I have been trying to date after my divorce. I have not really ever dated. I have been a serial monogamist. Since childhood, I got it in my head that I wanted to have a Best Friend, and that would be my person, and I would be their person, and we would be together forever. As a child, this person was not a romantic partner, but was someone who valued me over other people. This person chose me above others and was dedicated to me first. I just wanted to be someone’s most important person.
This was because in my life, I felt like I didn’t matter to anyone even a little bit. Before you start that pity party for me, while I felt that way, it was not actually true. I did struggle in life as a child. There were lots of mental and physical challenges. There were unkindnesses and hurts, and I did not ever have that best friend I truly wanted. But, there were kind people who did want to be my friend for a time and were there for me when I needed them.
As I grew up, I kept that romanticized idea that someday, someone, would choose me as their person, their one and only true love. I am an American after all, and we are conditioned to not only believe this is possibility, but that is a condition of being a successful human. We are taught that bonding for life as a romantic pair is essential for our happiness. Even doctors tell us that we will live longer if we are in a bonded pair. What they don’t tell you is that being in a toxic bonded pair will kill you faster than being alone. Just to be clear. So, I fell for that line in the human being manual that noted that you are not worthy unless someone chooses you as their person. Therefore, I moved from relationship to relationship making sure that I was the perfect person for someone to choose. I never once considered who I wanted to choose, only that it was important to be chosen.
I did get chosen. I have been married twice and had 4 significant adult relationships, including the marriages, and if you asked me a couple of weeks ago, I would have told you that I still never felt chosen. I would have said that because who I had to be, to become, in order for that person to choose me, was not my true self. I do not blame the other person for who I had to be to get them to choose me. I made the choices to become the person they wanted. I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I felt like I was not chosen, but that they chose an idea of me that they created, and I did my best to fulfill, but that was not entirely, or actually me. It was their idea of me, therefore, I was not chosen. Again, not their fault. I chose to do that.
The idea of being chosen was so important that I would be anything, do anything, become whatever you wanted me to be to remain chosen. That is until I couldn’t be that anymore. Eventually, those relationships ended, and it was me who ended them. In each of them, the reason they ended was because I woke up day after day feeling inauthentic, feeling like I was losing myself and not able to express who I was. When I started to be the person I truly am, express my thoughts, emotions, opinions and act how I wanted to act, well, let’s just say that was not appreciated by the person who chose me. That was not the person they chose, after all. Noticing that my true self was a bit of a disappointment, well, it seemed the most kind thing to do was to leave. Having seen that I was not being myself, I could not go back to pretending to be what they wanted or even trying to be that. I had to be myself.
In each break up, I vowed that I would always be myself with the next person, and guess what, I didn’t do that in the next one. I did the same thing. So desperate to be chosen and loved, when I met someone who might be interested in me, I figured out what they wanted, and I did my best to be that for them. I don’t blame anyone for this pattern, not even myself. Our society is partially responsible, our movies and tv, politics, capitalism, etc. My parents, my siblings, my teachers, my church, my friends, and of course me are also partially responsible for why I chose this pattern in my life. No blame or shame for this. It is only accountability that I accept. I also accept that given the life I was given, the culture and people I was raised with and in, it was inevitable that I would choose this pattern. I see other people choose this pattern over and over again. My partners in life have also chosen this pattern. However, I see the pattern now, much more clearly than I ever did, and I am consciously choosing something different.
It has been challenging in the dating world to not feel shame when I am rejected for being myself. I feel really awful when I show up as me, and the other person is like, well, that isn’t what I am looking for, sorry. The first few times that happened, I did go to that place of what is wrong with me. My shame in not being chosen. I was told several times by really smart people, remember, “If someone doesn’t want you, or doesn’t choose you, that means you don’t want them either, because you want someone who wants you as you really are. You don’t want someone who chooses you because you will perform the way they want you to perform.”
It has been a challenge to not perform for people I like. It is really deeply engrained that I should do whatever I can to please others and make them happy, but I can’t do that at the cost of who I am. I also have to know who I am, right?
I decided who I wanted to be when I got my tattoo in 2017. The tattoo represents my life mantra, “Om mani padme hum hri.” Translated not precisely by the Dali Lama to mean “Generosity, Ethics, Patience, Perseverance, Concentration, Wisdom and Compassion.” These are words that I define as Love. If you ask me what is Love, I will tell you these ideas are the meaning of Love. The mantra is Tibetan and Buddhist in nature and follows the ideals of the 4 noble truths and 8 fold path of Buddhism, which is how I strive to live my life. Who I am is unconditional love. What that means is Om mani padme hum hri.
So, when interacting with people who I wish to choose me as a partner, this is how I choose to act, and it will be my true nature. I actually feel like if we try, we can all be our true nature of unconditional love. I am also realizing that is challenging in a capitalist society where greed and accumulation of wealth is the guiding goal in life. I do not seek wealth in terms of money. I seek it in terms of mental and physical well-being, and being and behaving in love will give me that, regardless of if that makes another person choose me.
What I have found so far is that my kindness and generosity are valued by others, but so far, they have not been determined as sexy or romantic. They are seen as “friend” material, not romantic partner material. That has me thinking about the idea of sexy, what people think is sexy, and how they choose sexy partners in life. I also am realizing why when we choose what is sexy as our partner, we often are not choosing someone who will make us feel happy or safe.
This article is long and so I am going to continue it into a second part in the next article, called “What is Sexy Anyway?”
Until then,
-Namaste