On being single

Crying in a bath tub thinking about biological babies :: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON DECEMBER 13th 2022

I did the very terrifying but completely clarifying exercise of counting how often I have been single in the past 10 years recently.

And the answer was a year and a half in total.

To me, single means like single single. No romantic or sexual connections with anyone. This means you’re not partnered, you’re not dating exclusively with someone as a girlfriend/ boyfriend, you’re not on dating apps getting to know people non exclusively, and you’re not casually sleeping with anyone.

I spent a year fully single from spring 2014 to spring 2015 and then I was in back to back relationships, or looking for the one in between longer relationships ever since.

For about 3 months this fall, I had the dating app hinge on my cellular telephone and I got to know a few lovely people. At the end of all of it, I broke it off with everyone I was dating because I realized that I was not emotionally available.

I hate when people do this to me, so I try to not do it to other people - when you’re emotionally unavailable, whoever you’re with, starts to feel like they’re asking for too much when they are just asking for super reasonable things. I would rather be honest and be alone than contribute to making someone feel like they are too much. That is hard to unwind after you’ve been treated like that a while.

And all I have done for about a month is watch the crown on Netflix.

It feels unnatural for me to not have a part of my daily life be dedicated to a girlfriend. Or a partner. Or into effort around dating and getting to know people to see if they are a match for me and I am a match for them.

I feel… so liberated. And also… like I am doing something very wrong.

A big part of my coming out was about letting go of the dream - you know - the heteronormative dream of a husband and 2 and a half kids and a white picket fence. Not running the marathon I didn’t really want to run.

But if I am being really honest, as much as I have grieved not having the heteronormative dream, I still long for partnership and a family so very badly. And so it has felt so bad to not be on the lookout and putting active effort into creating partnership since it is such a high priority of mine.

I cried when I was dating a trans woman this fall and she told me she had frozen her sperm before she did her bottom surgery. I was hella surprised by my reaction - like I was in no way committed to this person other than getting to know each other - and I CRIED IN MY BATH TUB BECAUSE MAYBE I COULD CARRY HER BIOLOGICAL BABY ONE DAY?

I was like, what the fuck is going on with me?

But, also, how tender. This part of me that so badly wants partnership and family who has worked and tried so hard to make it work so many times. Who has truly been knocked down and got up again. It’s beautiful really - this part of me that hasn’t given up on love. Who tries again even when she gets hurt.

I remember my friend Dominique in 2019 telling me maybe my nervous system needed a break from dating after a series of unfortunate events and I recall thinking that was really smart of her to point out. It felt very true to speak to how difficult it is for the nervous system to date, to get to know people, to have breakups and to get back out there.

That advice, or observation, at the time wasn’t right for my context - I was still very much exploring who and what I was into in terms of sex and love and dating. And stopping, or taking a break then, would have been delaying a lot of growth for me.

I am proud of the way I have fully lived and explored who I am.

However, this fall, I realized how much romantic and sexual relationships were contributing to my autistic burn out. The amount of sudden or frequent change dating had been requiring me to adapt to in the recent years had revealed itself as really problematic for my recovery at this time.

So I was faced with some questions.

Who am I if I am not in pursuit of the goal of finding “my person”? (someone who learns everything about the British monarchy so far.)

Can a dream be manifested through other means than effort and hard work? (curiosity about like… what if I just meet someone organically? and it clicks? when the time is right? instead of ruthlessly LOOKING FOR THE ONE!!)

Is it okay to not be of service to another person? Also other Qs in this vein such as: is it selfish to be single? can I tolerate feeling selfish about that? is it okay to admit out loud that I don’t want to take care of someone else right now and that it feels like relief not having to? should I not admit that it feels like a relief?

Am I going to survive watching my friends get married and have babies and not feel resentful that I go home alone?

Is this giving up?

Am I allowed to give up?

If I give up now, can I come back to the goal later, if I still want it?

The truth is, people have always asked me about my writing before they ask me about who I am dating. If I am in my hometown, and someone bumps into me, they always ask me what I am writing about, never who I am dating. I love that I have a strong sense of self like that. My main identity is so tied into my work and my writing that in a lot of ways, I barely even noticed the level of devotion I poured into several different relationships in the past 10 years, which I think is also why it comes (somewhat) as a surprise to me that I am so disappointed, angry, and sad none of them worked out. Or that it’s a surprise to me that I am crying in my bath tub when the woman I am dating says we could have biological children one day.

It’s like I hid the intensity of my desire even from myself to protect myself, and it surprises me when I am no longer hiding it from myself. I am like… this matters… to me?

And then the scary - and completely exciting bit - of it all which is that I don’t have anything else to give right now. I need to rest. Maybe my goals or my dreams don’t need to be reached right now. Maybe there is still a lot of time left in life for more dreams to come true and it’s not a big deal if they aren’t here right now. I like that I can go to bed without alerting anyone that I am going to sleep or going about my day without managing the needs of another person with mine so intimately. and that both feels so unlike me and so true to me at the same time.

I kind of really like… being single. And I never thought I’d say that and actually mean it.