Love-ectomy

This is the dawning of personal belonging...

This is the eve of “I don’t believe”

This is me; I love myself

Yeah, fuck everyone else

I don’t need nobody’s help

‘Cause this is Love 2012

--3Oh!3, "Love 2012"

I think I'm done. Dating for now, that is.

In hindsight, this date and this date affected me more than I'm willing to admit. The Dating Man has me down. I'm disheartened. I'm jaded. I find myself approaching new matches and new dates from a place of fear instead of a place of hope. When someone initiates contact with me, I squirm, close one eye at the screen and peer through my fingers as I wait for the picture to load. Please let him not have a facial tattoo/man purse/front butt. Please let him not be creepy/live in his big rig.

My heart has become fickle. My missile-seeking baggage radar is on alert. My guard is up.

The last guy I was communicating with initiated a phone call instead of just meeting. I've since learned to just sit in silence and let guy do all the talking and, in the process, disclose his baggage. He told me he moved from Florida "to get away from a bad situation." Mmm hmm. Without prodding, he told me his lung spontaneously collapsed because he smoked too much weed and cigarettes. (The cigarettes were easy to give up; the weed was not.)

I remained silent on the other end of the line. "Oh! Uh huh."

After his 3-week hospital stay, he then gained 30 pounds (from not smoking pot) and not exercising (because of the self-inflicted lung problem) and I'm hearing all of this on the phone before I even meet the kid.

And look, I know my past isn't a basket of glittery kittens, but at least I know to ease into the ugly. If someone says, "Tell me about your past relationships," I'll respond with "I've had past relationships, but I'm here with you now." What I won't say is I lived with an alcoholic who pawned my shit, took a shit in my car and treated me like shit when he was drunk, which was all the time. When I was in therapy, my therapist told me there is such a thing as being too honest. Ease them into that kind of ugly. I never spoke a word of it to Valdosta.

If this blog were a movie, the scene would look like this: I'd be standing by a large round table, still as stone. Hands shoved in my jeans' pocket; pink Converse shoe rolled to the outside of my stance. Behind me people would be passing me in fast-forward speed. Everyone is bustling and I'm stuck.

I'm surrounded by people, yet I'm lonely. I see Jenna and Schmoozer each up to three times a week. I've received a very concerned e-mail from Government Mule that's gone unanswered. It's like the more people I'm around, the more amplified the loneliness becomes.

The only thing I can think of to rectify the situation is to perform an -ectomy on what's causing my unhappiness. And that's dating. Getting dressed up and feeling hopeful and putting myself out there time and time again is, in fact, not bringing me closer to love. It's depleting my resources. It's depleting my tolerance, my spirit and the things about me that I love.

So the thing I've decided to do is to perform a love-ectomy and instead love me. If you thought this blog was naval-gazing drivel before, you just wait. It's about to get uncomfortable up in here.