It’s torture sometimes, to want things
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My date tells me how much he enjoys being turned on. “Even if nothing happens! Just walking down the street and seeing a beautiful woman and getting turned on for a half hour or so. It’s torture sometimes, but I love it.”
I think back to last night, touching myself thinking about someone I met recently. I used to always have crushes, and feel bad when I wasn’t pining after someone. I would miss that energy.
When I dated a lot in DC I’d encounter so many men who didn’t want to be in a relationship. They were such a mystery to me. They seemed broken. And they might have been, for other reasons. But today, this year, for the first time, I have gone from not being extremely sad at the prospect of never being in a romantic relationship again to kind of preferring it.
Don’t get me wrong. There is absolutely no experience that compares with spending all day fucking someone I’m in mutual limerance with. It’s better than any drug, and I’ve tried a lot of them. And if a pro-growth, mutually beneficial, healthy, limerant relationship bounced into my life, I’d be thrilled. I’d be grateful. But I’d also be a little sad and a lot scared.
The thing I do not want to do is what I’d been doing. I don’t regret any of my romantic relationships in the sense that my life would have been better without them. I’m just now, for the first time, keenly aware of their opportunity cost. My last relationship was the one where it was clearest to me that that wasn’t the highest-ROI way for me to have spent that time. I want to write, publish, change hearts and minds. Change the world. I want to spend time with friends. I want to volunteer. It’s not that I can’t do those things in a relationship. It’s that I always do less of them. And I don’t think doing it again will be worth the tradeoff.
And I mourn that. I mourn that I don’t expect to find someone to date who will be worth the time. Not because they’re not good enough or whatever. Just because we can’t be what each other needs.
I mourn that being in love isn’t the thing I want most anymore. I mourn the realization that it probably was never actually the thing I wanted most. I wanted the drug of limerance. I wanted the growth relationships can spur. I wanted to feel accepted. I still want those things. But I’m not willing to give as much up for someone who only might provide those things to me. Which probably greatly decreases my chances of finding it.
My dad once told me not to give up. To keep looking for a partner. I understand why my parents want me to settle down with someone. If I could have, I would have. I certainly tried. I’ve been married and divorced. Cohabitated several times. Moved across the country to be with a guy. I’ve been monogamous and poly and everything in between. I’ve dated men and women. I’m in therapy. I’ve done couples’ counseling. I bought a course on how to catch and keep a man. I’ve kept my weight down and my hair dyed and worn makeup and a padded bra most days (pre-pandemic). I’ve used nearly every dating app known to man. I even tried a professional matchmaker. My God have I tried.
The inescapable conclusion I’ve come to based on all the social science I’ve read on the topic is that the key to being in a happy relationship is being a happy person and pairing up with another happy person. Now, people say relationships can be healing and you don’t have to be fully self-actualized to be worthy of love. And I believe that in the same way I believe in body positivity. Which is to say I endorse it wholeheartedly, for other people. For myself, you can pry my thin privilege from my shaky, hungry hands. For myself, there’s a certain extent to which I’m honestly just not that interested in anyone who would date who I am today.
On our first date, tonight’s date described me as “anti-phobic.” He said I run toward my fears.
I’ve always felt larval. When I was a teenager, or in college, it made sense that I would feel like I wasn’t fully grown yet. But the feeling persisted, even after I’d graduated, gotten married, secured a good job, and bought a house. Then it persisted after I became the libertarian pundit I set out to DC to become. Through every accomplishment, move, and new relationship the feeling that I’m not fully baked yet has persisted.
My whole adult life I've had little phrases that will pop into my head at various points with varying levels of frequency and urgency, like little rumination mantras. One of them is “What are you doing with your life?” It’s said as an admonishment. Like I should have a clearly defined purpose and be working towards it.
This year I started working towards saving enough money to retire. Not because I don’t want to work. I live to work. I love working. I fully intend to work until I (Google forbid) bite the big one. What retirement means to me is doing the work I think is most meaningful instead of what alleviates my fear of running out of money and becoming a burden to my family.
There has never been a time I wasn’t afraid of a lot of things. There will never be a time when I’m not afraid of a lot of things. But throughout my life I have run towards many of the things I've been afraid of. I have followed my mother’ instruction to do it scared.
I have a figure in mind I think I could retire on. I’d still have to work some kind of job but it could be really any kind of job. Yet, truth be told, I don’t know if there’s an amount of money that would make me feel safe quitting my day job and fully leaning into the work I think is meaningful. But in the meantime I’m enjoying my job and OnlyFans and doing meaningful work on the side and saving money. Someday I’m probably just going to do it scared. Similarly, I don’t know if there’s anything I could do that would make me feel safe pouring a lot of time and energy into another romantic relationship. Perhaps someday I’ll meet someone who compels me to do it scared. But in the meantime I’m enjoying crushing on people I’ll likely never date.
It’s torture sometimes, to want things. But I love it.