vinylgirl's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One Year On �I haven�t seen you all that excited about any of these guys,� my Mom said. �Not like you were with him.� I don't trust my instincts anymore. I used to be quite cynical and skeptical about the advances of men. I was the kind of girl who was able to evaluate things from 10,000 feet, like a general I would map out the course of a particular love battle and decide if I liked where things were headed. If I got an incling that something was up, I moved on or, in some cases, would not begin dating a guy. The result of that was I didn't date much. Now, I am trying to be much more open-minded, a giver of chances, an optimist, date more, but I also find myself more disappointed. In fact, I've dated nearly a dozen different men in the last year. Different in that they are literally different people and, in that they were a variety of different types. When I run back over them in my memories, I can pinpoint a moment that the old me would have cut things off. Yet, I didn't. And, I've doubled the number of men I've had sex with in my life over the course of the last 6 or 8 months. Only one or two were good in bed. Many had trouble performing. Part of me wants to chalk it all up to experience. I'm young and modern, exploring what I like and don't like. Learning much about myself. But, all this learning through trial and error, and the painful introspection that follows, is tiring. Dating is work. That nervous excitement I used to get before a date -- like I might throw up -- is gone. It's old hat. I find myself reciting the same old script about how I landed my dream job and hitting the same punchline about how I whisper smart things in my host's ear. I bore myself. That must be written on my face. I catch myself writing these poor guys off quickly. I ask them what they read and, Palin-like, they say lots of things and when pressed, one newspaper. If he has time. Next, I think. I've fallen into the trap of infinite choice. There are billions of people on earth right now. I just have to keep searching. There is a one. And, of course, this whole thing is also emotionally draining. I thought I could compartmentalize sex as an act separate from love. But I get attached. I begin to like how it feels when he has his arms wrapped around me. And I lose my rationality. I lose my cynicism. I'm tired and I want to believe he's the guy. That I've kissed enough frogs. Or, worse yet, my ego kicks in and because he seems nonplussed about me, I want him more. I want him to like me because he has challenged me. It's gross. Spiteful. Destructive. That's a word I've been thinking about a lot lately. How what I've been doing is self-destructive. And I don't want to do it anymore. I'm not giving up on love or dating. I just need to spend more of my energy on loving myself again. Building my own happiness back. I say that and then I find myself sitting around in my one-bedroom apartment, wondering if I should give that old online dating site one more kick at the can. I look at a few more profiles and sigh... I can't get into it. The prospect of putting myself out there one more time. Of facing further disappointment becomes a deterrent. And I realize that I place way too much stock on what men think of me. Way too much of my self worth is determined by the affections of men. So I resolve to stop actively looking for love. To stop desperately looking for it. No more. Just me. 9:02 p.m. - 06/11/2012 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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