Tag Archives: Dating

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Single Is As Single Does

After a brisk three-mile run on Central Park North Thursday evening, I stopped by my local grocery store to pick up two very specific things: olive oil and barbeque chicken. My roommates and I have recently discovered kale chips and now we’re all making them – almost nightly – so olive oil has been quite the popular ingredient (if you don’t know how to make kale chips, read this. No seriously, do it – they’re amazing and super easy. And you know, good for you). I blame my craving for bbq on my Southern upbringing, but when the deli on theUpper West Sideoffers it, you know it can’t just be for the transplants. Plus, the patty I selected was heart-shaped, how could I resist?

Listening toFlorence& the Machine as I heated up my chicken and tore off tiny pieces of greens before smothering them in garlic salt and oily goodness, it hit me:

Wow, I actually like being single.

For a lot of folks – and the majority of my beautiful, independent friends – this concept isn’t a revelation as much as it’s fact. But for me, the girl who notices with poultry is loving-looking and still cries at the predictable sweet happy-ending even when she’s seen it countless times, noticing the comfort of being a minus-one is quite the accomplishment. It took me a year-worth of writing blogs, one terribly difficult heartbreak that still aches most days, and lots of self-encouragement and reassurance to get to this place.

Or if I’m honest (which I always make my very best attempt to be), it took a hell of a lot more than that. It took drunken nights in college, pining over guys in polos I thought were awfully adorable (though were really quite pathetic), trying to be the cool gal who could keep up with them beer-for-beer. It took staying in relationships that were already dead-end before they began, because I was so desperately afraid of never finding love or being unloveable (as one guy told me once), that I decided to devalue my self-worth so I could hold the title of “girlfriend.” It took many, many instances of being a bad friend because I was so jealous that someone could find what I wanted so badly, and for whatever reason, I could not. It took me standing in front of the mirror nit-picking my body, my face – my everything – because I imagined men wouldn’t like me or find me beautiful if I wasn’t perfect.

It’s all of those reasons and ones that I’m unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) forgetting that I started this blog in the first place – one giant gesture to myself to love who I was, sans man. But that was in September of 2010, and now we’re nearly half-way through 2012, and I finally made it.

I finally did it.

In that time, I met, fell in love and broke up with a man who couldn’t love me back in the way I deserved or wanted. In that time, I moved apartments and created an entirely new circle of friends, some of which I’ll know and love the rest of my life. I left the starter job to find the dream career, and received way more attention from this URL than I intended. I went up and down a few sizes, found a workout routine I really like, and experienced my first Brazilian wax. I became a New Yorker (by my own definition) and I discovered each borough, except Staten Island, which really, doesn’t count anyway. I grew and changed, took ten steps back and a few forward, said things I regretted and bit my tongue more than I should. I sacrificed my beliefs and standards, and then stood up for myself, over and over again, day-end and day-out.

I’ve done a lot, and for that I’m really proud of myself. But what makes me the happiest isn’t a fancy title or a nice apartment, going to places I couldn’t afford but now can, or the fact I’ll be on my first solo-trip to Puerto Rico in a matter of days.

It’s that I learned the most difficult lesson (for me anyway), there is to learn: single is, as single does.

Like anything that’s worth anything – the way to success or to self-fulfillment has more detours and less straight-and-narrow directions. The route is curved and complicated, frightening and at times, as much as we try to avoid it, self-destructive. Learning to be single is less about buying for one or figuring out how to sleep in the middle of the bed, and more about perception.

However you see it, whatever image or definition you give it, that’s what it’ll be. And how it’ll feel.

Sadly, for most of my 20-something life, I’ve closed my eyes and fearfully envisioned myself as a pasty-white, wrinkled prune of an old woman, nursing my ten cats and waking up to a cold bed, morning after morning, disgustingly alone and so beyond bitter that I’m apathetic. I’ve worried that by the time I met the right person, I would no longer look stunning in a wedding gown, or worse, my ovaries would be way past their expiration date and babies would be out of question. I’ve defined being single as not good enough or pretty enough or smart enough. And then again, as being too strong-willed or independent, too much of this and not enough of that. Really, just that I wasn’t able to be loved for reasons beyond myself that I couldn’t change.

But that’s not what single is like – at least for me now, six months after the end of one possibility, and finally dealing with the hurt that came with a slow demise. Today, single means opportunity, and even more possibility than I’ve experienced before. It means I get to be on my own schedule, do what I want without considering another person each and every single moment. It means not having to answer to anyone or anything about my choices or my plans. It means I’m blessed to meet and enjoy other people – for brief periods of time or longer – and learn about what makes me happy. It means I can explore and navigate the city however I see fit, and that if the mood strikes me, kiss a stranger – or two – or not. It means that I’m thankful for (instead fearful of) this time flying solo, because the reality is, even if I don’t get married until 35 (Southern people, drop your jaw in unison), I’ll still spend the majority of my life promised until-death-do-you-part with someone else. It means that love could always be closer than I think, or further away, but that it doesn’t quite matter because I’m content here. I’m content now. With just me as my companion, with the life I’ve created, with the woman I’ve become. I didn’t do it all by myself and I’ve been luckier than most, but more than anything, even in those dark moments where I only put myself down, I still believed.

I’ve always believed in what I was capable of and what I was made of: lots of fiery passion and determination, an insatiable curiosity and a rose-colored imagination that always sees the best in people and in situations. And though I’m satisfied with where I’ve landed and where I’m at in this moment — sitting at a laundry mat before dinner with my fabulous gay husband — I’ll always still be the girl who believes in herself, but also in love and that one day I’ll find a person who feels the same way.

But for now, single is as single does. And single is what I’m damned proud to be. Finally.

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Those Days Will Come

Riding back from Sunnyside Sunday morning after a night spent conquering blocks in four inch nude heels that weren’t mine, I watched the city get closer.

And I remembered when it felt — and was — so far away.

Nothing hurt more than the sight of reality when I returned from my internship in NYC during college. I traded the incredible views and interesting people for classes that I didn’t want to take and homework I couldn’t make myself care about. In a particularly depressing afternoon when I flipped through photos from my Manhattan summer adventures for about the 100th time, I called my mom in desperation, complaining that I was stuck on campus when I belonged in taxi cabs and coffee shops, writing and loving, learning and exploring in a place where the view wasn’t mountains, but skyscrapers. She did her best to console me and then sweetly warned: “Don’t wish your life away, those days will come but these days will end.”

I didn’t heed her cautionary advice then but I understand it now. Now that this city is my home and I’ve yet to return to the college town I took for granted most of the time I was there. And as much as I can’t believe it– I do miss those days. They’ve come and they’ve gone, just like high school, just like the days when dreaming of being a writer was just a dream. Just like my first year in New York. Just like my second. The days when I was a new soul on these old streets are included in my memories, just as much as the afternoons I spent dozing in the vast green of  my multi-acre backyard, imagining of the life I would one day lead.

A life that is very much a reality now, even if I still pinch myself and tap my heels three times just to make sure I’m really home.

I go to sleep with the city on my skin, hearing the same familiar sounds on Amsterdam outside my window. I take a train each morning
where, against all odds and population estimates, I recognize faces. I sit close to people every day that I may never see again and the people who mean the most to me here, I didn’t know five years ago. Not even two years ago. I pay New York taxes, I’ll vote here in November and next year, my license will be from the Empire State. My step will never resemble a saunter again – though I do know it is an art – and I can’t imagine living in a place where bagels were not an option. I know my way and the way has brought me far– letting me fall in love and out of it, both with men, myself and this zip code.

So much behind me, so many days I’ve lived and people I’ve known. So many who have entered my life and left it, a handful who I hope I’ll never have to learn how to let go of. So many lips I’ve kissed and hearts I’ve felt. So many I’ve wished I could hold longer than I was allowed to.  Countless boxes packed with things I’ve now donated and books I can’t give a summary of if I tried. Clothes and clothes (and clothes!), some I never wore, some I wore until my friends made me throw out. Frames with rotating pictures based on time and place, relationship status and mood. Things I thought I wanted until I had them, but couldn’t find the receipt, notes from friends and family, cards from those I’ll never see again.

Postcards that remind me of where I’ve been, journals that illustrate how I got here, and clippings of where I hope to be. Of what I hope to find. What I imagine I’ll create and who I’ll love. Of the stories I’ll piece together, and the ones I’ll write without even knowing. Of the days I sometimes, desperately want to come.

Those days where I have everything figured out. When I know exactly where I’m going, how to get there, and that it’s the place I want to go. Those days when I’ve already done the dirty work of dating and mating and relating, and I’ve somehow managed to come out on the other end, only slightly wounded and barely bitter, ready to love someone and let them love me in return. Those days where weekend plans seem fancier and pricier because my budget can allow. Those days when my savings actually amount to something, and so do the recipes that I’m no longer attempting, but perfecting. Those days when I’m free enough to travel the world but stable enough to afford it. Those days where nothing seems more beautiful or more perfect than waking up the sound of tiny footsteps racing down the hall on a Saturday morning, and together, the man I promised forever-and-ever to, we make pancakes like we did when we first moved in together.

I used to worry that those days never come.

That I’d never get to New York. That I’d never be an editor. That I’d never grow boobs or learn how to drive a  car or run a mile without passing out. That I’d never know what it felt like to be in love with someone. That I’d never be kissed. That I’d never be confident in my own skin. That I’d never roam the city like I owned it. That I’d never be anything more than a hopeful spirit that flew her way North but never quite landed. That I’d never be comfortable living one-hundred-and-ten percent on my own. That I’d never find everything I was looking for, or really, even know where to look.

But those days did come. Those days are now. And those days – where money is fluent, where love doesn’t feel like a Ferris wheel, where children are wished for (not something to try and avoid) – they will come too. And if If the last ten years are any indication, they will be here before I know it, before I have a moment to think or get too settled.

And these days will end. So why not enjoy them? Why not be single and full of life? Over-pouring with overpowering optimism that you can only have before you learn one-too-many hard lessons? Complete with energy and passion, ready for the next adventure, the big change to come, the first solo trip that only happens once? Letting love find its way to you while you focus your attention on other things – on things that you love, which ultimately, brings you right back to the very thing you were allowing to fall into place?

Besides – if you spend all your time waiting for those days that’ll come, you’ll never enjoy these days you have.

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I Let Myself Let Go

I let myself miss you today.

I rolled over mid-morning, groggily hoping you would be lying next to me. I kept my eyes tightly shut, and behind them I saw your mouth slightly open. I smelled your skin so close to me. I imagined the sunlight from the west cascading over your bare chest. I imagined the weight of your arm across my naked body. I ran my fingers in sweet circles around your face, until you wrapped your hand around mine and buried me in your grasp. You kissed the side of my head and wished me to sleep for just a little longer. Just for another hour.

I let myself miss you today.

I heard you call from the kitchen to wake me up. I felt the wind come through the open bedroom door. Happily smelling bacon and eggs, I wrapped the sheet around me and hobbled to see you standing in boxer briefs in front of the stove. You turned your head just enough to meet my grin, and you wished my morning well. Satisfied from the night spent with you, yet hungry for the energy I lost while love making, I sniffed my way toward you, kissing your back and letting you seep through me. You rushed me to the couch, where you brought me orange juice and a meal, and together we watched whatever we could find, ignoring the set as we talked over it. I sat Indian style, you sat so close our knees touched and for no reason at all, you kissed my makeup-free cheek and called me beautiful.

I let myself miss you today.

I split that pitcher of coconut mojiotos you love so much, watching you chew on the sugar cane as you talked about the political spectrum I’m really not that interested in, but I’m interested in making you happy. I let you have the last dumpling. You kept your hand permanently on my knee in that little booth in that little corner of that little bar in Little Italy. I watched the dimples cave around your mouth. You didn’t even catch your breath before you complimented my blues in the sunset, and you said those three words that I’m so insanely terrified I’ll never mean again with anyone else. I squeezed your hand – and then your crotch – and you smiled, feeling that closeness. I watched your mischievous side come out and I instantly couldn’t wait to play with it.

I let myself miss you today.

I asked if you preferred the green or the red peppers in your stir fry, and you stuck your tongue out at me in response. I scrunched my nose to protest and grabbed each, commenting that we’d have colorful food, and you’d like it. You put another vanilla yogurt with Crunch in the cart and I pushed it along, thinking about the dinners we’d cook, the nights we’d share. I imagined your hair graying and that gym-made body turn into a beer-full tummy. I wondered what we’d say about these days, the ones where New York was our playground and everything felt right because we were side-by-side. I considered if I’d always love you this much, if it was possible to love anyone more than I did on Aisle 2 of the Krasdale, watching you debate two boxes of rice. You turned my way and asked my opinion. I went with the brown to keep you healthy, and in return, you rubbed your cheeks against mine and said those damn words that I wish I could hear just one more time.

I let myself miss you today.

I ran from the uptown station to my apartment, feeling the chilly April rain bounce off my skin. I turned the key to the place I share with four others, and collapsed into the bed I used to share with you. I couldn’t pinpoint where they came from or why, six months later, they still come at all, but they fled anyway. I tasted their salty solutions as they rested on my lips and I covered my face in embarrassment. I knew I had washed them dozens of times before, but I buried myself in the sheets, somehow determined to smell you again, or at least to remember. I thought of all the parts of myself I can’t repair, the feelings I can’t replace, and the me that I can’t recreate without you.

You weren’t here today, but you were with me. In these dirty streets and in their dazzling illusions of perfection. In that skyline view that you first showed me as I stood up through your sunroof on the BQE. In those bittersweet pictures where our eyes matched, along with our heart and our hopes. In those fragrant flowers on the street, in those drinks that I need to be a little stronger these days. And especially on these rainy days, where I wake up and decide that today, I’ll let myself miss you. I’ll let myself remember when we were happy and so was this city, both in the shine and in the downpour. And then before the night comes around to bring me another dawn, I’ll let that furious faith dissolve.

And then I’ll decide that today, I’ll let myself… let go. Because while I can’t forget, and certain Sundays (or Tuesdays), I may go back to another time, there’s only one place for you and I, now. Maybe it’s on those streets, in those drinks, in those memories or in those days.

But it’s not in the new places I find without your guidance or company, not in the cocktails I toast with my friends, not in the life I’m creating for myself, and not in this day. Not in the day I decide to let you go. Even if I miss the you I thought you were.

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The Way I Heal

Months after I officially ended everything with Mr. Possibility, I still found myself responding to emails and text messages, analyzing the intention between the lines, and keeping myself awake long enough to wait for him to arrive at my door. Allowing him to stay in my life – and yes, in my bed – felt easier than ceasing contact.

But even as I held him at an arm’s distance, my heart was already much closer, so letting him hang around and inviting him into my life wasn’t a healthy tactic. Procrastination though, tasted better than swallowing the bittersweet prescription I knew was coming. After many failed attempts to make him want me how I wanted him to desire me, after biting my pillow so he wouldn’t hear me cry at night, after convincing myself that being around him would awaken something that never lived inside of him to begin with, after lying to my friends about where I was and avoiding my mother’s phone calls – I finally got the message loud and clear.

From him, on Gchat.

It was straightforward and blunt, without a hint of consideration or kindness, and worse, void of love. Or at least the kind of love I want and deserve. When I couldn’t make meaning out of emptiness, I signed off and deleted the evidence of the relationship. I finally totally severed communication and packed away anything that took me back to better days so I could finally face the day I was living. And though the art of getting over someone is something I’ve yet to master or totally understand, I set my mind to letting go and moving on, no matter how badly I wanted to reach for the phone, type an email or share a bed with a man I once was in love with.

While I can talk about most anything on this blog, sometimes revealing a bit too much — forgetting that the Internet is truly an irreversible medium — writing about Mr. Possibility and what really followed our dramatic demise has been incredibly difficult for me. The final post of a year of writing – where I valiantly headed out on my own, telling him to go where the sun didn’t shine and standing up for myself, was a true story. I felt empowered in that moment: ready to conquer heartache and eager to be alone.

But if I’m honest, as I always have been in this space – I wanted the chase.

I watched and helped him attempt to win back his previous ex (who is now one of my closest friends and the best dose of reality on the topic of Mr. P), and I listened to him mull over the past he regretted. I heard all of his past love stories and I wrote the one I thought we had, post after post, day after day, praying that I would be the girl who changed the unavailable man. And even in my grand departure, even in that yellow chariot that sounds entirely more fabulous than it really is, a part of my heart was still holding onto the hope that he’d come running. That in my silence, he would find that same ache I’ve had since practically the day I met him — that lingering longing to capture the attention of something that’s unattainable.

But he didn’t come to my rescue.

He didn’t shower me with hand-written letters to why I should give him another chance. There was no romantic gesture, no fight for my love. There wasn’t even much of an apology for the ways he had been cruel when we were together. He happily accepted my offers for companionship and was careful to remind me how amazing I am – but that he still wasn’t in the market for a relationship. A year-and-a-half later I’m in a totally new part of my life, and he’s still almost exactly where he was when I met him: uncertain for the future and unwilling to compromise for anyone else, but sexually inclined to see what this city has to offer.

I didn’t want to admit that I went back to him, thus causing myself more  disappointment than if I had ceased contact in September. I had been down this road before and I knew where it led, but I ventured on the path anyway, fooling myself into thinking the destination would be different.

And when it wasn’t – I was ashamed to confess that still, even after all this time, my heart still hurt. It felt weak and silly to be someone who writes about such topics for a living and can’t take her own advice. To be someone who is mainly open and candid about everything, but unable to reveal that underneath the clever themes and rhythmic sentences, there’s a woman who sings along to Adele and runs to Kelly Clarkson, who wears big sunglasses to cover the tears, concealer to hide the dark circles, and still has to block Mr. Possibility on every social media channel so I don’t draw conclusions from things I can’t confirm. Behind the blogger who dishes on everything, is a woman who had a hard time letting go of a relationship that was one-sided from day one.

But in every bad situation, there’s a turning point. In every dark room, there’s a light. In every corner, there’s a chance to change. And for me, it came two weeks after I stopped responding to anything from Mr. P – even his drunken phone calls and messages – and gave myself a break.

Because while we all experience pain, we process it differently. Because while we all want to not be bothered when the other person doesn’t seem to be upset, you can’t release the pain if you don’t let yourself feel it – or in my case, write it. Because while love is never quite equal, everyone we’ve loved – be it for three years or thirty – affects us in someway, positive or negative. Because while our friends buy us a drink at the start of the end, we buy them drinks at the end of the end, thanking them for their patience with our stupidity and our ability to obsess, even months after the fact. Because while we want to be brave and strong, resilient and uncompromising, there is nothing that dies slower or more painful than a dream – especially one that involves someone you really cared about. Because while the wrong person can seem like the right, the person who matters the most isn’t the one who got away or the one who stays, it’s the person you are after you walk away.

There is no race to finish the moving on process or a correct way to go about it. There is no way to skip the anger and the tears, the late-night words you want to take back or the bed that feels cold at first, but grows warmer. You don’t get better at breakups the more you have them, and you don’t have any better luck or built-up tolerance to letting go because you happen to write about your personal life.

This time isn’t about Mr. Possibility, or how he misses me or how he doesn’t. It’s not about the fact he didn’t turn out as I had hoped or that I didn’t kick him out of my life sooner than later. It’s not about who moves on first or last. It’s not about the relationship that was or the relationship that I wanted. It’s not about how I feel right now, how I felt six months ago or two weeks ago. It’s not about how I’ll feel tomorrow. It’s not about the fact that it hurt – or that at times, it still hurts.

It’s about the fact that I’m letting myself feel it. And by feeling it, but forgiving myself for my tardiness and my endless optimism in love, I become a better me than I was before. While it may make me feel incredibly silly, naive and immature to have a broken heart that lusts after the past – it’s really not about how I feel, it’s about how I heal. Or rather, that I am.

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Heart Off the Market

A few blocks from my work at a press dinner, I attempted to explain my blog to a new friend. As I casually classified these pages in the “dating, love and sex” category of the blogosphere, it occurred to me that it’s been a long time since I’ve written about any of those things.

To be a dating blogger, I haven’t written anything juicy or entertaining in quite some time. A new reader who stumbles across Confessions of a Love Addict — probably hoping to read something that’ll make them feel less like a crazy girl and more just-going-through-a-phase – wouldn’t find comfort in my recent posts.

Instead, they’d discover how six months later, I’m still partly nursing the wounds Mr. Possibility kindly left for me, some of which still feel as fresh as they were when the yellow chariot whisked me away from the location of our messy breakup, that still seems like a crime scene to me. They’d find beautiful love stories about a city that is quite wonderful, but not much about the men who roam in packs of bachelors, seeking something they’re not sure they want to find. They’d find stories from the past and hopes for the future, but nothing more than a scripted – or cryptic – sentence about the days I’m passing now.

They’d find nothing about dating because…I’m not dating.

For the first time (maybe ever) I have no desire to dive back into the field of eligibility and swim to find the next available man who will win my attention. My online dating profile still attracts messages but I don’t respond – often rolling my eyes at the notification as it pops up on my phone. I still get hit on by half-drunken men at bars, as well as sober dudes in hipster glasses who pass my way and stop to tell me I’m lovely. I smile in gratitude and continue on, happy for the compliment but uninterested in sitting through a dinner – or even a drink – with yet another stranger who could become a lover, but most likely will ultimately return back into the stranger I met on the street or at the bar.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not wearing black in depression over my lack of a dating life or bitter about the future. More than I believe in anything in this world, I believe in the capacity of the heart – my heart – to feel love. I don’t doubt that I’ll be romanced again one day, that I’ll feel all of those all-encompassing, thrill-inducing magical emotions that are so hard to digest at the time, and even harder to wash away post-relationship. I still catch myself imagining coming home to a lush apartment on the Upper West Side with my two children in tow, excitedly waiting the arrival of an adoring husband who will stop by the market to pick me up flowers on his way home from work. I will never lose my faith in love or my hope for all that it can really be one day, but I’m not aching for it.

There are simply just other things that occupy my mind right now. And things that I’d rather be doing than dating.

I’m happily keeping busy at work, continuously challenged by a job that loves me back as much as I love it. I’m trying – and failing – to save money for my trip to Puerto Rico, where I look forward to turning off every piece of technology and relishing in the quietness of a vast ocean. I’m running almost daily, finally wiggling back into the skinny jeans I rocked last summer. I’m signing up for adventures out of the city, looking into trapeze classes and reasons to explore New York more than I already have in the years I’ve lived here. I’m finding comfort in nights in by myself, watching television that’s bad for me and drinking wine that makes my heart better. I’m going to jazz concerts and singing karaoke, doing this and doing that – but wanting nothing to do with dating. Even if the lack of sex can be quite frustrating at times (but that’s for another post, another day.)

The truth is, if given the choice of running or drinks with another investment banker, I’d pick hanging out with the treadmill or Central Park West. If  my friends invited me to dinner and dancing, I’d much rather see them than joining a new man for a lavish four-courser by his work on a Friday night. Should there be an exhibit at the MET that I really want to see , I’d prefer the company of a gal- or just of myself – than another guy….who turns out to be just another guy.

Even if the perfect man, who says everything just as I want to hear it, who knows how to touch me, who has similar goals and is tall enough to make me stand on my tippy-toes and curl them at the same time – came waltzing into my life, I wouldn’t notice. And I wouldn’t be interested, either.

Because sometimes, you need a break from all the chaos. From the clashing of wine glasses and the first dates that feel like interviews (or worse —  second and third dates that feel like the first). From the process of getting to know someone without being convinced you’re interested or smitten with their attention. From applying lipstick when it doesn’t get kissed off, from pulling out the nicest heels for someone who doesn’t notice the shape of your legs. From the texting war, the waiting of the three-days and the anticipation of the very first kiss. From it all.

So for now, my heart’s off the market. It’s doing its own thing, keeping to itself and letting the rest fall into place, just as it should, just as it will anyway. This tough little heart will find its way somewhere one day — and maybe to someone too — but today, it’s just finding it’s place… in today.