Sometimes I’ll find myself just sitting and staring into space, often at inanimate objects, wondering how I got to this point in life, a mere few months away from 36, single with nary a prospect in sight. And perhaps more importantly, damaged beyond repair. A high 97% of my friends have found love and happiness (some with a little help from yours truly) – and yet, here I am, more alone than ever before, gaslighting myself at every possible moment, telling myself that there is something truly wrong with me that I am the last one standing, so to speak. And I do often believe that. How a hopeless romantic such as myself could have gotten it so wrong in life and love is just beyond my comprehension.
It’s been a rough 18+ months. Maybe longer than that, but who’s counting. And “rough” is probably a mild understatement – a kind choice of words. There are events, emotions, feelings, and moments that have transpired that will likely never see the light of day on this blog, maybe not even in my impending memoir. There is no good way to describe hitting absolute rock bottom after (what turned out to be temporary) love and happiness was snatched away – no appropriate means by which to describe how it feels to know you were screwed over so badly by a self-absorbed sociopath (is that redundant?) and as a result, you have now lost all hope for the future. And there are certainly no words to convey the effort it takes to try to move on and put the pieces of your life back together again, only to be met by cement wall after cement wall. In theory (in an ideal world), the hell would have, in fact, ended after The Tragedy called everything off. But no. Dating since we split has been a layer of Dante’s Inferno I never even thought possible, not at this late juncture in life: rejection, more rejection, ghosting, gaslighting, orbiting, breadcrumbing, borderline “assaulty” situations – sometimes a truly lovely combination of the aforementioned…
In early February, I went on a Bumble date so terrible, it put me into a spiral relapse that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy (well, okay, I don’t know if I stand by that statement, considering those who bullied me in high school, but it really was pretty close to being that bad…). I spent the better part of an hour and change trying to “correctly” answer the questions being fired at me as we traversed an incredibly muddy and quite frankly unsafe park in McLean: “Wait, where do you live? Why do you live in your dad’s house? Why haven’t you found a new job yet? Why don’t you just live in Germany?” (And some other questions about my “lack” of international travel – no, I’m sorry, I haven’t made it to South America yet. I didn’t realize that was a prerequisite for a relationship). My God, the list goes on and on – and I have tried in vain to block out the INVASIVE questions asked of me while on a date, some of which would be what you might expect while standing trial, sure, but not on a date. Meanwhile also trying not to twist an ankle on the slick terrain he insisted we traverse, wondering why the hell I had moved back to Northern Stressville to begin with (yes, the name has changed since the inception of this blog) and its completely vapid, one-dimensional, self-promoting, self-absorbed, materialistic assholes. I wish I could say that I righted myself (and maybe joined a convent – or that more recent dates haven’t been equally as horrific). Granted, I deleted Bumble shortly thereafter (understandably), but of course he beat me to it (are you surprised?) and unmatched (!) me in the parking lot, before I even had a chance to try to navigate myself out of the slush, in more ways than one. Sadly, Bumble didn’t have a corner on the market – and subsequent forays into other dating apps (namely Hinge) were just as bleak, frustrating, and shockingly terrible. And half the time I wonder why I continue to put myself through this: insanity is, after all, doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
By May, I had actually met a guy who seemed semi-decent (seemed is the operative word), amidst a river of red flags I chose to ignore. I was bumping up against a major (hopefully life-changing) surgery, but one that didn’t exactly garner the support of every single family member, an important detail to note. As the big day approached, aforementioned Red Flag Man was becoming increasingly less supportive and more callous and flippant. On the day before “knives up”, he had the audacity to text me and ask if I was “excited for the drive [up to Maryland] with my dad.” Well, yes, I would normally be far more “excited” to be sedated and cut open, were it not for someone telling me I was going to bleed to death in the process… But that aside, asking your maybe would-be girlfriend if she was “excited” for a surgery – oof, that is just in such poor taste. I honestly feel bad for him that he lacks the spatial awareness to think it’s even appropriate to ask such a question. Needless to say, I was very much fed up with his lack of empathy by that point – and after my very salty (but justified) response, we mutually ghosted each other. But then, in the days that followed after the surgery, it dawned on me just how alone I was. (Namely, not a single person sent me flowers – friend, work, or otherwise). Were it not for my 70-year-old dad (who, of course, literally went on a run to get me flowers from my favorite grocery store the morning after I was sewn up), I would have been “SOL”: I wouldn’t have had anyone to take care of me or help out with the house, Basil, or frankly, anything. That’s a very jarring realization when you’re nearing 40 and coming to terms with the fact that you don’t really have anyone in this time zone (or, well, anywhere) that you can count on. Oof.
And so, as I struggle to make sense of everything I’ve outlined above and all that I’ve endured these past however-many months (and years), I think what it boils down to is this: our society is on an extreme moral decline. We are all so very focused on ourselves. Especially in Northern Stressville, where it’s all about me-me-me. (So don’t ask me how anyone manages to fall in love and get married – that’s another big mystery that will have to wait for another day, another post. How do white cishet men stop thinking about themselves long enough to buy an engagement ring and get on one knee?! Come back next week for more hot takes…) Gone are the days of looking out for each other. The qualities mentioned above, that my dear dad possesses, aren’t taught anymore or passed down – that mentality is dying with his generation (and honestly, he’s a rare breed to begin with). Friendships are so incredibly surface-level compared to what they used to be. We can’t count on the people we used to depend upon – offers of help are hollow and meaningless. “Let me know if you need anything!” means absolutely nothing. And then with those who have settled down, you watch them outgrow you and the single life, as they buy houses and revel in the fact that they won the numbers game. And speaking of games, I never did watch the “Hunger Games” movies, but I know the concept all too well – and I feel like I’m living in a similar “survival of the fittest” and “I might die at any moment” world now more than ever. So what do we do? Well, for one thing, avoid scheduling more surgeries than necessary, keep your head down, maybe train your cat to help out around the house, be grateful if you hit the familial jackpot like I did, and for the love of all that is good: stay off the dating apps.