Unlike the first five
dates I went on, dates Six through Ten were all quite good, some bordering on
excellent. The men I went out with, much kinder and more thoughtful, and in the
end, helped me understand my place in the world a bit more. Now I am having a
different kind of struggle; I am changing. Due to the events of the past few
weeks, I have been thoroughly re-examining my values.
After I posted my date
with Hugh, he sent me an email which I think was meant to sound light and airy,
but ended up being a defense of his actions and motives. It also sounded like I
hurt his feelings. After a series of paragraphs defending himself and pointing
out my misinterpretations of various events, he wrote:
“You sometimes put
out the vibe that you're all business; that biking is a single-minded task from
point A to point B. That this experiment is putting your head down and getting
from date one to date twenty. It comes off as a little mechanical, even in
person, which doesn't help connect with other human beings, but probably does
help support the thesis of your experiment. You've already shown that you can
slow down and smell the roses (referring here to number Seven, about whom I'm
quite excited for you!) so that's a good step. I hope you keep doing that. Life
is short, you loner. Sometimes it's worth following someone down a
less-familiar winding route, even one that's admittedly slower. :)”
Ouch. Um, yeah, that’s
me. That has always been my M.O., I am usually quite impatient and single-minded
in most of my endeavors. Should I be slowing down? Should I be going down
“less-familiar winding routes”? Would I come off as mechanical if I weren’t so
fuckin’ Heavy Metal? It is ironic that
the man who initially referred to my project as a “marathon” is now telling me
to slow down. Marathons are long enough without slowing down intentionally to
smell the freaking roses. I know I would not react in this fashion if this
analysis did not hit home in some way, but I don’t recall ever feeling good after
having apologized for my actions, much less for who I am. In fact, what the
last few weeks have taught me is that all we have in this world is what we
carry within us, and compromising this to make others feel better is a huge
waste of energy. In the last weeks, I have been told I am selfish, mean,
slutty, and of little value by the people I used to be closest to. Some of this stemmed from my blog,
some not, but all were meant to in some way pacify the teller’s own feelings of
inadequacy. This is pure bullshit, and I have to say, I am happy I have had the
opportunity to experience it all, because it has cemented in me the importance
of being true to yourself and trying with all your strength to retain your
integrity. As my mother used to tell me when someone was mean to me at school:
“Fuck ‘em if they
can’t take a joke, and joke ‘em if they can’t take a fuck.”
I have in the past days
been feeling a drain on me from this experiment. First dates are arduous, and I
have been doubling and tripling up on some weekends, due to the fact that many
of the gentlemen I have seen have wanted a date sooner than later. I am
scheduling more dates over the next few months, but I now have two people I am
starting to care about. I wonder how fair this is to the other first dates I am
planning to meet, but I also wonder if I will find that not only can I like two
people at once, but three and four is also a possibility. Who is this person I
am becoming? How many first dates will it take for me to figure it out? Or will
these dates just keep bringing up additional questions?
While I have seen
ugliness over these last few weeks, I have also seen amazing love, generosity,
and depth of character. The interactions I have had with some of these men have
restored my faith in people, and while many whom I have loved have turned their
backs on me, these strangers have shown a depth of feeling I believed to be
long lost from this dark world. It sounds dramatic and somewhat amplified, but
a renewal of hope is no small thing, especially when it occurs within the
confines of Craigslist personals.
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