My Last Love Skipped Town and Took My Bones With Him
My last love skipped town and took my bones with him. Naturally, I would like to get those bones back, but I have a sinking feeling they are scattered. Or worse, they have been painted vibrant colors and made to look distinguishably not mine to be sold to a group of brunette men in Patagonia vests somewhere in San Francisco. I wouldn’t be angry about this if those bones didn’t have my magic in them. Or if I could grow a new set at a more rapid pace. I do have my teeth. But you already knew that, I wouldn’t be able to tell any story without them.
I tell myself stories. I say, “It’s fine, honey. It could be WAY worse. You could have to block this one on CashApp too! At least HE is not trying to find your new apartment from the return address on a pair of Beats by Dre you are selling online. At least HE had the decency to take those bones far far away so you wouldn’t have to see the men in vests walking around dragging your bones behind them.”
To be left alone with the pieces of my broken heart is what I asked for. But I didn’t really think that through, with only a storm cloud gut to mend them. I had hope that the wind under my lungs would swirl for long enough that the shrapnel would eventually form into something heart shaped. I recognize this was an ambitious experiment. But you knew I would be this brave, I still have my teeth.
Well, the gut wind swirled for some years and some change. Without further ado I will tell you the result of this grand experiment: I am left with an organ that is silly putty shaped, if that’s even possible. It’s the best I could do, so we (my 20 lb terrier, Biggy, and I) march on.
The truth is, I believe I deserve epic, unconditional, more-magic-than-yours kind of love. The truer truth is, I have never had that and therefore have to shatter the illusion that I know how to get it. Or that it can even be gotten at all.
It hit me when I was watching Notting Hill last night and Julia Roberts walked into Hugh Grant’s travel book shop at random to … I don’t know… browse. Hugh Grant sees her and is “bewitched, body and soul” Mr. Darcy style and cannot un-fixate from this randomly perfect looking woman who randomly walked into, of all the bookshops in London, his own. This woman, Julia, was indifferent toward him at best. And so begins the unfolding of fate. Where the boy loves the girl desperately, despite her doing anything to warrant such devotion. He chases her until they laugh their heads off at their own wedding at the end. As God intended.
It’s simple. I would like to wear a beret into a travel book shop in London and have a Hugh Grant looking man follow me around for the months thereafter. I want to have a person to love noodles with, dance in the kitchen with, and laugh my head off at my wedding with. Which is WHY I refused for so long to download Hinge and swipe left (or right or whatever) on the slew of indifferent men in LA that gave into Hinge for their own reasons. It is the least romantic, most reductive version of my story that I can possibly dream of. The antithesis of Notting Hill. (And I know your cousin found her husband on Tinder. I have heard of this. But your cousin is decidedly not Julia Roberts and I decidedly am.)
The paragraph above is an ugly version of me that I would like you to forget. I clearly still have a lot to work through. What I do know about the fit I threw in the above paragraph is three things. (1) I desire partnership (+ kissing). (2) I am way too prideful (or perhaps too soft) to seek this out. (3) I am coming out of a worldwide pandemic that has made 1 and 2 far more complicated than I could have ever imagined. The thing is, my silly putty heart has been bouncing around my chest long enough now for me to know what it’s ill suited for, i.e. modern dating. I have been inside my own funky little head long enough that I am embarrassingly unable to even imagine what it would be like to be in a different one. One where Hinge wasn’t too harsh a ritual to handle. I think, and you can correct me if I am wrong, but there are people out there who don’t feel sticky and squished and stretched too thin by the practice of online dating. And to those soldiers of love I say “hoo ha!” or whatever. I think I’ll stay over here.
I do not remember the name of my very first Hinge date. I remember thinking he was handsome and enjoying the mystery of who he might turn out to be. I remember that I couldn't tell what kind of man he was, which I naively took to be an exciting trait and eagerly agreed to meeting him on his side of town. (In Los Angeles that is a very generous, TOO generous, move). Halfway through our underwhelming sharing of drinks, this unnamed man looked at me and said, “You know, you are a lot different than I expected you would be.”
“How so?”
“I just thought you would be more interesting…”
When I Google if it’s possible for silly putty to dry out, Google tells me there are actually two ways. (1) You can bake it. Or (2) you just leave it sitting out for years. YEARS. To leave something out to face the elements for years seems like a ridiculous level of neglect. And yet…
I can no longer be a participant in online dating.
It seems that my pride and my softness are fraternal twins-- born of the same moments. They have interwoven into my new marrow with a tightness that cannot be undone. Both of them have 2011 crossfit level strength that prohibit me from withstanding the harshness of Hinge dating in the city. Both also refuse to let me give up. I’ve been on enough online dates that I lost count. My friends say it’s a “numbers game” and the phrase makes me nauseous. I want off the ride altogether. Rides like these make my teeth chatter and it’s no longer worth the risk. Since I continue to only have the illusion of control over one person (me), I must figure out a way to She-Hulk my way through the bullshit and arrive at peace somehow. My language here is a clear indication that I am pretty lost on how to do so, though something about the tone of my previous life lessons leads me to believe I will not be rescued by the delirious love of my “Hugh Grant”, nor is that the solution. Much to my chagrin, real life rolls out so many more ellipses than periods, and I will need to build a little home inside the longing.
So, I guess here we are, at the dawn of my next grand experiment. I always arrive at these “dawns” on full accident and as a last resort. For my next trick, I will attempt to find romance without my phone, perhaps even without a love. I head out to find the third option beyond “to be or not to be '' and I pray I arrive with my teeth still intact.
