In June I was stood up by a guy multiple times (I was dumb enough, to give him more than one chance). And that hit me hard. It also happened to be just before my birthday (thanks jack-ass). So I decided it was time to let go of online dating, once again. To walk away for a while. I was getting increasingly bitter and guys were getting increasingly creeper. So I bowed out. I decided it was time to reconnect with myself. Go out into the world and meet people to really connect with (re: not date). Just experience life off-screen for a while. It's been two months.
Earlier this week I met a guy, a friend of a friend, while I was with my friend and her group of friends for trivia night. He talked to me like I was just a person, not some potential fuck-buddy. He showed interest in me as a person, not just my body as a toy. It was really enjoyable to have a conversation with him. And it really highlighted how warped my mind has become from OLD. It really cast a light on how much I missed and craved real conversation and genuine niceness. It showed me how much I distrust every single man who tries to make conversation with me through a dating app (whether appropriate or not) - that I suspect the motive of said person is to get inside my pants. And why wouldn't I distrust them? All you have to do is read previous entries and it sums up the whole of my online dating experience. Dick picks and inappropriate messages. Or twelve seconds getting to know me and then asking for full body pictures and wanting to sext. Why wouldn't my first thought be the suspicion that I am just a warm body to be objectified?
It's sad because I am sure that not all guys online are like that. My friend and her fiance met online. I know a couple people with good stories and real relationships who began online. But for whatever reason that has not been my experience and it is has really affected how I see the world (and myself).
I was talking to my therapist the other day about this and about my tendency to hate my own body. And she pointed out a very real and very valid truth. I objectify myself. And yes, it is true I can trace the beginning of me doing that back to high school; that's the foundation. In that way I fell victim to an objectifying society. But the self-hating statue that was built on that foundation can be directly linked back to online dating. Because I was treated as an object there. I became an object there. And despite knowing in myself that there are a lot of great qualities that make me a great person, I am still an object.
Online dating has changed in the last five years (I should know, having been in and out of this world for the last ten). It so much less about finding real connection right now and so much more about finding a hook up, that it's changed the industry. And it's a toxic place. Will I return? Probably one day if I don't find what I am looking for in the real world. But when I do return my goal is to know myself and love myself and not let one single dick pic or inappropriate message ever make me feel like I am nothing more but a disposable thing again. Because if I don't have that....then no amount of hope for romance and love is worth it - it's not worth hating myself. And its not worth seeing the world through a lens of distrust.
Time to go find myself.
-PJ
My online dating has been going in waves lately. For a few days I'll get a lot of messages and then nothing but crickets for a while. If I post a new picture, it'll attract some interest, but then things will die down....but its never normal interest you know? It's weird. Or gross. Always.
Exhibit A:
*Sigh* Yes, please just ignore my attempt at conversation so that you can highlight that you are naked. Let me guess....you want me to comment on your nakedness.
Exhibit B:
I do, in fact, have snapchat. I am not stupid enough to tell men that because all they want is photos of you. Usually naked. It took me very little time to realize this. So now I lie. Good thing too or some guy would be using my pictures to jerk off.....oh wait.
Exhibit C:
First of all....why would a woman lie about that? If a woman wants to draw attention to her chest size, she takes a selfie of her chest, she doesn't lie about being fat. Idiot.
Second...he asked me if I liked wrestlers and I said sure. Silly me, why didn't I realize right away wrestling was a euphemism for sex.
For Heaven's sake. Really?
I ask myself repeatedly what I did to deserve such bad dating karma....I don't know. Maybe I murdered a husband in a previous life. I am not sure why else I repeatedly get people who act like this straight out of the gate. This can't be normal. Not three messages in one 24 hour period. And of course, for those of you who know me or follow this, you know these kind of guys, these messages, are common for me. I must have gotten sucked into some dating hell vortex.
Where is the basic respect? Common decency? It can't be missing from the entirety of the male species? So why on Earth do I seem to only attract the ones who are like, "wanna sit on my face?" (yeah, that happened). Why do I keep getting the guys who make these comments ten seconds in? Or even a few conversations in. Why can I not get that respectful guy who just wants to take me out on a date and get to know me? I thought that is how dating is supposed to work.
If you sense a tone of frustration and anger in my writing instead of my usual witty sarcasm, you'd be right....because I am frustrated. I can't help but think that I am, in some way I am not aware of, attracting this type of crap. That this somehow falls on me (all joking of dating karma aside). Is it because I am overweight? These weird creepy guys have some fat fetish and this is how that plays out? Does something about my pictures scream, "hey, I really just want sex, that whole personality and dating thing doesn't matter." It's crazy how objectified I feel, considering as an overweight person, I usually feel invisible to guys (IRL). I know no one else who is having this kind of experience where it's just unrelenting messages that relating back to sex. I mean, I hear stories of other peoples' dating experiences and they aren't great....but they aren't this.
I don't even have a witty ending today. I'm just done.
-PJ
(@plainjanedating)