I don’t know why I didn’t just delete my online dating accounts the first time I swore to Never Date Again. I had been freshly dumped by a guy I had been casually seeing for a month, which wouldn’t have been so humiliating if the dumping did not happen via a harried SMS in the middle of a hectic work morning. Without any sort of warning that things were going awry, he texted me saying that he had fun hanging out, but seeing me again would probably be a bad idea because he has no commitment in him. You know, typical Boy-Gets-Too-Close-and-Panics explanations. Never mind that the only commitment I ever expected was the next date! Never mind that I didn’t dare say that my feelings were becoming more-than-casual because I sensed that would scare him off. Seeing me further was apparently a Bad Idea.
I managed to make it through the day without losing my shit, but my feelings could not be contained without work to distract me. The evening found me ugly crying over a glass of beer at my secret bar, my friend Tere sympathetically listening to my drunken ramblings while trying to make sure I don’t embarrass myself further. After two hours of wailing, “How could he think that I am a bad idea???” and failing to find the answer in my Pale Pilsen, I somehow managed to cheer up and insist that we go to McDonald’s for nuggets. By the end of the night, we were singing along to the radio in Adrian’s car.
It goes without saying that making a drunken spectacle of myself is pretty out of character for me, but everyone needs to purge their emotions in public at least once in their lives. It feels oddly liberating, and you get a shit ton of perspective afterwards. Like how this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever been rejected by a guy, and suddenly I felt like an asshole for always being the dumper in relationships. And how dumping someone through text is the worst thing you can to do a person, because there’s no reply to a Text Dumping that doesn’t sound defensive, pathetic, or passive-aggressive (in the end, I chose to say nothing and deleted all traces of him from my phone). And that a guy who makes you sad enough to ugly cry at a bar is not worth holding on to.
The bar of drunken, broken-hearted ramblings.
Little did I know that I’d have my last date here a month later.
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have jumped into the dating pool so soon after my last relationship. But after nearly a decade of serial monogamy, I didn’t know how to deal with being alone for the first time in years. Oh sure, I used my free time to explore new hobbies and reconnect with old friends. But every now and then I’d be in the mood to do coupley things with someone cute. I wasn’t after a relationship per se, but I wanted a casual arrangement where you like each other enough to hang out often, sans the boyfriend-girlfriend label and the serious things attached to it.
Seeing as my new job keeps me busy 12 hours a day, and dating friends-of-friends seemed incestuous, I used online dating to meet guys without ever leaving my ergonomic chair at work. And for a while, it was a brilliant solution. OK Cupid ended up being a favorite, not just because of its compatibility algorithm, but because the lengthy dating profiles became a convenient way to judge whether a guy is worth meeting in person. (It also made it easier for me to use my intelligence and taste to compensate for my looks.) Tinder, on the other hand, was perfect for one-off spontaneous dates, as most of its users are tourists or guys on business trips looking for someone to have dinner with.
Through the magic of WhatsApp and some internet stalking, I’d make sure that the guys I liked were not secretly insane before taking our conversation to the corporeal world. My verification process resulted in some really fun dates, though I never saw the same guy more than twice. With the exception of the squirrelly dude who would eventually dump me through text, my dates don’t live in the Philippines, because those are the kinds of guys I like apparently.
I enjoyed the ability to choose next week’s date with a flick of a thumb and some carefully-worded messages, and kept it up even as I started getting serious with Mr. Squirelly. I was starting to like him enough to want to spend ALL THE FREE TIME with him, but I needed to date other guys so that I don’t look like I’m getting attached. BRILLIANT LOGIC, I know. I did eventually realize that my serial dating was becoming borderline unhealthy, and that I was fine seeing the same guy until we tired of each other. Unfortunately, I didn’t think that he’d get tired of me first, and that he would dump me through text that Friday, and that I would make an idiot out of myself in a bar.
Christmas break happened a few days later, which of course was a perfect time for my ex-boyfriend to surprise me with an emotionally harrowing Facebook conversation about our failed relationship. Among other things, he was concerned about how I had been ugly crying at a bar over some guy, because I was stupid enough to write a drunken Facebook status about it, and our mutual friends were asking him what happened. (Thanks, mutual friends, for asking my ex-boyfriend how I’m doing instead of, you know, asking ME.) He then started talking to me about his hot new job and how he’s earning more money than I am. I’m sure that he didn’t mean anything by these unsolicited life updates, but in my emotionally volatile state, all I could hear him saying was, “If you only held on for a few months, you would still be blissfully relationshipped with me, The Most Perfect Guy in the Universe, rather than this sad mess who still sucks at adulthood and is probably developing alcoholism.” Merry Christmas to you too.
Drained, uncentered, and distrustful of people, I took down all my social media accounts, retreated to my parents’ house, and refused to emerge for Christmas parties. I hate everyone, I thought. I hate myself. December was a dark time, but it also gave me the chance to rethink my priorities and ask tough questions like, What am I doing? What makes me think I should be dating when I’m clearly horrible at relationships? If I’m going to be single for the rest of my life, what can I do to make myself the kind of person I’d be happy to be forever alone with? Etc. etc.
An amazing solo trip around Vietnam restored my faith in the universe and taught me to feel comfortable in my own company. I came back to Manila feeling refreshed, optimistic, and eager to start becoming a Better Human Being. “My only priorities are work, surfing, making new friends, and reconnecting with old friends,” I wrote in my notebook. “I am so done with dating.”
So why the hell was I on OK Cupid a few days later, rating guys with stars and striking up a conversation with one about my favorite foreign films? Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe I wanted to give dating one last shot? Maybe I really wasn’t as comfortable being single as I thought I was?
The following Monday, I came to work wearing heels and looking nicer than usual.
“I have a date tonight,” I finally admitted when my coworker Ange cornered me in the bathroom and asked about my outfit.
Not one to tiptoe around my feelings, she said, “Please don’t say you met this guy online.”
“Um. Yeah. He’s an OK Cupid date.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why do you do this to yourself?”
And for once I had no answer.
This photo was actually from a lunch out with coworkers.
I put it here to break up the wall of text and keep things interesting.
The date turned out to be an unexpected success. He was a lot cuter in person, with a disarming smile that made me feel oddly self-conscious every time it was directed at me. We were so absorbed in the getting-to-know-you conversation that an entire hour passed before realizing that we hadn’t ordered anything. After dinner, I thought of taking him to the secret bar for drinks, and it turns out he had the same plan in mind. This is the shit those stupid romantic comedies are made of, I thought as we ordered our drinks and proceeded to play a round of drunk Jenga. God, he’s really cute.
I normally keep a wide emotional distance on the first date, but there was something about this guy that made me like him instantly. We made plans for dinner the following Thursday, and like an idiot I found myself counting the days until I saw him again. At the same time, I also started getting very anxious. “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked myself. The last thing I needed was to hop back on the emotional roller coaster of Really Liking Someone, and I could already feel my stomach turning in anticipation of the drop.
Thursday morning came after a Wednesday spent working all night, and I put extra effort into my makeup to disguise my zombie face. I shouldn’t have bothered, really, because that afternoon I got a Facebook message from him canceling our date. “I’m really sorry to do this at the last minute,” he wrote, “but I’m really not ready to start dating right now.”
Normally I would have found that totally respectable. Part of me was actually quite relieved to get off the roller coaster and travel the flat, uncomplicated roads of Not Dating Anyone. Mostly though, I felt incredibly humiliated. Not only had my coworkers already guessed my evening plans based on my nicer-than-usual appearance, but I checked his OK Cupid account and it was active with a new profile picture, and OMG I can’t believe this is happening to me AGAIN.
That night, my coworkers took me to a boxing gym, and I found peace hitting a speed ball over and over and over. As we entered a Chickboy to consume the calories we just burned, I realized how much un-self-conscious fun I was having with my work friends despite being zombie-faced and sweat-stained, and how secure I felt knowing that none of them would ever surprise me with a text message saying, “I’m not ready to make new friends, sorry can’t hang out anymore.” It was stupid to spend so much effort trying to get these flaky OK Cupid assholes to like me, when there are people who already appreciate who I am. And until recently, I never made an effort to try to get to know anyone without having a hidden romantic agenda.
The first thing I did when I got home was delete my OK Cupid account.
I’ve been thinking really hard about why I made that last-ditch attempt at dating even though I knew that it was a dumb move. My sense of self is growing more solid by the day, and I was finding confidence in my small victories at work, so it wasn’t because I needed men for validation. Traveling alone in Vietnam cured me of the need for romantic companionship, so it wasn’t that either.
And assuming that one of these casual dates became serious, would I have really wanted to be in a relationship with that guy? I like the idea of being partnered up with someone. I like knowing there’s someone there for movies and food and spontaneous midnight bus rides to the beach. And I am capable of love – or at least, very intense feelings for someone. But feeling intensely for someone isn’t what makes you ready for a relationship; it’s about having the maturity to handle someone else’s intense feelings. And the truth is that when reality hits, and I need to see my partner through a crisis like unemployment or money issues, I get no less selfish and panicky than the guys who ditched me through digital means.
Realizing this made me want to be more present, accepting, and respectful of people’s emotions instead of running away when someone shows vulnerability. And it’s not because I want to be ready for a relationship. It’s what good friends do, and lately I’ve been too absorbed in the drama of my late twenties to be a good friend to anyone.
More than overcoming loneliness, I think I was dating to distract myself from things I don’t want to deal with. Dating was a convenient excuse to avoid the hard work required to create a healthy, independent self. Dating filled up the empty spaces in my calendar that could have been spent overcoming my shyness to make friends, reading the books in my Kindle, or writing to make sense of my personal life. None of these things come with the instant gratification of snagging an Internet date, but they’re exactly what I need to live the life I want. I owe it to myself to work towards that life.
