I am the worst date.
I will scrutinize, analyze and dissect you, in order to find any and every flaw, regardless of how insignificant. I guarantee that, by the end of the night, your minor imperfections will have turned into significant deal-breakers for me. If you’re a fantastic catch, well, that’s when I do my best work: I dig extra hard and search for something – anything – that, ultimately, will convince me you’re just not the right one for me. And once I find something, I can exhale and say, “Phew, disaster (relationship) averted.”
Trust me, you don’t want to go out with me because, honestly, I don’t want to be out with you in the first place.
I carry guilt and frustration for feeling as I do. Not only do I waste my own time and someone else’s, but I am insightful – and, believe it or not, compassionate – enough to know it’s extremely unfair to every date I have. It would be simpler if I call it a day before the date has even begun.
It’s appalling to acknowledge this, but I have become that woman: that stereotypical, mid-40s, divorced commitment-phobe. I’m terrified to change the comfortable life I’ve made for myself, to give up the ease and predictability of my world. This is disconcerting to me, and something I never would have foreseen or welcomed.
Humans are expected to couple up. Of course, I crave companionship, social interaction and the company of a quality man. As a well-meaning but misguided friend told me, “It’s not normal to be without a partner.” But my take is a little different than that: What doesn’t feel normal to me is being a 46-year-old mom out in the dating world. Perusing online profiles. Giving my friends post-date reports like I did back in college.
Shouldn’t I be settled in with my family, rather than getting dressed up to meet a potential suitor? How normal is it, really, to be texting someone I don’t even know? I already know the answer: It is what it is (coincidentally, that awful phrase happens to be another one of my unreasonable deal-breakers when it’s spoken by a date). I know this is the path my life has taken and, familiar to me or not, I need to follow the path presented, rather than resist. I’m the anti-Trump: The big wall must come down.
Having been divorced for 12 years, I have become accustomed to my life being just mine; I call the shots and make every scheduling/purchasing/financial decision. My priorities are my daughters, and I would never want any obligation to a boyfriend to get in the way of their lives. So I have resigned myself to not have a relationship, period. It’s the uncomplicated, and, perhaps, guarded way out. Having no relationship is an easy way to live, but it lacks fulfillment that a healthy connection can bring. I know that. And that’s the internal struggle for me – I want it both ways.
I am active socially with a wonderful group of friends, and, without a doubt, my life is enhanced by them. One of my daughters is away at college and the other one will be there in two years. My nest will be empty then, so I hope at that time my position on commitment may change.
Or maybe it’s going to happen sooner than I think. Over the past few months, my confused, anti-dating stance has already begun to make a subtle, yet identifiable, shift. I see my empty nest inching closer every day; that combined with a potential connection with a recent acquaintance have me looking at dating from a slightly more optimistic angle. I’m interested in dipping one toe in the water – it now feels lightly chilled, as opposed to icy.
In two weeks, an intriguing, terrific man is flying in from out of state to go out to dinner with me. We have been communicating and, although my actions are still measured and the knot of nerves in my stomach is still there, I am experiencing a good feeling I haven’t felt for a while: It’s a positive sense that I need to meet him. There is something about our interaction that is telling me to give it an honest, open-minded chance, and I’m taking pause as I haven’t done in years. This time I know I feel differently because, simply, I want to like him. Ordinarily, that isn’t the case at all.
I know people don’t change overnight, and I’m no exception. I can choose to never let it happen and stay within my comfort zone, or I can take a risk and possibly discover that it “isn’t what it is,” but rather, it is what we make it.
There is hope for me yet.
