So, it’s Valentine’s Day. I spent most of my high school years wearing black and being passionately anti-valentine, all the while desperately secretly hoping that the next year I would be one of the ones getting flowers and big hideous teddy bears. In college I wore less black, but I was no less disdainful and fervent and secret. There was one memorable Valentine’s day when I helped the man I was desperately, hopelessly infatuated with, the man I would have dropped everything, including all morals and standards for, plan the perfect Valentine’s day for his girlfriend. Even worse were the weeks afterward when I had to hear her gush about all the wonderful things he had done, all those wonderful things I had come up with and could not take credit for. What can I say, I was pretty bloody stupid, particularly when it came to boys.
I’ve spent my life hearing variations on “just wait, it will happen when…” In the residential summer Governers’ school before my junior year of High School (yeah, I was that kid) I had a conversation about my frustration at being the perpetual singleton and was told to “just wait until your junior year, everything happens in your junior year” Then there was just wait until you are a senior/start college/finish college/ get a job/ blah blah bitty blah.
Here’s the truth — I am 32 years old and I have never kissed anyone. I have never dated. And I am happy about it.
I won’t lie and say I have always been happy about it. Sitting in my best friend’s bedroom in high school while she counted the guys she had made out with (the number wasn’t small) or in the bathroom lounge at church on Sunday morning discussing my friends’ exploits the night before (in code, no less) caused no small jealousy on my part. It hasn’t been easy over the past several years watching my friends get married, and I have on more than one occasion struggled to force smiles at showers and rehearsal dinners and weddings and parties, and I would be lying if I denied coming home from those events and crying alone in my house. Hell, sometimes I didn’t even make it home. A few times I didn’t even make it to the car.
Here’s the thing — we are all taught from preschool on up that we can have anything we want if we just work hard enough. It’s not true, but it is an integral part of the puritans, pilgrims, and pioneers pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality that is so present in our culture. So it is natural to think that you can find love the same way — by working at it, and it’s easy to think that if it doesn’t happen you just aren’t working hard enough, and then if it still doesn’t work, then there must clearly be something wrong with you to make you inherently unloveable, you big hideous freak. It’s worse when you are fat, since you have a whole cultural norm telling you that you are, in fact, a hideous freak, and it’s OMG all your fault and you just need to eat less andexercisemoreandthenyou’dbeperfectandyouhaveSUCHaprettyface!
I would like to celebrate this Valentine’s Day by calling bullshit.
Being thin and/ or conventionally beautiful is no more a guarantee to finding real love than anything else. In fact, I would venture to say it might be a little but of a hindrance, because there are plenty of guys who want to date hot girls just to date hot girls and aren’t at all interested in the girl herself, just her body.
Today I reread Kate’s brilliant post on finding love and dumb luck. I think this is my favorite bit:
Single folks, here’s what I know: you are exactly what someone is looking for, and that someone is exactly what you’re looking for. You just don’t have a damned bit of control over when or where you’ll stumble across each other. That sucks a hundred kinds of ass. But you don’t have to be prettier. You don’t have to be better. You don’t even have to be patient, if you don’t feel like it. You just have to be.
I’m 32. I can’t do one damn thing about whether I ever date, get married, have kids, whatever. I can’t make anyone be attracted to me, and I am not willing to try and change myself into something I am not in an attempt to attain those things, because if I get them but lose myself, what’s the point?
The other day I ran into a friend I had not seen in a while and she asked if I was ever going to get married, and asked if I was dating anyone. I was a little shocked at my reaction, which was pretty much”hunh, I hadn’t really thought about it”. It was in the moment that I realized that all my angst was a thig of the past, and I have reached a place where I am genuinely content where I am and could not care less about “finding someone”. If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t, and either way my life is good. It’s a pretty damn brilliant place to be.
wow! Brilliant post! This makes me so happy! You’re completely right. I will keep your wise words in mind
Being happy, whether attached or not, is always better for you than not being happy. Lots of people in relationships are not happy at all, or at least not happy enough of the time to cancel out the unhappiness. When I was married I felt like shit — about myself, about life, about my relationship — about 80% of the time, and that’s the truth. I wish I had felt like you do now before I got married. Hell, I wish everybody did.
You’re right. There’s no magic way of assuring that you meet the right person who falls madly in love with you.
On the other hand, if it happens while you’re feeling good and strong and happy with yourself, it seems to me you’d be more likely to meet someone who really does appreciate you for yourself.
And if it never does happen at all (which is always a possibility), isn’t it better to enjoy your own company than spend all your time mourning someone who isn’t there?
Self-appreciation is a beautiful thing.
I loved your post! It kinda describes me right where I am, but I’m still trying to get to that place of contentment. It’s a work in progress…hopefully I’ll get there:)
Here’s the thing — we are all taught from preschool on up that we can have anything we want if we just work hard enough. It’s not true, but it is an integral part of the puritans, pilgrims, and pioneers pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality that is so present in our culture.
My sister used to insist she wanted to get married but even though at one point she moved halfway across the country to be closer to a guy who seemed interested, she never really made time for a guy in her life. She’s always had eight million things going on and she didn’t prioritize the guy over any of them – at one point she told the guy she’d moved for that she didn’t want to get married until she’d spent a year overseas doing something she hasn’t gotten to yet (some eight years later…). And then she got irked when he, some time later, introduced her to his fiance…
Mind you, she did want to get married – but I think she was totally buying into the “you can have anything you want” idea, and as you point out, it just isn’t true. You can’t have anything you want by working hard enough, for a bunch of reasons. Because some things depend on ability. Because some things depend on having resources (things or money or people) that you may not have access to. Because there is only so much time. Because every choice means not choosing other possibilities.
I have reached a place where I am genuinely content where I am and could not care less about “finding someone”. If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t, and either way my life is good. It’s a pretty damn brilliant place to be.
Yep. THAT is where it’s at – not buying into the “have it all” mentality (which really means “earn it all, or you’re unworthy” to a lot of people) thing, but doing what matters to you and recognizing the limitations of reality and enjoying what you’ve got.
One thing that fascinated me in another of Kate’s posts (which I think was linked from the one you discuss), http://kateharding.net/2008/01/21/on-tortoises-hares-and-ferdinands/
was the idea that contentment is scorned in our culture as “settling” or something. That being contented is offensive to a lot of people. That was a revelation to me and something that seemed instinctively right but that I’d never considered before. Be a rebel – find contentment…
I’m a bit older 49, two grown daughters and a loving husband. I’ve been with him for the past 29 years. I did things, the “conventional” way I suppose. I was fat since childhood but never had the self esteem that I should have had so though I knew I wanted love I felt I could never be loved unless I was “thin”. So at 18 away at college my next door neighbor was a drug dealer of sorts and was selling “black beauties” which were a type of speed back then. I think it was common back then to use speed as a diet aid. Anyway within by the following summer I had dropped about 100 lbs.
My whole world changed at that point, not necessarily for the better but I was in the dating scene for sure. Due do some some bad judgement calls and a not so wonderful home life situation I moved out of my house and dropped out of college to live on my own and worked full time.
Basically I did end up getting together with a friend of mine I had a crush on but never did anything about it before I lost the weight. During this time he moved in with me and the weight started to creep up. Something I didn’t expect to happen and didn’t discuss it with anyone either. I suppose I was in shock and denial. I gained all the weight back and more. Well I now was about to plan a wedding so I was not going to get married fat so went back to dieting once again. I think I starved myself on a liquid diet the last two weeks before the wedding to fit into my dress.
During all this time my self esteem was a bit screwed up, I only seemed to have it when I was thin and even then it wasn’t “real”. They didn’t really have FA back then and we didn’t have blogging of course so the only support I had was either OA or Weight Watchers. I remember going to an OA meeting and crying the whole way home because it was so sad to me. I went to WW at 126 lbs because I knew the weight was coming back on and I thought they would be my saving grace and the fact that took me at that weight should have been a clue to be at that point.
Anyway long story short I’m fat, I’ve done many things in my history to lose weight as I felt that was the only way I was a worthy human being, mainly things I had picked up from my maternal unit. I’ve even gone through weight loss surgery, the band, and it’s removal over the past year or so and that was when I knew I had a problem. The problem was not that I was fat it was that I had such a hatred for myself because I was fat and now I’ve learned that is so wrong! So even though I basically have everything I thought I wanted and should have the husband and kids etc… I still struggle to love myself. Something I’ve heard so many times that you have to love yourself before you can love others. So now I’m at that point in my life where I’m working on it and it’s a long hard journey but if it’s something you can achieve at an earlier age so much the better. No matter if you have a sig other in your life or not it’s the relationship with yourself that is the most important and something I wish I had learned at a much earlier age. Take care, you sound like a smart cookie, moxie3!
“Here’s the thing — we are all taught from preschool on up that we can have anything we want if we just work hard enough. It’s not true, but it is an integral part of the puritans, pilgrims, and pioneers pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality that is so present in our culture.”
It’s so true (that people believe that – not the belief itself!) And you encounter it and have to grapple with it even after you find someone. Even if you lose weight. I have a lot of friends who are struggling with infertility problems right now. No amount of “working harder” is going to make them conceive. I had a miscarriage a couple of years ago . . . I couldn’t have worked harder or wanted more badly for everything to go perfectly with that pregnancy. (And afterward, I even endured being confronted in the ladies’ room at church by a lady who was telling me all the things I should have been doing and wasn’t or should not have been doing, and was.) It seems that no matter who you are and what your circumstances in life, you will be measured by some grace-less person’s ruler and found lacking, and you will be accused and shamed for your apparent failure. The truth is that certain things just aren’t in our hands.
By way of solidarity, I just wanted to let you know that we are around the same age and I’ve also never been kissed – or even asked on a date. (Which isn’t so bad, as there have only ever been a handful of guys I would really have wanted to ask me out, anyway).
I think I have very similar feelings to yours about my status – or at any rate, I strive to. ;o9 (There are certainly moments when I lack your maturity). But I’m actually pleased with the way I’ve gotten to experience and learn about myself as a single person and a person in community, in a way that I couldn’t have if I had always had boyfriends.
As relates to FA and self-acceptance, though, my frustrations with my circumstances remain twofold: One, I read posts about attraction, combating the notion that a fat woman can never be attractive to a red-blooded American (or otherwise) male, and while I absolutely concur, I struggle to claim that confidence for myself as a fat woman, because it would seem that so many other fat women can say: ‘This is obviously false, because I have never lacked for attention!’ Man, I want to be able to hold that belief – that my fat doesn’t put me ‘out of bounds’ – in a firm and unshakeable kind of way, but it’s hard for me to do when I have no firsthand evidence! (‘I’ve always relied upon the evidence of strangers…’)
Secondarily, I struggle with the attitude I think many utterly well-intentioned and loving married friends (or even friends who have done a lot of dating) can’t help but project: that I have become their junior – have remained a child, while they’ve passed into adulthood, with all its attendant cares and responsibilities. Not to mention the way I can sometimes turn this attitude on myself, believing that I am getting left behind! Now that most of my friends are married and many of them have children, even I sometimes confuse myself for a proto-adult. It seems so hard for everyone, myself included, to remember that just because I don’t have dating experience doesn’t mean I don’t have experience(s); I have the experience of singleness – and some of them have missed out on that.
(Just, it would be okay to be done with the experience of singleness sometime soon. For serious).
Oh Emily, I am not that mature. My personal FOBT involves dozens of men with PhDs, who bear a striking resemblance to Dash Mihock or Rupert Grint and love to cook and do housework, clambering over one another to be with me. Fantasy, indeed.
I identify so much with your last line that I could have written it myself. I wish I knew you IRL so I could hug you.
Well I just came across your blog and want to commend you for feelings about valentines day! Here I am at 20 thinking I’ve never been in a serious relationship, and completely failed to realize that I am capable of being happy ALONE forever!