From: [redacted]
Date: September 23, 2009 8:44:12 PM EDT
To: julia@nonsociety.com
Subject: thank you
hey—-
I just wanted to say thank you for your video tonight. i like you best when you’re brutally honest and i am sure it’s hard to be that honest and open with the internets, cause of all the weirdos and haters out there. you should take lilly for a walk, go to a museum, or just take a little break from thinking about it. loneliness can slam into you from nowhere and it’s hard, but i think accepting it is the first step towards moving forward and finding someone to spend time and “settle down” with… i hope you find what you’re looking for, really i do.
best of luck, thanks for sharing,
I like me best when I’m brutally honest, too, but I haven’t felt like I could be that way for a long, long time. In fact, I’ve felt so attacked for so long that the ABSOLUTE LAST thing I’ve wanted to do is be honest - brutal or otherwise.
Point being: I can’t tell you how embarrassed I was to admit my recent development of, err … um … wanting a boyfriend. God, just typing that I feel like a loser. I’ve always gotten the impression that it’s not socially acceptable to desire such a thing in New York. A penthouse? Absolutely. A six-figure banking job? Definitely. Your own precious literary magazine? Yep. But a steady relationship? Nonononono DO NOT ADMIT WANTING ONE OF THOSE. That’s a WEAKNESS, and New York does not tolerate weakness. Weak people in New York get eaten, spit out, and then move to Jersey. (That’s just my perspective, of course.)
In any case, I’m all too aware how much ammo this admission must give my detractors, but I just can’t worry about it. They’ve been saying I’ve desperately wanted a boyfriend for years now, and I can tell you - as can Meghan or Mary, or anyone who’s known me during that time - that just isn’t the case.
Actually, one of the reasons I was so hesitant to say this at all is because I don’t want it to take away from my pet cause: advocating being happy as a single woman. I see far, far too many young ladies get caught up in the cycle of “If I only had a significant other I’d be happy,” and it just devastates me. I cannot tell you how important the last three years of being single have meant to me as a person - they’ve taught me who I am, and excuse the corniness, but there’s no greater lesson. You can’t buy that shit at Hallmark!
I also hesitated to say anything because I didn’t want anyone to think my new … uh … desire had anything to do with a specific guy. It doesn’t. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing (I think it’s probably a good thing, right?), but it’s the truth and I wouldn’t want anyone to think otherwise.
It’s especially hard to admit something like this because I know that guys I might want to date (and now, I guess, would consider committing to) could read this. And that would be awkward, right? (Although that may be a distinctly New York paranoia - that One Must Not Let Him Know You’re Interested In Love and Commitment!! Dear god, tell him you have a raging drug addiction before you tell him you want a monogamous relationship. ANYTHING BUT THAT!)
But I suppose I have to give myself the advice I’ve heard so many times from wise women over the last few years: with the right fellow, it won’t matter.
And frankly, I’m ready to step away from that mentality. I’m tired of the “Less is More” New York mindset on commitment. Lately I’ve listened to myself talk to guys, guys I’ve wanted to date seriously, verbally high-fiving them for dating around, for playing the field, for not being “emotionally available.” I used to say those things because I truly felt them. “Yeah, me neither!” I’d crow. “No relationship for me!” I’d add smugly. “Ugh, who wants to be TIED DOWN anyway?” I’d roll my eyes at the inanity of coupledom.
It’s a bad habit, this. And I’ve become disgusted with myself. Was I just saying that crap because I thought that’s what men wanted to hear? I’m sure that was part of it. The other was just sheer force of repetition: I said it because I’d always said it! I was on Dating Auto-Pilot and I needed to change course.
I’ve been so genuinely happy being single for so long that, frankly, it feels strange not to be. Does that make any sense? In fact, I shifted so quickly, and so dramatically, that at first I thought it was a phase.
It happened the first evening I was with my old college boyfriend, James, in LA. I remembered what it was like to have someone love you, and I just thought: “Yep, I’m done.” It wasn’t about him, actually - at all. I didn’t want to “get back together with him” (although don’t get me wrong, he’s great). It wasn’t about any guy. It was just me noticing, in a very obvious way, that I’d finished with a crucial stage in my life - finding out who I was, sans significant other - and was ready for the next stage - having someone to hold my hand, metaphorically and literally. I wanted a partner.
So. That’s where I am right now.
And the strangest thing has happened over the course of me writing this mini-essay … I actually feel better than I have in a week. Odd, isn’t it? Just being honest about something that you were ashamed to admit can be an incredible relief.
Perhaps even more so than getting what you ostensibly want …
