#unlikelywallflower

[unlikelywallflower]

on self-trust (real life update #3)

(The artist of keys card reversed, from The Collective Tarot, more commonly known as the Queen of Wands)

Hindsight is so funny, isn’t it? What previously seemed so murky becomes so clear, and then I wonder what it was I was fretting so much about. Such is the case with the relationship I just ended last Saturday (I will obviously be omitting specific details to protect the innocent).

As I shared in my last update, I spent a great deal of the middle month of three months of dating this man in turmoil, questioning my feelings and analyzing the reasons behind them to the point of driving myself a tad crazy. My lovely therapist reminded me during this period that try as I might (and oh, I tried), I could not think my way through feelings. Her analogy was amazing: “You are feeling the way you are feeling. There is water in the lake. We can trace the tributaries if you want to, but would that really be useful? There’s water in the lake.”

During two weeks of not seeing each other for schedule-related reasons, I had some space to feel my feelings and gain some clarity by just feeling my way through it. I came to the realization that he is not in a place in his life that matches where I’m at and what I’m looking for; this does not negate the fact that he’s an awesome person, it just means we’re not a match.

In coming to this realization, and in the few days since sharing this with him and ending our seeing each other, one of the things that’s struck me is how much questioning I had to go through to get to this point. I was obsessed with why I was feeling the way I was feeling, and got stuck a little bit in that hamster wheel of taking responsibility. Not that I don’t want to do that. There is certainly much in this relationship for which I can be responsible, but that drive to “figure out” what I did that made me start questioning things, to try to stop feeling the way I was feeling, was intense. Maybe I needed to go through that to arrive at the peace and clarity I eventually did. Maybe the idea that I’m at where I’m at in my life (37 and single) at least in part because I’ve rejected a string of great men for questionable reasons is useful (to a point). Or maybe I just needed to trust myself. Maybe I’ve spent so long not trusting myself, questioning my every move and thought, ignoring intuition in favour of analysis, that I simply couldn’t be with the feeling of not wanting to be with someone without it becoming a big ordeal.

At this point, I’m not going to puzzle it out. I’m going to revel in the groundedness I am feeling right now. I have not felt this at peace, this grounded, this much “me” in, well…ever, actually. So here’s to healthy skepticism about my point of view without indulging in overanalysis; to dropping down into my center and developing that trust. A dear friend of mine read my tarot for me this weekend, and the whole read was about how I’ve been resisting allowing: allowing myself to receive, allowing nourishment, allowing spirit, allowing magic, allowing trust. A perfect place to begin the next phase of my journey: back to dating!

What I love about this part is that I’m actually excited about it. Pretty much any time prior to this in my life, if I had ended something and thus was getting back into dating, my feelings would be ones of foreboding, angst, and/or resignation. But not this time; not after the work I’ve done. Spring has sprung, my little chickens, and the flowers are not the only things that are blooming…

[unlikelywallflower]

on brain patterns and over-analysis (real life update #2)

(Note: donut charts are a thing! I am nerdily very excited about this.)

Preface: this post refers to the man I’ve been seeing. Two things you should know about this: 1) he is a wonderful, smart, kind, thoughtful man; and 2) we’ve discussed the contents of this post, he’s read it, and he’s cool with me posting it / disclosing this. Now on to the update!

So I’ve been seeing someone for coming on two months. We met on Bumble, and when I wrote my last update, we had already gone on a couple of dates. When I said I had a couple of great dates lined up that I was excited about, he was one of them.

If there were an alternate graph/chart for this post, it would be a line graph of the wild ride my brain has been on since we met, and it would be epic (I may create it sometime just for fun). Despite this topic not showing up in the above chart, I spend a great deal of time thinking about/talking about human thinking and behaviour and how utterly weird/automatic it is, and I count myself no exception to that rule. Put simply: my mind has gone haywire in this relationship (as it does at the beginning of most of my relationships), and I am very much in need of a vacation from my brain. Or, as I was discussing with a friend today, a different brain. Because, you know, different machinery would definitely make the experience easier…

On our first date, I was concussed (mildly, and yes, I’m totally fine now) from a hard shot to the head in soccer the day before. Given this, and given that the conversation was at least moderately interesting, I thought a second date was in order. After our second date, I still wasn’t sure, but there was something there that made me want to hang out with him more. Our third date was lovely: roasting marshmallows over the campfire at Ontario Place (I love this city!), walking along the water and kissing/hugging for warmth, sharing cider and fish and chips at a local pub. On our fifth date, I invited him to come to Montreal to a TFC game with me (for those of you who don’t know me that well or at all, I’m a huge TFC supporter). This was a reach that early in the relationship, given it involved an overnight hotel stay and a road trip, but he said yes.

Somewhere between our third and fifth date, I stopped looking at dating apps. I stopped swiping, and I stopped responding to messages (without actually saying why, which is something I hate when I’m on the other end, but so it goes, I guess). Whether this was because I was a little smitten, sick of dating apps, excited at the possibility of something potentially turning into something, or a combo of all of the above, I just stopped without explicitly intending to.

As soon as I decided that maybe I wanted to be exclusive (and especially after we discussed it and agreed), it was like a switch flipped in my brain. All of a sudden, all I could see were all of the reasons this was a terrible idea. Some of these reasons had to do with my brain nitpicking about this lovely man, and some of them had to do with stories I’ve now realized I made up as I was coming to the end of my love coaching program—stories that all run along the lines of “the next person I’m with will be my person, and we will fall hard and fast”. That was, after all, why I did the program in the first place; this whole thing has been a quest to fall in love (and, along the way, to fall in love with and be the person my person is looking for). But basically, I flipped from “he’s quite lovely/I’m excited about this” to “what are you doing?! He’s not the one!” (The idea of The One deserves its whole own post sometime.)

We all have ideas of what the beginning of a relationship should look like, and what it should look like to fall in love. Whether romcom or real life, we tell stories of falling in love like they are perfect, epic arcs, with no room for the messiness and awkwardness that is two human beings fumbling toward knowing each other. I’m not saying that every story of two people falling in love involves this amount of incessant questioning and over-analysis, but I’m willing to wager that it involves more than most people own up to. Every time you learn something new about someone new, it requires a re-calibration of the “dealmaker / dealbreaker / I can live with that” scale.

After a while, these questioning thoughts built up to the point that I knew I either needed to end things or share myself with him, and since I actually do like him, and am committed to living life authentically, the latter seemed a better option. There is nothing like cuddling with someone while sharing with them that your brain is on overdrive thinking of reasons you should not be dating them (at least not exclusively), that you are aware that this is your brain and not you, and that you have arrived—after some meditation and coaching—at the following conclusion: I do not need need to know if I want to marry you right now. All I need to know is whether or not I want to spend more time with you, and I do. Thankfully, he understood it for what it was, and didn’t freak out about it or take offence.

In reflecting on all of this today, and looking back over some of my notes from my Power Love project, I realized that part of what’s been in the way here is that I’ve somewhat lost myself in all of this (this being dating him, but also/more importantly the over-analysis). I’ve stopped being responsible for being my fully authentic, loving, open, sparkling self regardless of the circumstances, and started to have that be determined by him (or, more accurately, whatever my brain happens to be cooking up about him). Being that authentic, loving, open, sparkling person more and more is the most important thing I have gotten out of this journey so far, and I had somehow lost sight of her. Well, that stops now. Whether we date for one more week, a year, or a lifetime (none of which I have to know now, as if I even could), I’m going to be me through it all, and a big part of that is noticing and being grateful for the good.

[unlikelywallflower]

on eating pain and body love

Oh man, I promised a lot of posts at the end of my last one! Some of those I’m not even entirely clear on what I was thinking I would write about. I guess a lot has happened in the last month! That said, this is one post I’ve been thinking about writing for a long time.

For all of last year and the beginning of this year, I was in an amazing online habit-based nutrition program called Precision Nutrition, with an amazingly supportive coach (shout out to Justine at Twenty Toes Fitness!). Along with my Power Love Project (and some great therapy, and a lot of transformational coaching), it formed a large part of my learning to love myself again / newly. Yes, I lost a bunch of weight and inches, but more importantly, I remembered who I was, began to unwind some very unhealthy habits, and built some healthy habits that will last me the rest of my life.

(I should say here that I know the whole idea of losing weight is fraught; I could not do justice to the enormity of pressure and factors that equate “fitness” (read: thinness for women, muscles for men) with value. My decision to take on the Precision Nutrition program certainly was, in part, because I simply wanted to look better. And, I was sick of the cycle, and knew that I wanted to do something to interrupt it, and to actually learn to eat and move in ways that worked for my body. I should also say here that this is my personal journey, and in no way am I advocating that this is the way everyone should deal with their pain, or saying that people who are carrying weight are that way because they are not fit or not dealing with their pain.)

Throughout my life, I have gone through cycles/swings of being super active, then doing relatively little physically, and these swings have, unsurprisingly, coincided with the state of my mental health. When I’m super active, unsurprisingly, I tend to feel great about myself and my body; when I’m not, it’s the opposite. The activity/mental health connection is a bit of a chicken/egg phenomenon, which anyone who has dealt with these things knows. When you’re sad, or anxious, or any form of being caught in your head, it’s not exactly easy to motivate yourself to the gym / yoga mat / etc. (to put it mildly). Yet doing exactly that creates an upward spiral that has a huge impact. When I was struggling in grad school, yoga was what enabled me to get grounded in my body and off of meds. I still consider physical activity one of (if not the) largest contributors to my mental health and emotional equilibrium.

A number of years ago, I had been in one of those periods of not feeling very well, and not being very active. I decided I was going to lose weight, and put myself on a relatively regimented eating program (a certain number of servings of fat, protein, veggies, carbs, etc. per day). I started working out again. I was feeling amazing, and I lost a lot of weight. And then, as a result of doing a million crunches with a weak lower back, I herniated a disc. It took a very long time to heal (it’s still bothersome), and for a long time, I was afraid to do much except for very gentle yoga.

Some time during this period, after I’d started practicing yoga again, I met, fell in love with, broke up with, and got back together with Mr. Almost But Not Quite It. In Round 2 of our relationship, as things devolved and got more painful, I fell deep into a very familiar cycle of not exercising, and eating my pain. This would take all kinds of forms: late-night rabid fridge raids; mindlessly eating three times as much as I was hungry for in front of the television to distract myself; far more sugar than actually works for my body, just to make myself feel good for a fraction of a second. When we finally broke up, and I realized I was heavier than I’d ever been in my life, I was heartbroken, ashamed, and determined to shed the weight, both physical and emotional.

I swung myself into the other side of the activity/no activity cycle, with a familiar intense drive. While it’s true that being physically active is absolutely the best form of therapy for me, it’s also true that the flip side to eating my pain and not moving can be just as unhealthy when it takes on this kind of drivenness. I started going to spin classes, swimming, running stairs, and lifting weights again; whatever I could think of.

This drive began before I started the Precision Nutrition program and continued into the beginning of it. After four months of working out like this, while I was feeling a bit better mentally, and had altered some of my eating habits, I had not lost a single pound or inch. I was frustrated as hell, and I was exhausted.

Then, I had a talk with my coach. She recommended I cut back on the cardio, add in more weight training, and most importantly, get more sleep. I took her coaching, and it worked. What I loved about this program is that it wasn’t actually about losing weight. It wasn’t about counting calories. It was about actually learning to listen to hear and listen to my body’s signals. It was about learning to prioritize taking care of myself. It was about finding the middle road between restricting my eating and burning myself out, and mindlessly eating my feelings. It was about learning to feel good in my body again. As I slowed my life down, began to get more sleep, and began to interrupt the habit of eating my pain, I learned to revel in my strength and love my body. Yes, I shed the weight physically, but I also shed the pain of the last few years, and the habits that kept it in place for so long.

I’m not going to pretend that I don’t eat my feelings anymore. That will probably be something I will be intervening in for the rest of my life. It is still a daily struggle to eat alone and undistracted, to actually taste every bite of my food and notice myself eating it. But after a year of practice, a year of learning to see food as delicious, nutritious fuel for a life well-lived, a year of moving my body in ways that built an amazing level of strength, a year of creating healthy sleep and other habits, I am proud not just of how I look, but even more so, of how I feel. (P.S. Another resource that made a profound difference for me on this journey was Geneen Roth’s book Women, Food, and God. If you haven’t read it, do it!)

[unlikelywallflower]

on the journey so far (i.e., an update)

(love me some cheesy stock photography) Oh, hey there! It’s been a while. Sorry for leaving you hanging. I had a lot of, you know, life happening. And, I’m back! And realizing that it’s been quite a while since I’ve shared vulnerably about what’s actually happening in my love project. Some of this will have to get unpacked in future posts, but here we go…

A couple of days ago marked the “official” end to my four-month love project. And, just because the formal program is over doesn’t mean I’m done. I have transformed so much over the past four months, and, I haven’t met my match yet. 

Just in case it wasn’t clear, part of this project has been going on a lot of dates (it’s actually only been 14, but it feels like more). I have met some amazing men. There was the first real unicorn of the project: a man with whom I had an epic 9-hour second date, during which I had the thought “I could fall in love with this man” (seriously, he’s awesome), but who doesn’t want babies anytime soon. There was the second unicorn, with whom I had some seriously hot makeouts, but who ended up not being ready for a serious relationship right now. There have been many other kind, wonderful men, who for one reason or another, just weren’t a match for me. I used to leave those dates despondent, ready to eat my feelings of being sorry for myself that I would never find what I was looking for (oh, late night chicken wings from Barque!). Now, I find evidence of what I am looking for showing up in every date (even if it’s only in pieces right now).

I am still looking for my person: for my Ted Mosby (for HIMYM fans), for the Ben Wyatt to my Leslie Knope (for all of you Parks & Rec fans), for the man who I will round up to (in Dan Savage’s words) or choose as “the one”.

When I started this project, I was 99% convinced that he didn’t exist; that, in fact, men like what I say I’m looking for don’t actually exist in the world (hence my fascination with unicorns). Throughout this project, I’ve softened on what I think this unicorn needs to look like, and have also realized that there are probably way more unicorns around than I thought. Now I’m just looking to run into one who also wants a long-term committed partnership and babies.

There are two more recent developments; the kind of shifts that are so major, yet now feel so a part of me that it’s odd to remember the former attachment (not that it doesn’t come to visit like a fierce, howling wind every once in a while. I have cried to myself about this in the last week. I’m still human.).

First: babies. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted babies. I have, in fact, thought of myself as ready to have babies for at least a decade, and was just waiting for someone with whom to make that happen. I wrote all about the increasing desperation of my ticking biological clock in another post, so you know how this went. I’m turning 37 in 10 days; you’d think this would be ramping the desperation up to near nuclear levels at this point, but it’s not. Somewhere in the last month or so, I healed that desperation. I was so attached that it was completely blocking me from moving forward; it honestly felt like if I didn’t have at least one biological child, my life’s purpose would not be fulfilled. I was praying and “trying” to surrender so hard; that worked about as well as it sounds like it would. Then I finally let myself imagine what life could be like if I didn’t have babies: I pictured the adventures I could have, the service work I could do if I were unencumbered. Prior to this, I had actually felt guilty imagining these things, like I was betraying my future children by thinking of the freedom of not having them. But somewhere along the way (with a lot of support from my amazing coach), I realized that if I never have babies, I will actually be okay. Yes, I will be sad; this is something I really, really want. And, I will not die. I will not be an empty shell of a human. I will thrive and continue to be a loving, creative contribution to the planet. The truth is, even if I met and fell in love with someone tomorrow and we started fucking like bunnies (sorry, Mom), I may or may not get pregnant. I just don’t know what the future will hold, and for what feels like the first time in my life, even though it’s still scary, I’m okay with that. In the end, what I landed on is that I am still committed to having and lovingly raising children, and I still want to start that process sooner rather than later given the biological reality, but I will be at peace no matter the outcome.

My attachment to finding a relationship has followed a similar pattern. When I started this project, even though I secretly thought this would never happen for me (or not so secretly, if you ask some of the gracious and generous friends who have so lovingly listened to me complain about this over the years), I was desperate to meet someone. Part of this was the intensity of my increasingly tightening timeline; part of it was the cycle of hope and despair, of date after date after date without finding “the one”. I was so attached to how it should happen (an epic, romantic story), how he should be, how the relationship should look. The frustration of being told “you’ll find love when you stop looking” was unbearable; as I’ve said before, it is categorically impossible for a 36-year-old woman with a ticking biological clock and a whole lot of love to give to stop looking. And yet, I’ve now realized how that could actually work. I have not stopped looking; I want more than anything to create a family in a loving, committed partnership. I have not stopped dating. I have, however, stopped trying so hard, with so much attachment and desperation, and am now just committed. I will keep dating until I meet the love of my life. I very much desire for that to happen before I have a baby, and, if it doesn’t, I’ll keep dating anyhow (okay, maybe I’ll take a bit of a break when I’m visibly pregnant and/or caring for a newborn :). 

So here I am, four months after the start of the project, both the same (still single) and entirely new. I don’t know what the world looks like from here; I don’t know when I’ll start taking concrete steps toward getting pregnant without a partner if I haven’t met one yet; all I know is that I have a couple of great dates lined up and I’m excited to see what happens.

P.S. Just so I’m publicly committed, here are some future posts to look forward to (and please feel free to ask questions/suggest topics): loneliness, confronting the financial possibility of being a single parent, femininity/realizing how I don’t give men a chance, my list and how it’s evolved, what I’m committed to contributing in a relationship, and eating pain/body love.

[unlikelywallflower]

on ampersands and the “and” life

I have a large collection of ampersands. I have ampersand earrings, I have an ampersand candy dish, I am seriously considering getting an ampersand tattoo, and I have framed prints of ampersand artwork from amazing Toronto artist Kirsten McCrae on my walls (if you don’t know her work, check her out http://hellokirsten.com or IG @hello.kirsten).

When I first saw one of Kirsten’s prints on the back of a bathroom door in a bar (apparently Zoom Media sometimes promotes local art?), I fell in love with it, both for its beauty (seriously, Kirsten is SO talented), and for what it meant to me.

From my point of view then, most (many?) people live an ”or” life: a life of having this or that, of sacrificing one thing for another, of being one way and thus not being able to be another, of believing that life is just one long series of compromises and that they cannot have everything they want. I prided myself on living an “and” life: a life given by what’s possible, of creatively making it work, of having it all. I am athletic and artistic, sensitive and powerful, meticulously organized and creative. When I’m into something, I throw myself into it and work it in and around my current life. In other words, just because my life looks a certain way now doesn’t mean I can’t have what I currently have and something else.

This fascination with living an “and” life has garnered me my fair share of judgment. I lived a full life, and I packed more into one day than most people pack into a week. People would look at my life and say “I don’t know how you do it”. They called me “busy”, and assumed that I was just packing my life so fully to avoid some pain or another, which I resented enormously. It’s quite possible I was, and, I’d like to think it was more than that. I have always thrived on being “busy”. Even when yoga and meditation became a big part of my life, I knew that while sitting still and just being was important, I could have that and still live a full, vibrant life.

As you can probably tell, this fascination also bled into a fair amount of judgment on my part of the “or” life. Part of what I love about living an “and” life has been being so engaged in the world, in my passions, in being of service, and I have all kinds of contempt for people who are not engaged in this way. If I come across dating profiles of people whose interests are work, gym, bar with friends, and Netflix, I am swiping left, fast. I am aware that this is probably not so kind.

In the last year, I have learned to soften, to settle, to take care of myself. This has involved carving out and protecting long periods of time unscheduled, of being with myself, of being creative, of starting to meditate again. I have learned to say “no” more. I have learned to delight in the joy of missing out. It is an ongoing process of unraveling some of the patterns of having to live a full life in the way I thought that must look, and learning to create the full life that I want.

And so, my relationship to this curious little symbol has shifted. It will always, for me, carry the connotation of not having to be one or another thing, but being able to carry within myself a union of apparently disparate ways of being in the world. It will always represent the knowing that I can live an “and” life; just now without that “and” having to mean exhausting myself with an infinite number of activities. Kirsten’s love of the symbol is all about bringing things together, and I know the meaning I give it will continue to evolve.

[unlikelywallflower]

on what you should/could say to the single people in your life

After my last post about what not to say to the single people in your life, one of my best friends texted me to say that she was pretty sure that at one point or another she had said all of the “terrible” things in my pie of “what not to say to your single friends”. And then she suggested something brilliant: that I write a follow-up piece about what you “should” say. So here we are!

Let me first be clear: I do think that many of the things in that pie can be harmful, especially when said offhandedly by someone who doesn’t know me very well but is smug about their married status and thinks they have it all figured out. As another amazing friend puts it, these are the “just add water” comments. When said by people who love me and just want me to be happy (which is probably most of the people who have said this stuff to me), I can usually take it in the loving way it’s intended. None of it is terrible; it’s just not all that helpful.

Summer of 2016: I was at the wedding of two very dear friends with Mr. Almost But Not Quite It. The night before the wedding, I met a friend of theirs, a fellow spoken word poet who entered the scene after I left. (As an aside: I developed an immediate crush on him—he’s a total sweetheart. If he’s reading this and didn’t know that, well, now you know). At one point in the evening, I was sitting on the steps of the venue getting some air, and behind me sat this poet, who was single and stuck in a conversation with someone who was saying pretty much the entire Help the Single Victim pie, one slice at a time. I wasn’t single at that point, but I had an overwhelming urge to just reach back to him and say “it’s okay. I get it.”

We know you mean well. Really. So, at the risk of speaking for all single people (but not really, because that would be ridiculous), here’s my attempt at sharing with everyone what could be more helpful to say instead. Caveat: these suggestions only really apply to people who are single and want to be in a relationship.

Pre-pie thought: please recognize that we live in a world where being coupled is a privilege. I know not everyone wants it, and some people love being single. I know not every relationship is happy and fulfilling. And, there are a lot of advantages to being in a relationship, particularly a long-term domestic partnership. Just acknowledging that you have that privilege (if you do), and that you don’t know what it’s like to experience being single and wanting a relationship the way your friend does (unless you’ve recently been single) can go a long way.

Executive summary: if you want to skip the rest of this post, pretty much all of it boils down to this: listen, ask questions, try to get it, reflect your friend’s feelings, and support them in living an awesome life while they’re looking.

So now, let’s look at the pie one slice at a time:

“You have to love yourself before you can find love”: As I said in my last post, self-love is awesome, so think about how you could encourage the single people in your life to develop this without having it be a condition for them being loved by another. Maybe start with “I’d love to see you loving yourself as much as you want to be loved in a relationship, while you’re looking. How could I support you with that?”

“You’ll find love when you least expect it/when you’re not looking”: Maybe just don’t say this, k? It’s ridiculous. Have you ever tried to “least expect” something you really really want? Also, have you spoken to a woman with a ticking biological clock? There’s no turning off looking. Also: not even factually accurate. Do you know how many relationships start online, with people actively looking? If you’re insistent on the sentiment underneath this (which hopefully is that you want your friend to be living a fulfilling life vs. having their entire focus on finding a relationship), then you could ask your friend what they’re doing that brings them joy while they’re looking.

“Don’t worry, your time will come”: This is where straight up reflecting that your friend is having a hard time (if they are), while also affirming how awesome and loveable you think they are can be really loving. Something like, “I know this is really tough for you. I’m sorry it sucks right now. I want you to know that I love you and you are a super-lovable human I’m grateful to have in my life”.

“Enjoy it while you can; relationships are hard work!”: If your single friend is not already acutely aware of this, they’ve been living in a cave. If they’re anything like me, they want to do that work. There is growth that can only happen in the container of a romantic partnership. This comment, though, stands in for any “grass is greener” argument. What to replace it with? More of the encouragement to be actively living and enjoying their life now, without making single life some utopia (to which you maybe think you wish you had access).

“Dating is a numbers game. Just keep at it!”: You guys, dating can be really fun, and it can also be a total grind. I rewatched some of Sex and the City Season 3 on the plane yesterday, which includes the episode with Charlotte’s iconic line: “I’ve been dating since I was 15. I’m exhausted! Where is he?!” Story of my life. All of this to say: “just keeping at it” is not as easy as it sounds when you’ve just come back from your third mediocre coffee date of the week, or your epic second date with a total unicorn that ended in the heartbreaking disappointment of finding out he doesn’t want kids anytime soon (just as, you know, an example…). It is hard to get yourself out there again and keep a smile on your face. So how can you help your single friend? First, get their disappointment. Ask them what it’s like for them and how they’re feeling about dating lately. And then, if they’re open to it (and only if they’re open to it), you could gently help them reframe things (tread lightly, though; this could be annoying unless the suggestions are sought after). One thing that’s really been working for me lately, courtesy of my awesome love project coach: I try to find things in every date that are evidence of what I want showing up, even if I didn’t connect with the dude.

“You’re just being too picky”: There is a fine, fine line between calling someone too picky because they legitimately have a ridiculous list of criteria that no one human being could ever fulfill, and calling someone too picky because you think they should settle. I know you think you’re probably pointing out the former, but for most people hearing it, it sounds like the latter. I am picky. I have done a lot of work to see if my criteria are actually ridiculous, and to loosen up on some things that are maybe a little too much to expect, but would be awesome bonuses. And: I want someone as awesome as I am, so I am not willing to get less picky at this point. So, if you want to be genuinely helpful, ask your friend about what they’re looking for, and really get why that’s important to them. Ask them what’s underneath those criteria (like for me, I discovered this year that underneath my criteria for an intelligent partner is that I want to be stimulated and inspired, and that could look a lot of different ways). Do this in a way that is curious, not accusatory.

“You don’t need a man!”: Um, thanks for the revelation? Of course I don’t technically need a man; I am a perfectly capable, independent woman who would no doubt survive the rest of my life without a man. And, I’m attracted to men and do have a need for deep and intimate human connection. I am blessed to have an absolutely phenomenal group of friends with whom I have deeply intimate connection. And, put simply, none of them can provide what a partner would. In our isolated world set up around couples, people’s partners are their people. Right now, I depend on a core group of very close friends for emotional support, and they do an amazing job, but most of them have their partners to go home to at the end of the day. I do not have sex with them, I do not (for the most part) cuddle with them, I do not kiss them, I do not (for the most part) hold their hands, and I pretty much only hug them at the beginning and end of our hanging out.  Okay, rant over; on to the pointers! As most of this advice has boiled down to, try to understand what it’s like to want something so human so badly, and to go long periods without having some fundamental needs met. Then, while recognizing that you can’t (and appropriately so, shouldn’t) fulfill all of those needs, ask them what you can do to help ease it. Then show up, in whatever way you can.

[unlikelywallflower]

on self-love (and what not to say to the single people in your life)

One of the most trite pieces of advice that perennially single people get (right up there with “you’ll find love when you stop looking/least expect it”) is that in order to find love, we must fall in love with ourselves first. I could write an entire post on this, but Dena Landon did it better for BUST last year, so I’ll just let you check that out for yourself. (Also see GimmeSomeOven for a different, illustrated version.) And, lest you think I’m an ungrateful person who doesn’t want people contributing to me: I get it. You’re trying to be helpful. I really do appreciate it and know that it comes from a place of love, and I love you for that. And, just maybe stay away from these particular phrases.

Back to the worst offender: “you have to love yourself first”. Even while knowing that it is partly (or perhaps wholly) true, I have always been bothered by this advice. Are you seriously telling me that every single person who finds love could honestly say that they love themselves? I doubt it. Well, maybe some (or even most) of the ones in happy, long-term relationships, but I would bet that many of them learned to do that along the way.

Self-love is awesome. I’m not saying people should not be working on this. That said, this type of advice is actually pretty harmful: if you are telling people that they need to feel whole/love themselves/etc. in order to be loved, you are essentially creating a scenario where a) people who are struggling feel that they aren’t worthy of being loved unless they “fix” themselves, and b) people hide their struggle because (a). That’s super dangerous, y’all, and as Brené would tell us, the opposite of what actually contributes to authentic love. 

This is not, of course, a theoretical thought exercise for me: over years of not being sure if I really did love myself, of feeling incomplete or like there was something wrong, this particular piece of advice stuck with me and made me feel like I didn’t actually deserve love, and contributed at least in part to the drive to fix whatever was wrong. (See my earlier post on responsibility—I acknowledge my propensity to turn taking responsibility into blaming myself, creating a vicious circle in this particular scenario…I think too much.)

Regardless of what happens with my love life over the course of this love project, I will maintain that this is terrible (or at the very least, supremely unhelpful) advice to give to single friends (of whatever gender). As I said: I still think self-love is a pretty great idea. Just not “in order” to find a relationship. In no small part, this love project I’ve embarked on has been about learning to fall in love with myself, in a real, authentic way.

One of the biggest pieces of feedback I’ve gotten consistently over the years is that people wish I’d actually see myself the way they see me. I have long known cognitively how much I have to offer, and the difference I make in the world, but have still struggled to actually live into that like the truth, to show up as that, to truly own who I am and let it show.

I started working through this process earlier this year. This work wasn’t explicitly about an end goal of self-love (or any end goal at all, really), but more generally the ongoing work of settling into myself and what I want for my life. I’ve made a lot of changes in the name of taking better care of myself. I created a vision for the future of my career that actually serves what I want for my future, not just my firm’s, shared it with my colleagues, and started taking actions toward it. And through this love project, I’ve started looking at myself in the mirror and actually seeing someone I not only like, but think is pretty freaking awesome. (No joke, you guys: I actually say nice things to myself when I look in the mirror now. It’s pretty adorable.) Somehow, in consciously completing 2017, which has been a hell of a year (for must of us, right?), I realized that I now actually feel what I’ve known cognitively for a while. I am owning who I am in the world, in pretty much every respect. People have started noticing and commenting on this new confidence without me even sharing anything about it.

And it’s shown up on dates. Some of you know that as part of this project, I’m doing a dating game, where I go on at least two dates a week (and at least one has to be someone new). I took the second and third week off (without entirely meaning to), but am now back in the game, and my goal has been to be myself no matter what on each of these dates. Typically, if I like someone, I get distracted and start trying to present myself in the best light and get weird; if I don’t, I withdraw and just try to get through it until I can politely end the date. Now, I’m just full-on being me, and I’ve gotta tell you, it’s been a hell of a lot more fun. I even had a date with someone who seems to be a real live unicorn on Wednesday!

Like falling in love with another human, self-love is not an on-off thing; having discovered this new place, I plan on continuing down the path and falling in deeper. What I love is that no part of this has been about doing it “for” someone else. And whether or not it leads me to find my match anytime soon (while obviously hoping it helps), it’s definitely a great place to be.

[unlikelywallflower]

on criteria, the list, and the one who got away

Depending on how you live your life and/or how you met your partner (if you have one), you likely fall into one of three camps when it comes to “the list”:

Single people should make a list of everything they want in their future partner, kind of like a “wish list” for the universe. Depending on how hardcore you are about it (or what you believe about being too specific in your requests of the universe), you may also think that people should divide this list into “must haves” and “nice to haves”.

Single people should either never make such a list, or if they have (even just in their heads), they should burn the list and just be open to whatever the universe sends their way.

What list? Who are you people?

I tend towards Camp #1 (let’s call ourselves the List People, shall we?), and over the years, I have made more of these lists than I can remember. A friend once coached me to write out such a list in blue ink (he was very specific), find a photo of a man who looked like my ideal man, name him, and put this all up somewhere where I would see it on a regular basis. His name was Mark, he was a nerdy and beautiful Jewish doctor, and he lived inside my bedroom closet where I would see him but no one else would. One time, for some reason, one of my best friends had to get something out of my closet, and she saw Mark. She thought it was the cutest thing ever, but was super embarrassed to tell me that she’d seen him. I’m not sure what happened to Mark, but I’m sure most of what was on that list has lived on in some form or another in future iterations.

The last week or two in the Power Love Project, I’ve been examining my criteria. It’s been hella uncomfortable, and I feel like I am defending something monumentally important. I’m not sure what exactly it is that I think I’m defending, or what I feel like I have to defend against. My lovely coach has been encouraging me to soften around my criteria, and question what’s underneath them. I feel simultaneously like this is a very healthy exercise, and like she is asking me to compromise everything I believe in and settle for someone who is the opposite of what I say I want. (In case you’re concerned for me right now, this is entirely a fabrication of my psyche. She is in no way asking me to compromise what’s important to me, or to settle. She would in fact go out of her way to ensure I am not settling.)

As an example of why I think this is very healthy, here is the story of “the one who got away”. I think, for most people, the one who got away is someone they dated for a long time but didn’t learn to appreciate until they were gone. My OWGA (let’s call him Mike) is someone I went on one date with. It was one of the best first date conversations I have ever had. I laughed harder than I had in a long time. I felt intellectually stimulated and inspired. I walked away thinking all of that, plus that I wasn’t attracted to him: I wanted to be with someone fit, and he didn’t (in my very narrow worldview) meet that criteria. I told him that I really enjoyed our conversation but didn’t feel a romantic attraction, and that I’d love to be friends if he was open to it. He agreed, and after hanging out one more time, I realized I’d made a huge mistake in turning down this absolutely amazing man after one interaction. I developed feelings for him, hard and fast, and when I told him and asked him if he’d give me another chance, he turned me down. He knew I’d judged him, and had done it way too quickly, and he didn’t want to be with someone like that. I totally understood, and was really disappointed. We hung out a few more times as friends, and then things just…faded.

Who knows if Mike and I really would have been perfect together? Maybe we would have discovered after a few more dates that we were actually too alike (two smart, intellectual, outgoing, semi-neurotic Jews may have been a bit too much). Or maybe we’d be married with a baby or two by now. I’ll never know, because of one rigid criterion.

Having learned this lesson, I have spent the intervening years unlearning a lot of what I thought I was attached to about the man I wanted to be with, particularly physical criteria. I have inquired into what’s actually underneath what I say I want: for instance, being physically active really is important to me, given that that’s a critical part of my life, and I want someone with whom I can share that, and who takes care of themselves. What their physique looks like coming out of that is far less important to me now.

Now that I am attempting to question the other criteria, I find myself feeling completely unmoored. What counts as “legitimate” criteria? What do I use to sift through the cornucopia/wasteland that is Bumble? (The answer, for now: “legitimate” is a loaded term that I will no longer be using in this context. This is just about being conscious of my criteria.) The biggest sticking point for me has been intelligence: as an above-average intelligence woman with a PhD, I not only want someone who will not be intimidated by me, but an intellectual peer—someone who can stimulate me, challenge me, and teach me. I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong with this criterion (even if it is a relatively high bar), but I am gently inquiring into whether it gets in the way of me enjoying the company of (or even noticing) men who don’t fit the trappings of what I think that “should” look like (e.g., a degree, or two, or three).

Tonight I sat down and wrote out my key criteria and looked at what was underneath that that thing was pointing to. Mostly, it all either boiled down to wanting to feel safe, seen, cared for, inspired, stimulated, and respected—these are the things I will not settle on. For now, I will be working on noticing when judgment around my criteria comes up, looking at what's actually important to me, and walking away when those feelings I’m looking for underneath the criteria are genuinely not fulfilled.

And, I’m keeping my list :).