Wasting Time...

This is what dating feels like to me today.  A giant waste of time.  All of us out there attempting to connect in a world that elevates disposability over intimacy.  It is life defeating and love killing, in my opinion.

So many people being provided multiple platforms for connection, but using them in a way that assures there is never really going to be a connection.  Or at least not a deeply meaningful one.

So many people out there choosing each other but never really choosing you, instead it is some bastardized version of choosing that makes each of the people feel less than chosen.  

Today it feels like we are in relationship management.  We are supposed to supervise and support the relationships in our lives but only at some weird upper management level where we are not fully engaged and sporadic in our servicing of those relationships.  We keep people close, wasting our time with people who are never going to do much to deepen the connection.  This isn’t a man vs. woman thing, it seems to be to be a people in today’s world kind of thing.

I was talking to a friend the other day (a male friend).  And I told him that in today’s dating landscape I am absolutely stunned at how very much I am not wanted.  My body might be, or maybe I am wanted for some sort of social aggrandizement.  But me, I am not wanted.  I am not valued for who and what I am.  And I know this because no one even really tries to get to know me.

It seems as though we have all settled for this very superficial kind of love.  There is physical attraction and chemistry and then whether or not our schedules and geography work.  And it seems as though those two things are hard enough to find...and so if we get those, then we just stop looking further.  I can’t tell you how often, I feel like I am sought after, only to be sidelined into some relational eddy where all interest, curiosity and ability to delve deeper dies.  We just swirl round and round until one of us loses interest or we gain the option to begin anew with some new hot thing that we will quickly lose interest in for the same reason.

Dating, feels like a huge waste of time. So I stopped.  I got off the apps and the IRL people as well.  There are so many options out there but so little depth and weight.  I am not sure about you, but I just don’t have the energy to pour into something that feels like pouring my precious energy into a bottomless pit that will never satisfy me in the least.

And I guess, in the dating aftermath, what has become clear to me is how much I settled for entertainment.  How often I chose to date someone, not because I thought they were good for me, or I for them, but because I was bored and I knew that regardless of the shitshow that would ensue, I would at the very least be entertained for a bit...

How much of my own time did I waste?

So much fucking time.

My life has gotten very small recently.  I guess I have seen life tightening its spiral for awhile.  But now I feel like I am in this concentric circle of about a one mile radius and that feels super comfy to me.  I am still planning trips because I do not want my world to shrink down completely, but I guess I just feel so little interest in working to maintain any kind of social life.  I have my friends, I have my trainer, my family, my pets, my activities of daily living, my work, and that is enough.

I will also say that solo travel has kind of ruined dating for me.  It is very hard to conjure up interest in a man who cannot even plan a date or something interesting to do, when I have taken myself all the way across the world and back again.  Having the best time ever.  I mean why would I want to meet you for coffee?  Seems so anticlimactic.

Maybe I am bored. Maybe I am evolving. Maybe it is some weird combination of both.  Perhaps finally I have found my own company and that of cats to be preferable to men and dating.  I am not sure.  I work hard not to become bitter and to move forward without a full shutdown, a swearing off forever.

What I realize is that I really do want some other time kind of love story. Not today’s online bullshit. I want something epic or nothing at all.  And it is kinda funny, kinda not that the universe seems to be selecting the later.

And I am grateful for the peace I have found when I made the decision to stop wasting my own time. It was a revolutionary day when presented with a man as an option that I chose to stay home and go for a hike, solo.   It was a celebration when I ran through what a particular man had to offer and decided that the ride was not worth the cost of the ticket.

I still believe in love and desire and intimacy and kisses that last for three days...I guess I just finally got to the point that if I can’t have that, I don’t want any of it.  I used to think dating was a numbers game...and maybe it is.  But I just finally got to a point where I was more interested in the number one than any other combination of numbers.

And this year, as the fair starts tomorrow, I plan to go and walk around solo and feel just fine about myself and my station in this life.  And I will be very proud of myself that this is unlike four years ago when I walked around that same fair with a man that would be the most epic waste of time ever.

I am very grateful today that my time has become more valuable to me...and I am no longer willing to waste it on dating people who wouldn’t cross the street to put me out if I was on fire...and I was on fire, a lot.  And I burned and burned and burned...and they barely noticed at all. Or even more tragic, they warmed themselves on my fire, and then wholly did everything they could to put it out. Leaving us both colder and smoldering.

I guess I am quite grateful that today, I am all done wasting my own time and that of others. While I still hold out the hope that maybe one day, I will find someone who wants to make the most of the time we have...together.