Hey Esha, I really appreciate you reaching out and I’ve enjoyed our time together. After some thought, I feel like it might be best if we don’t pursue things further. I think you’re great, but I just wanted to be honest about my feelings rather than lead you on. I hope you understand and wish you the best.
Rejection always dredges up my insecurities and self-doubt. Am I not pretty enough? Too tall? Not thin enough? Was I being too quiet or not responding fast enough? Should I have taken more initiative? Did I come across as too immature?
I know it’s not always about me. Sometimes he’s too busy with work to have energy to see me. Sometimes he just doesn’t want something serious. Sometimes he gets COVID and isolation gives him time to realize he’s not over his ex.
Nevertheless, I ask: why doesn’t love come as easily to me as it does for others?
I saw this TikTok earlier this year about feeling jealous of people that encounter love frequently in their lives like it’s a club you’re not apart of. Seeing this really encapsulated the way I’ve felt watching people around me enter relationships while I remain chronically single.
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I’ve always wondered how people are constantly in and out of relationships. I once asked a friend how he did it and he told me he puts himself in situations that allow him to be flirty. In conversation with another friend who is a serial monogamist, she simply said, “I don’t know I just throw myself out there.”
But that just isn’t me. I don’t strike up conversations with strangers and I find it so hard to have good banter with someone I don’t know very well. Even outside of romance, I struggle with opening up and making close connections.
The few times I’ve encountered something close to love, it’s been when I’ve felt pressured to change who I am. I’m always trying to be more interesting, cooler, and “not like other girls”. It’s still something I’m actively trying to be aware of, but at the same time, I find it funny how I’m also trying to be authentic.
My struggle to feel desired started early on. In middle and high school, Lucas was a friend who walked a strange line between platonic, sexual, and romantic. He shaped my early perceptions of men and desire, the unfortunate reality of liking someone at such a malleable and vulnerable era of the teen years. He once mentioned wishing that I was more like this other girl who was more receptive to his dirty jokes. I always had strong feelings for him and all I wanted was for him to like me in the same way that I liked him, and I was ready to do anything to make that happen. I tried to be more playful and open, bending myself into a different shape just for him. All that came from it was me left hurt and confused. This wasn’t the last time I’d felt pressured to mold myself into something someone else wanted; it was the beginning of a pattern I continue to see.
It seems simple that the answer to losing sight of myself in the desire to be loved is to invest in myself first, as though love should wait until that magical moment where I’m completely confident in who I am and love myself wholly. Can love and self-investment occur not concurrently? Can love not be a catalyst for self-discovery, too?
“Love was the great consolation, would set ablaze the fields of my life in one go, leaving nothing behind. I thought of it as the great leveller, as a force which would clean me and by its presence make me worthy of it.”
-Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation
I am not as delusional as this quote suggests, but I’m sure my head is in the clouds a bit when it comes to experiencing love. I think we were all conditioned to be hopeless romantics though. How can we not when our greatest works of art and media are all about love?
I think I’ve denied being a lover girl for a long time now. By pretending I wasn’t interested in romantic things, I guess I was protecting myself from the disappointment that I wasn’t experiencing it. I avoided romcoms and romance books for a long time because I thought they were silly and didn’t want to get my expectations too high. But I’m learning that not everything needs to be heart wrenching or profound for me to consume and enjoy, and it’s okay to be a romantic.
“Some love might come across his life, and purify him, and shield him from those sins that seemed to be already stirring in spirit and in flesh—those curious, unpictured sins whose very mystery lent them their subtlety and their charm.”
-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
I know that love doesn’t mean there’s some knight on his way to save me from a burning tower, but can it not be redeeming? Human connection, love in any form, can be so transformative, so maybe there is some “savior” element to being loved.
Having a limited romantic experience has significantly impacted my self-esteem and outlook on relationships. I constantly feel like I’m lagging behind my peers and am in this persistent state of “catching up”. I lack so much confidence in myself and feel undesirable. This has led to me having a scarcity mindset, the belief that opportunities for love are rare. I grasp at even small ounces of attention and desire from men for the fear I’ll never experience it again.
I met Brandon about four years ago now. Genuinely I think I went a little crazy while I was seeing him. I caught feelings for him very quickly and he was all I thought about for MONTHS. We were seeing each other while I was home for winter break from college, and I was ready to not go back just to stay home and date him (my classes were online for COVID anyway). My mood for the day revolved around whether he texted back or responded to my stories that I posted just for him to see. Like, I baked cookies for him and drove to meet him after his night shift at 6am. Mind you, he wasn’t even my boyfriend. Near the end of it when he started responding more and more infrequently, I was overcome with profound sadness that manifested in me getting blonde highlights.
I remember even wondering back then if I truly liked him or if I just liked the idea of him. There were things I genuinely liked about him, but if I’m being honest with myself, he was just conventionally attractive and nice, and I was 19 and a fool.
All that to say, if I hadn’t believed that there were such finite times in my life where I would be desired, then maybe I wouldn’t have gone insane for some guy.
On one of our dates, Brandon opened up to me about his heartbreak with his ex. He told me how being in love with her made him feel like he was on top of the world (they had just broken up a few months prior).
Can I not experience that? Just once? To feel so invincible and powerful from being so consumed with love?
My modest experience also resulted in the disjointing of my perceptions of romance and sex. There’s hardly any overlap between my experiences of emotional and sexual intimacy. To me, love and sex are two completely different things. It’s resulted in a kind of intimacy phobia where I struggle to be physically vulnerable with people I’m interested in.
I met Kwame a week after I first moved to New York. He invited me over to his place after talking for maybe about a month. I know I never have to do anything I don’t want to do, but I’ve always felt there’s this unspoken pressure or expectation when agreeing to go to a guy’s apartment. In the case of Kwame, I was open, or trying to be at least, because I liked spending time with him and thought he was cute. But the whole time, I was so aware of how the room got darker and the only light was a candle on his coffee table, and I was so aware of how our legs were pressed together and how his arm was grazing my shoulder. Internally, alarm bells were blaring, and I couldn’t bring myself to even make eye contact in fear he’d make a move. I was so on edge that I ended up leaving earlier than I intended, the furthest it going just a goodbye kiss.
I really don’t know how all these feelings and experiences will express themselves in the future someday, but I do know that I’m exhausted by this endless cycle of short-lived, superficial connections. I feel so desperate, helplessly seeking out love with my efforts in vain and clawing at something that always seems destined to slip away. What do I do to be part of the club?