Contact

I think I missed—don’t get pissed.

I haven’t been entirely honest on here.
Or, more so, I guess I’ve been withholding something—keeping it private, just for me. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t put all of my lived experiences on the internet.

But lately, it’s started to feel dishonest, not in a malicious way—more like when you leave a detail out of a story and then the story doesn’t quite make sense anymore.

So here’s the missing part:

About six months ago, I started seeing someone. It was casual at first. And then suddenly, it wasn’t that casual anymore. I don’t really know when or where or how it happened, but it was extremely unintentional. You just turn around one day, and someone is suddenly part of the fabric of your life. Your friends know them by name. You FaceTime for hours despite seeing each other the day before. They offer to take care of you when you’re sick. You appear in each other’s dreams. You go to the gym together.

You’re aware that you’re always trying to keep a distance to maintain the “casual” nature of the relationship—an emotional arm’s length. You’re also aware that you keep gravitating toward each other like magnets. You pretend like none of this is happening. It’s exciting and confusing and scary.

We ended it recently. Quietly. Gently. I’m sad. That’s the word I keep using. Not devastated, not wrecked. Just sad, like a light rain that doesn’t stop all day. I was enjoying the companionship, enjoying learning someone new. I enjoyed having intimacy with someone, whether it be the physical kind or the “this meme reminds me of you” kind. We blurred the lines of our arrangement too much, and we both acknowledged how much we liked how blurry the lines got. But dating with an expiration date was hard, and you can’t live in a smudge forever.

I always found ways to justify its continuation: It feels good, and you deserve to feel good! The world is ending—go have fun! You’re not going to marry this person; you’ll know when it’s time to end it!

But I know I’m sentimental as fuck, and the longer I rode this train, the more expensive the ticket home would be. It’s really weird to mourn something you don’t even have a name for.

And though I’m a little heartbroken over it, I am so grateful for it. This experience has been deeply meaningful to me, and I’ll always have a place in my heart for the person I was with. I’ve learned a lot about myself through my first “connection” with someone after my divorce. I’ve learned that my divorce hasn’t hardened my heart, and that I’m still soft inside—which is a huge relief. It’s nice to know I can experience joy, extend trust, have intimacy. That the wound of my trauma isn’t so gaping that I can’t connect. That feels important to acknowledge.

But it really makes me wonder if I believe in “casual dating.” I don’t think I do. I don’t know how to be that way.

I’ve learned I can respect someone’s space and freedom, but still yearn to know them deeply and intimately. I’ve learned that if you’re in my life, I can’t help but show you I care—even if that makes things weird.

I want to know everything. Not just the big stuff—childhood trauma, relationship wounds—but the little things. Where you buy your shirts. What songs remind you of being a kid. Your bagel order. I want to know what makes you leave a party early and what keeps you there too long.

This makes me bad at casual.

It also makes me feel like I’m too much. Too earnest. Too curious. Too feeling. Dating has become this performance of indifference and I keep fumbling the lines. I get too invested because it is the only way I know how to be— with friendships, relationships…with whatever the hell this thing was. And that’s apparently a liability.

But I need to come to terms with what is real and what is merely ideal (thank you for that, Co–Star). That applies to my expectations of others—but also of myself.

I don’t think I can exchange my tenderness for aloofness, my empathy for detachment, my curiosity for disinterest. This experience has taught me that I’m not cool enough to be a “casual” person. No matter how hard I try, I am not chill. I’m a fucking torch. Try to put me in your pocket and I may light you on fire. And that triggers something upsetting in me: that I’m always going to be too feeling-sy for people to want to deal with. That I can’t possibly be fun to be around if I’m constantly pouring my emotional bullshit all over the place. That I am the dreaded “too much”.

I mean look at me, writing a fucking Substack about all this. That’s like, the least casual thing you can do.

Casual dating has made me insecure. I’m always apologizing for my earnestness. I still feel like dating is a game everyone else knows the rules to but me, and I keep fucking it up by being too honest and vulnerable.

Why can’t I just be hot and mysterious like all the other girls?

I hold out hope that one day, for the right person, I won’t be too much. But if I never meet that person, I think I’d rather be fully myself and alone.

I no longer think of relationships in terms of forever. My marriage has made it impossible to believe in “forever” anymore.

When I met my husband at 18 and started dating him at 20, I thought of dating as some grand audition to see if they were a potential life partner. I thought dating any other way was a waste of time. Why would you invest in someone if you didn’t think it was for the long term?

Back then, I did everything to ensure a predictable and safe future—and everything still fell apart. I picked the “sure thing” partner. We had a traditional relationship. We waited to get married, ensuring there would be no surprises between us once wed.

After my divorce, I started seeing any connection I made as special. I discovered I could make a meaningful connection in one date. Two weeks. Six months. It’s not forever, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t impactful. Hell, we could share a moment and still matter to each other.

After my marriage, I was eager to get out there and explore—tempted by the possibility of experiencing new relationship dynamics and connections. Now, I feel like I maybe never want to see another man again. I’m off the apps (or in my case, app, singular). I’m focusing on me for real this time…not depriving myself of potential connections, but trusting that I don’t need to work so hard to seek them out.

Again, torch. People who want to see me will see me.

But this experience has also made me start thinking about a potential future love. A real partner. Who would that person be?

I have a list of qualities I’m looking for in a partner on my phone—it was, more or less, an exercise to show me that my ex-husband doesn’t actually exhibit any of the qualities I want in a partner, but I do find myself reading it and amending it quite often. You will find all the usual suspects there— emotionally available, introspective, devoted.

But a partner is not a list of qualities on a phone. A list of qualities is safe and idealistic. A person is going to fuck up and disappoint me. We will get mad at each other. We will disagree, misunderstand, and confound each other. I am not looking for perfection, but I would love to be with someone stoked on me. I want this person to see mistakes as a way to deepen our understanding of each other, not widen the chasm between us. I want them to be inclined to do right by me for no other reason than genuine, inate desire. I want them not to be intimidated by the breadth of my emotions, but be curious about them. I want them to see my emotional baggage as something light if we can carry it together.

I will want to learn them. And hopefully, they will want to learn me too.