hello hi I need to be more consistent

It’s been a few…months! Alright, more than a few. Every time this happens, I have the same excuse. Life gets in the way. Stress. Tiredness? Tiredness of the soul, not the body. My therapist makes it a point to let me know that I should be writing when I feel things. I’m trying to figure out how strictly I should abide by that suggestion. Now I get why some folks keep a small moleskine beside them at all times. If I wrote more, I’d fill up a notebook a month, and that’s a conservative estimate. Simply put, I have a lot of thoughts and don’t write them down enough. Then when I start writing, I regurgitate everything (if you’ve read anything else I’ve written, I stream of consciousness too much) because, and this is a surprise: I live for linkages and associations and references. Love them, actually. That and I never get to express myself like this around my colleagues. I…have no idea if they’d like me more or less if they found out how much I talk. To myself. Anyway.

It’s been about a year since I’ve started going on dates with people I’ve known for about a week or so. Describing it as navigating an unfamiliar land makes sense. Describing it as navigating an unfamiliar land with two left feet and overgrown bangs is spot-on. I thought I’d be reasonably lucky with dating, but maybe 2021 Kiran’s idea of online dating–“the general public kind of sucks, do you really want to, I don’t know, let them inside of you”–wasn’t completely unfounded. I mean, thankfully, that didn’t happen. When the dates happened, though, I probably wish it did! I mean, I’m thinking about what those experiences looked like. During one, I talked a bit too much about pursuing an MBA. Another time, my date flirted with a hostess. One date told me my sense of humor was negative, but I’m willing to believe that it wouldn’t have worked out anyway with myself and a Brit. I had a decent date with one and then he made plans with me to watch a movie after, and never responded. Went to a museum with another and spent three hours dragging him into every exhibit because I wasn’t sure if we had enough in common to talk about. Showed up to a date in DTLA after work, tired and bloated, and never contacted him again. He could barely hold a conversation and I was ready to burst forth from my slacks. And the last, which was actually the first, went the best. Or as best as a first date between, essentially, two strangers, could have gone. Said date ended up relocating shortly after, which left me reeling. I drove sharply and quickly in the canyons that day, fighting back tears. My driving instructor was there to listen to me and placate me, but were the tears those of grief? Or having hoped and had and then lost so rapidly?

I started off with a full tank and about a year’s worth of accrued hope last July. By the middle of that August, I had pissed away about ninety percent of that, and I’m tired of not admitting that to my captive audience of 0. What confuses me is how quickly I had gotten my hopes up about dating, especially when I went in with my very-2021 attitude. I knew I wouldn’t like everyone I met. My due diligence prior to meeting everyone was solid, so I was able to avoid less-than-ideal situations. But the feelings of deadness and nothingness after meeting nearly all of these men were unnerving. They were decent men, with career goals and political opinions that aligned with mine. They fought me over paying the check for dinner. Why didn’t anything work out?

Will I ever find someone?

I’m not that upset that I haven’t had a second date yet. Truthfully, I haven’t given everyone a chance. It didn’t make sense to expend myself after I burnt out. Maybe in that queue of men, there were a few I could have had something wonderful with, but I blew it. Imagine getting a message back seven months after you shoot your shot. Would you take it seriously? I wouldn’t. But my refusal to even slightly reek of desperation is probably also an issue here. My therapist told me it should be an accepted practice to have boundaries and to not stray from my core values too much. It’s just…I look around me and see folks who shouldn’t be in relationships, be in relationships. I don’t envy their partners, but then I wonder if I’m even cut out for online dating. I wish I could find someone in person, but it’s complicated on that front. Something something met someone at work, something something he’s light and breezy and I’m juuuuust a bit more visceral, and both of us are dense as hell and currently not talking because I have decided to “move on” in silence. Move on to what? To my dreams? I can love someone and have those dreams. The poor man thinks I hate him. I love myself. I don’t hate him. So why is it so hard to find someone to lose myself with a bit? How much work do I need to put into this? Will I ever meet that man I went on my first Hinge date with again? Do I even want him anymore? I’ve changed a lot. I miss him sometimes, still. I admit I was looking for him in nearly everyone else I saw that year. Do I want my colleague, a man who has both seen and heard me, and who also repeatedly failed to meaningfully consider my presence in his life, for real this time? Is the lack of partner and braggable relationship status getting to me, or do I just need a few satisfying rounds of sex with someone who also, um, wants to date me? Wait, aren’t those the same?

Maybe now is the best possible version of events. I could’ve had, I couldn’t have had, whatever. Now is what I have, but I want more. Farmers’ Market runs and chittering about seasonal cooking. Lazy Saturday and Sunday mornings spent in a bed straight out of a Ralph Lauren catalog. Ok, nix that last one; I’m fine with a mattress not touching the floor. I don’t know, cooking? Running into the ocean when at the beach. Hitting up period-themed clubs and dancing and belting out drunken lyrics until we’re both falling over each other and laughing. Those moments when you look at them from the side of your eyes through your lashes, pretending that you’re not looking at them, and see them looking at you and smiling in disbelief. Like they’re lucky to have found you. Like I wouldn’t ever forget how lucky I’d be to have them. All the little bits and the annoying-ass, sappy, connective tissue that you don’t remember in your relationship, but know that without, you wouldn’t have one at all. I want all of that, is that too much to want? Can I have it? Will I ever?

Is this all because of me?

How do you all do it? How do you prepare yourself to meet someone you know won’t leave an impact on you, only to feel regret that they never gave you a chance? Or did you never give them one in the first place? Which is the chicken and which is the egg? How do you deal with the fatigue of meeting so many people you could have done without meeting? And how do you deal with meeting a person who you wondered why they weren’t in your life to begin with, only for them to exit as quickly as they entered? Do you flow with the tides or sail straight into them in a kamikaze mission because you don’t feel you have anything left to lose?

I want to make it clear that I’m not terribly despondent, I’m just disillusioned. I started thinking about the Ralph Lauren catalog and realized that a) it doesn’t reach my demographic, currently, and b) I could never keep all of those shams on the bed, I’m sorry. I’m in my feelings over what I think my life should look like. It’s so much more than what I could’ve imagined. A person isn’t going to complete it, but someone could enhance it…?

I think I’m in love with the idea of loving someone and being loved so much that it heals the person within me who tells me I’ll die alone. Rising up in love, thank you, Toni; so sorry for paraphrasing poorly. That’s what I want. And the moments where I’m dating my favoritest person in the galaxy and in utter disbelief that they chose me, and choose me every day. No one I’m related to has ever had that. I keep hearing, from folks, that I “am living proof of the love between two individuals, and everyone who came before you”. Well guess what, sweetie, my folks hated each other, and love marriages were considered pretty sacrilegious for the longest time in Indian culture. They just knew how to reproduce. Oh, to imagine a life where you actually like your partner as a person! That was never a concern for them, but it’s the only concern for me. Which is another thing; I’m not picky, but I can’t be with someone I don’t geek out over on a regular basis. People can be so interesting! I would definitely be the partner who would mention them every fourth sentence, and tell unwilling audiences about the time they brought me back pebbles from a beach, because they reminded them of my eyes. That they not only saw me in their dreams, but in what earth had created herself. Shit, I think I’d just marry them after that.

Fine, I can’t spiel. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about my singledom, which I’m hoping doesn’t turn into a singledoom. Life is good, life will get better, I invest in myself and reap the rewards, blegh. I have a killer head of hair and wonderful shoulders. I just…

Where are you? Did you get lost again? Do you need another sign? Your father and I are sorry about what we said, please come home. We miss you. No, but seriously:

Where are you?

ks