where is my boyfriend?

singlehood sickness

I’m scared to write this post. I’m distraught about publishing it. In doing so, I’m publicly admitting that I’m despondent about something I’ve gotten good at playing indifferent about. I’m admitting that it’s a persistent sore spot: not an emergency please-call-911 case, but a dull ache of leathery scar tissue there to remind me something about me, my luck, or the cards I’ve been dealt are drastically different from my peers and their experience. I’m also voluntarily cutting this wound open to complacent smiles, gloating, or pity from the people I’ve been involved with, the people I’ve rejected or said goodbye to, and those who simply don’t like me as a person and want to see me fail. But whenever a fearful question keeps me up for more than a few nights against all odds of my melatonin, I know that it’s precisely the thing I need to write about. Sometimes it’s more important to speak than to hide. Here I am, exchanging my comforting blanket of shame for a real conversation. Raw and urgent, and maybe more naive than my constitution has led to believe.

you want a better story. who wouldn’t?

For as long as I can remember, I envisioned my future in partnership—a distant hazy portrait with a shared apartment, two bedside tables, one grocery list, a dog, a big bookshelf, and some kids down the line. Sure, social conditioning and patriarchal constructs may have played a part in shaping that picturesque vision as most domestic fantasies go, but I’m inclined to believe it’s my own truthful desire, too. Drawing hearts on bylines in 4th grade, I instinctively knew and understood that being with somebody, caring for them, seeing them for what they are, and knowing them better than anyone else would someday come naturally to me: if it’s something I craved long before I could even comprehend love and partnership, surely there must be something in it for me, right? This hasn’t changed. Over time, through many car rides and endeavors, some more meaningless than others, my desire and longing have only grown stronger. It’s just that I’ve only gotten to know love briefly, conceptually, theoretically — in flashes and tiny water drops from a broken faucet. Every time I think I’m about to taste it and savor it, it melts on my tongue like a sugar cube. Slips through my fingers and leaves me wanting more. I’ve got the car and the manual, just no gasoline anywhere in proximity to get the engine running.

No matter where I go, romance follows my footsteps. I see couples on the streets of Amsterdam sharing umbrellas, gelato, or a heated debate depending on the day or season. I overhear conversations through my noise-canceling earbuds where people refer to their partner in sweetness, a mysterious someone they can’t help but account for. I observe my partnered friends— the percentage of which grows exponentially— with childlike fascination and a genuine attempt at understanding what it’s like to come home to a special somebody every night. Love is all around me, and I don’t need to step far outside of my bubble to prove that it’s real, tangible, true. It’s in the children running down the street, in mothers with strollers, in tanlines, in vintage Levi’s, in golden lockets, in the glossy spring air, in my unconditionally caring friends, in the elderly couple at the cinema watching credits roll by. Love visits me often; it brushes and tickles me, casting shadows on the side of the pavement where I keep standing all alone looking for a sign; but it never waits at my doorstep. It sings to me beautifully, but I can never locate where the sound is coming from. It’s tiring. Through all of this, I keep thinking next turn might be mine. Reach for it, sleep on it, wait for it. But the turn is somehow never truly mine.

I know that my dating stories are entertainment galore with anecdotal value to my non-single friends. Maybe I’m paranoid, but the validity of my experiences feels somehow offset by my singlehood. Aww, here she goes again hoping for the best. How’s that date going? What about that boy? I’m trying to laugh along as I’m retelling my domestic and international affairs in detail more grotesque than necessary, but I’m a tall child on a playground everybody else has outgrown, and I’m having trouble not taking it to heart. Beneath the stories and the jokes is a deep fear, a question coming out of the woodwork and sitting atop my head with no intention to move: what if this is it for me? What if all life has in store is a series of meaningless encounters with people who don’t know me or care for me? What if I’m damaged goods? Sure, I’m introverted to a fault, but shouldn’t that make me a more equipped lover, not a lousy outsider? Now that most of my circle is love-nested, they know I’m the one with no plans on a Sunday night. They know I look forward to each hangout just a fraction more than they do — it makes me wonder whether they keep me company out of pity.

i hope you marry the girl from your hometown

Now, let’s get to the thing that hurts just a little more than being alone. It’s so raw I’m almost offended at my fingertips for daring to type this out. Most of the people I loved (or thought I did) found long-term partners soon—or right after— dating me. The sound of train brakes on rusty steel tracks, that’s how it feels. Mixed emotions. Mostly pacing back and forth, wondering why it couldn’t have been me. Sometimes I know exactly why it wasn’t me, for one reason or another. Other times all I want to do is get drunk just enough to act inconsequentially embarrassing, call them up, and start slurring “Why not me? Why.. Why?” I’m a girl’s girl before I am a failed lover, so I’m not going to juxtapose myself against those ‘other’ women. I’m sure your girl is lovely, Hubbell they’re wonderful and kind-hearted and full of light, god knows in my weaker moments I’ve been inclined to curse them and call them names. It’s more of a desperate attempt to find reasoning, a catalyst for something I don’t have the answers to. Aiming to pick out this dagger, the deeper I dig my nails into it, the more it swells and throbs. Depending on the day, my pacifiers are a spectrum: oscillating between “Well, maybe she’s just so much better than I ever could be, and there’s nothing to do about it” and “They simply can’t handle me, that’s how great I am, so now they’re settling." Now, being a rational enough person, I know that neither of these extremities is true. But what is true, then? Is it my luck? Is it not putting myself out there enough? Did I do something wrong? Is it that they get bored of me? Am I too demanding? Too agreeable? Should I get a nose job? Should I lose 13 pounds? Am I bad at talking, or sex, or smiling, or reading the signs, am I too selfish, too ugly, too complicated, too unpalatable, or too in my head about things? What is this blind spot I can’t put my finger on? Hurts not to know, but I wonder if it would hurt more by a landslide to know exactly why. Exhausting, either way. I’d like to lay in the ocean, arms wide open. I’m past the point of wondering why I continue to play the role of the one before The One. So many questions and never any legitimate answers.

Every now and then, a flicker of light. Dreamy-hued. Somebody new on the horizon, a comet to catch. Getting approached in Italy. Seems just right, a face I’ve known for eternity. Persistent eye contact at a concert, a glimmering kaleidoscope of anticipation. Sharing a park bench with a fellow reader immersed in a book I’ve never heard of before. I try not to inflate the meaning of futile everyday interactions and dating app matches for I know exaggeration is a dangerous thing for me to indulge in, but it’s almost impossible not to inadvertently think finally, this is MY moment because, well, I’m quite desperate to have my moment. Something happens then, or it doesn’t. Either way, whatever goes down, the magic isn’t there — I made it up again. The flicker of light disappears as quickly as it rushes upon me. The eye contact is interrupted by their girlfriend approaching with drinks as I catch the last glance of the night. The bar hookup goes subpar and I have a disillusioning headache. The stranger closes his book, gets up, and leaves. Wasn’t my moment. Or maybe that’s all it was — a moment, tiny fraction of a long existence. Again and again, cut my losses, back on the treadmill, pick it up again. Keep walking, dear. You might be doomed, but the path is familiar and feels like home.

I’m sick of the advice, as it’s all centered around getting attention. I don’t struggle with attention. Attention, frankly, as cheap and lifeless as it’s become, is the last thing I’m trying to get. Shocker, but in the digital hellscape we’re living in, attention doesn’t guarantee romance — let alone love. There’s a difference between people that want to sleep with you and people that want you. I’m lucky if there’s a touchpoint at all. Sure, I have a dozen reply guys at any given time (much like any other woman) but I’ve lived enough years to know these kinds of people will dissipate at the mere attempt of bridging a connection. Gone with the rain, or a slight blow of the wind, or by design. Sometimes people will give you their time of day solely because they’re trying to prove something to themselves. No more, no less. I’ve stopped seeing them as viable options because they don’t mean any of what they’re saying: their emotional investment—and pardon my bluntness— starts with a fire emoji and ends with jerking off. I don’t take it personally, because to them I am not a person, and they aren’t one to me. We’re nothing but usernames on each other’s phones, gamified and faceless.

Romantic love is not the only kind of love that matters. The love we seek is everywhere, according to bell hooks. I have fruitful platonic relationships to acknowledge and be heartily grateful for; I’d be nothing and nowhere without my friends, my family, my community. They’re the central gravitational pull in my life. But I can’t help but feel left out, invited to the party but forced to bide my time in the corner. This is my fear, unorthodox and grimy as it gets, covered in mud, fighting a losing battle against faith. And yet, I’m a believer. My hope is unwavering: I can feel it somewhere in the distance, humming pretty harmonies as it’s making its way to me. I haven’t yet decided if it’s divine intuition or if I’m going completely delusional. For once, I’d like to know where love keeps its best-written stories. I want to be written into one, too. Is it reserved for me?

“It will come to you when you least expect it.” Well, I can’t unwant something I desire, can I? Plus, I don’t expect anything. Expectation implies conviction, conviction demands confidence, and confidence requires knowledge. None of this I’ve been able to hold with my own two hands long enough. This isn’t a question to you, dear reader. This isn’t a question to my exes. This isn’t a question to my exes’ beautiful girlfriends. This may not even be a question. But I’ll ask anyway.

Where is my boyfriend?