Last week, I had an interesting conversation with one of my friends, stemming from a separate conversation with someone else. One of my friends told me a few people had been saying horrible things to her about her posting text and OKCupid messages on her Instagram, basically saying, “no wonder you’re single.” I found that to be a bit harsh and incredibly rude. She posts these things with comments in an attempt to keep a sense of humor about dating in general.
Dating in your 30’s is not the same as dating in your 20’s. It seems like there is a lot more at stake, for the girl, if she wants to have kids, and feels the clock is a-tickin’.
When you wind up stuck in the three-date curse or sitting in a parking garage crying or getting ridiculous texts, etc, sometimes all you can do is try to laugh it off. I bet these people, who said such horrible things to my friend, are all Taylor Swift fans. Well, every single one of her fucking songs are about dating gone awry, yet she is famous, makes a gajillion dollars a year and has won every award imaginable. And I mean, Jagged Little Pill, hello? While I still wholeheartedly refuse to believe that album was about Uncle Joey, it became the breakup anthem for a while and launched Alanis Morissette into uncharted waters. And while she has not actually spoken up about who inspired the song “You Outta Know”, she still wrote it, so we know it was about someone and came from a very dark place.
Anyway. I find comments like that, “no wonder you’re single,” to not only be hurtful, but are also more than likely coming from a very hypocritical place. And all these people were single until they weren’t.
But it did get me thinking a lot. Is that what people think about me? No wonder I’m single because of this blog and book (the book that’s like, 500 words at this point after I lost it all when my laptop shit the bed)? Mr. Titspervert once told me I should not feel guilty about writing about him, and that was a comment I appreciated, especially because it was unsolicited.
So, I asked one of my guy friends what he thought. He said I shouldn’t feel guilty, but at the same time need to think about how I’d feel if these guys were writing about me. That kind of sent me to a bad place. I leave out really personal and identifying details, but it was pointed out to me that I should not act like I am doing them a favor for leaving out details. Then I was all, “wait a minute, like four people read my blog, who actually cares?” I try to make this a mostly humorous take on dating disasters and keep it lighthearted. Maybe did a bad job of that recently in regards to B3.
Another thing I’ve been thinking about came up on Facebook. My friend Amy moved to Boston recently and just started dating someone. She has been posting cute little updates about their dates, but nothing overly personal or even remotely out of line. Then I log in earlier in the week to see her status as the following (and yes, I asked her if I could use it):
So I’ve been getting a lot of flack offline for “over sharing” on Facebook this past week regarding my dating life. Here’s what I have to say about it. A) this person is not on Facebook. B) I have selflessly liked all your wedding/baby/whatever posts for years. C) If you have a problem with what I share on here, unfriend me. D) I haven’t dated anyone in SIX YEARS. Every time I post a dating update I deserve resounding applause. For all the above reasons. I’m done with your complaints. Shut it and attempt to be happy for me. Love and thanks 🙂
First thing’s first: pause for reaction:
Second of all, she makes an interesting point, in that why is it okay for us to post things about relationships becoming permanent (engaged, married, etc) but not about being excited about the early stages? Not even kidding, I was planning on posting the first pic taken of B3 and I (there wasn’t one) and just posting it with the caption “Suddenly I See” or something like that because I was g-o-n-e but such a picture does not exist and then we were Facebook friends briefly and I kept all comments about my dating life completely absent because I wanted to be mindful of his feelings and I do hate when people over share in an uncomfortable way on Facebook or when couples fight on Facebook. But that’s not what Amy was doing at all. And it was great to see her school everyone, because she has a very valid point.
Should I feel bad about making fun of myself for some bad decisions I’ve made? No. And I really do try to make it more about me than them, not in a selfish way, but so it doesn’t come across that I will write about every single person that I date. That is not the goal at all. The original intent was to focus on 2007-2013, my years in Chicago, and the incredibly stupid yet hilarious things that happened. When I moved to California, I was not expecting to date or meet anyone for a while, it just happened, and I see myself repeating a bad pattern with B3, which is how I ended up writing about him. It’s more for me to work things out through writing, rather than to be hurtful to them or overshare-y or anything like that, yet I sit here trying to justify a very personal decision as if anyone even cares. Does anyone even care? Am I thinking too much?
There is no right answer here because obviously some people are not going to like what I write, but I’m not going to stop doing it.
A Series of Very Bad Decisions 