him one more time. Your friend is distraught by your behaviour and keeps asking you if you know him. You feel obligated to tell her everything because this doesn’t happen to you often. But you state that you don’t remember his name and force yourself to not think about him because the moment has passed and there is nothing in your hands that you can do. Unfortunately, your gut feeling was right. You go to his work and surprise him. That is the last time you see or hear from him ever again. You are more distraught about being ghosted by him than anything else. You didn’t think you were a good match in the first place but you wanted to be loved. He made you feel insecure, like you couldn’t fit into his world of drugs and rave parties. One thing you did not consider is that you couldn’t fit into his world no matter how hard you tried.
You try to forget and be single for a while because you are tired of heartbreak and despair. But you cannot forget about the French guy. Two weeks later; when you least expect it, you get a friend request from him on Facebook. Feeling amazed that he remembered you as well and more importantly, he found you when you couldn’t remember his name. Jumping up and down with excitement, you accept. You forget that you are at work and cannot keep your excitement. Moreover, you cannot stop thinking about the judgement you expect from your friends. You can picture your friends saying; ‘I thought you were not dating’, ‘Why are you doing this to yourself?’, ‘You need to take some time to yourself’ and most importantly, ‘You need to be happy with yourself first, before expecting someone else to make you happy’. But you have your response ready for all these comments. ‘What a pile of shit.’
He tells you he recognised you and he turned to check you out as well. You finally get the chance to meet because he moved to London. The date goes better than expected. You cannot stop laughing and enjoying his presence but you keep pushing every bad feeling down. Like they do not exist, like if you keep suppressing them that they will eventually go away and you can hide from it. This is Mistake #1. First of many that you will eventually make. At the end of the date, he asks you to go over to his house as it is close and for one more drink at his. You suspect that he wants to fuck you. Considering your options and ready to give in to temptation, you decide to resist. This is the only way you can tell if someone is actually interested in you. You make them wait for sex. It is not a very well thought plan and it is definitely not failsafe. But he understands when you tell him that you need to leave. Halfway home, you start to finally understand why you cannot see clearly and everything in your vision is blurry. It is a result of a dumb mistake. You dropped your glasses in his room and never picked it up, did not even realise that you didn’t have them because you were preoccupied, trying to rush out of his room. He seems like a nice person because he is willing to bring it over to your work the next day, which means you act like you are blind for a while. You meet him at work during lunch and he is sweet, genuine. Second date is even closer than you expect. It is tonight, at your place. Life changes every single day, new opportunities come up and nowadays, there is an endless supply of people to fuck. Giving in to temptation that night is Mistake #2. Later in the relationship you will find out that you are not the first person he had sex with that day. He had sex with someone he found on Grindr, straight after he left you at work. His justification is that ‘He knew that you would get into a relationship and he wanted to have sex with someone, ONE LAST TIME.’.
Your relationship is going quick, spending most of the week together and always talking. You understand each other and have the same love language. You keep ignoring red flags but the texts he will send you throughout your relationship will stay. You will keep reading them and accept that you have actually fucked up in this relationship and for a while, accept all the blame even when it doesn’t make sense. Your brain is arranged that way. It is easier to blame yourself than accept you had no fault in the destruction of your relationship. You remember the way he used to get on his toes to reach your lips before kissing you, his blue eyes staring deep into your soul. Have you ever heard of the term “Eyes Are Windows to the Soul. Our eyes don't lie: they're windows to the soul. They show the truth, no matter what face we put on, in any situation. The best way to get to know someone is to look them in the eyes and observe what they reveal about their emotional state.”? You believed in this for a while. You wanted to see the truth, but instead you created your own truth in his eyes. Never knowing the hurt and despair that awaits you.
