She writes about queer people going through a second adolescence once they come out and how our teenage years are overwritten by shame and confusion when everyone else is preoccupied by sex and relationships and our version of that is either secretive or non-existent; so when we finally do come out we have to navigate a much more convoluted type of relationship building where reciprocated love is something that's rare.
At the beginning of March I deleted all my dating apps after having one too many brushes with potential happiness only for it to be torn apart in a matter of seconds. If you’ve read any of my other blogs you might know just how rare it is for me to have a good first date with someone (I’d estimate every 1 in 15 dates fall between ‘good’ and ‘decent’) so when I do find a keeper I can’t help but stretch the word ‘keeper’ to its absolute limits. Anyway, I’d been on a few dates with someone who seemed too good be true, and it turns out he was. As I hung up the phone to him with tears wetting my cheeks I said to myself, ‘enough’. I needed a break from getting my hopes up and allowing myself to be vulnerable if I was to ever give dating another chance in the future. As luck would have it, we went into lockdown shortly after which meant I didn’t miss out on anything anyway.
Last week I decided it was time to download one or two apps again, to talk to different human beings if nothing else. I was immediately faced with the usual shit that we just accept as normal like an 82-year-old man asking if I’d meet him along with a bombardment of unsolicited nudes in various graphic shapes and sizes. Given the state of people on these apps, it’s once again unsurprising that when you do end up talking to someone relatively normal you can’t help but open up to the idea of at least having a good date with them (or if you’re me, imagine our lives together married with children before I’ve even heard the sound of his voice).
The other night I received a message at 11:30 as I was about to fall asleep. The guy ticked a few boxes and was even Jewish which is not on my checklist but I thought it couldn’t do any harm (if I got an unwanted nude it would at least be circumcised) so I responded and the conversation started. We spoke for two hours taking us until 1:30 in the morning which, as someone who favours sleep over almost everything else in the world, is uncharacteristic behaviour on my end. The conversation was interesting, entertaining and funny and that’s not just because I’m a hilarious delight to talk to. ‘You seem very confident, are you tall and from Stanmore?’ was one of my favourite things I asked him. He was tall and from Hampstead which is close enough. We spoke about what we’d been up to during lockdown, our jobs, how to deal with old men sending us graphic messages. We even discussed a potential socially distanced date in the park and the benefits of there being no awkward ‘do I end in a hug or a kiss’ moments at the end (thanks corona). We wished each other a good night, I put my phone away and fell asleep with a smile on my face.
I woke up in the morning and checked to see if my potential future husband had sent any more messages through the night but as I scrolled through the app I saw that his profile was totally blank. All of his pictures had gone, all of his information was no longer there. You can sometimes expect that someone who is maybe still in the closet will make themselves a profile at night and delete it in the morning out of fear and shame but judging from our conversation the night before, this guy was definitely out to his family and friends so I couldn’t think of a reason why he’d want to delete his profile as I slept.
I sat and stared at the blank profile for a while. The story of our first conversation I was going to share with my housemates was gone as quickly as the pictures on his profile. I was faced with a very familiar feeling, the one that was so crushing that it made me delete all my apps months before. Whatever his reasons were, I was looking at a blank profile wondering if it was something I said or did and it’s hard not to take that personally.
I’ve sat on my bed and cried to my housemates when I'd finally had a decent time over a few dates with someone only for them to end it abruptly. Is it the shame embedded into so many queer people that when dating gets too real they end it, or is it not that deep and they just get bored of me? I’d forgotten just how much of a toll modern dating puts on my mental health until this week.
I think life for young people of any sexual orientation is overwhelming, especially living in a big city like London. We’re constantly barraged with loud noises and flashing lights; not to mention the friends living their best lives on Instagram, getting promotions and getting married whilst the rest of us get touched up on the tube on the way to the gym before trying to fit in a quick date before the clock strikes midnight so that we can get up early to go for a run and work a day in the office to pay the rent and buy some gin for the weekend to go out and build up the confidence to find someone to spend the night with. Now I’m not complaining, well I am complaining but I also chose to live in London because I love it and I have a great time a lot of the time. But modern life can be hard, it’s much harder to get a job than it was for our parents, don’t even talk to me about how our parents were able to buy a house in their twenties; for most of us living in London it simply isn’t going to happen and adjusting to that reality is difficult.
So sometimes you need a break. A social media detox, an alcohol detox. For me it’s a dating app detox. I’ll often take short breaks just to reboot myself and take a breath before going back into the mental health warzones of Hinge and Grindr. Despite what some may say, it’s important to acknowledge that the way we’re living can be difficult. We’re not snowflakes just because we’re not deep in trenches fighting wars. The world has changed enormously and young people are the ones who are impacted the most by it.
I keep going back to that one paragraph in a random review of a Lorde album that I stumbled upon completely by chance and how it explains my feelings and the way I act so perfectly. Every word applies to me from teen shame, to still being in the closet during uni and wondering if you’ll ever find reciprocated love again (I’ll take ‘strong like’ or even ‘I don’t mind spending time with you’ at this point). One thing I took from the paragraph that isn’t explicitly said is the longing or perhaps neediness for existing relationships to be closer, or new relationships to form faster. I fall hard and fast for new people, I discovered that when I went travelling and have not been able to change it since nor do I think I ever will. But I also have this need to make sure my existing relationships are strong and close. To be even closer to my dad, my sisters, my work friends. Not to sound like that girl who doesn’t even go here but I wish I could bake a cake made out of rainbows and smiles and we’d all eat it and be happy*. I wish I was closer with everyone in my life and I wish that everyone else felt the same as me so I didn’t feel so needy all the time.
For me it comes from living for more than 10 years with a secret. A side to me that no one knew. When people said they liked or loved me, they only liked or loved the part that they knew which stopped me from ever truly becoming close with people; including my own family. I’d make friends at various stages of my life but there would always be a voice that told me that if they knew all of me then they would leave. Since coming out I’ve felt the incredibly liberating feeling of letting those barriers fall, having honest conversations with friends and family that has absolutely brought us closer together. But sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough, maybe I’m trying to overcorrect or maybe I am just annoying and needy and expect people to spend more time focussing on me me me than their own lives, boyfriends and husbands.
This then takes me back to the cycle of dating apps and my constant need to fill up my schedule with dance classes, theatre trips and dates that take daggers to the self-esteem I’ve worked so hard at picking up off the floor after a decade of dust and dirt piled on top of it. I keep telling myself that I’m a whole person on my own and as Tony Hale once said, ‘if you’re not practicing being content with what you have now, you won’t be content when you get what you want’. But again, AnOtHeR CaN oF wOrMs.
It's the balance between having some sort of guard up when new relationships form but also allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough to make meaningful connections. The process of forming relationships and connections was shaky for me from the start so it's no wonder that my idea of what closeness looks like is warped. The wall I made didn't just come down for those existing relationships it came down completely in a way that does make me vulnerable to waste-of-time boys on the apps. After my disaster in early March I told myself to become more guarded, to take things slower or at least keep my feelings to myself so I don't keep getting hurt again and again. But am I ready to sacrifice being vulnerable and the potential of a normal relationship in order to spare my feelings and mental health? Probably not.
Truthfully, (and thank you for sticking it out and reaching the end) I’m on furlough, I’m in my feelings and writing this makes me feel like I’ve actually done something productive with my time so it works as a sort of quick fix therapy; a plaster on leaky dam (except instead of actually going to some sort of therapy I’ll write down my private most inner thoughts that I’d never say in ‘real life’ and share them with my 100 ‘close friends’ on facebook… millennials!)
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