The Renaissance Year

I have a topic to write, something I've been pondering a while.

       This year I have declared as my "Personal Renaissance." After a break-up in February I vowed to be single for the rest of the year. I have been a serial dater since boys started noticing me. Now at the age of 23 I have really come out of my awkward and angst filled teenage years, I am independent, I have a career, I view myself differently, I see myself as a woman. For the first time in my life men were coming up to me at the gym, carrying my laundry, and chasing me down in parking lots to ask me for my number. I never know how to react. My first instinct is always "Me?". Sometimes they are pleasant and sometimes they are awful, either way the attention was strange but it gave me a little confidence. At the same time I also started exercising, eating strict and well, and also kicking ass at my new job; I felt amazing, and everyone else could see it too.

    Naturally I began dating, a few I met randomly as strangers, some were old friends. Some were just a few dates and others took a little more meaning. I enjoyed the simplicity of not being attached, all in good fun, no expectations.

Guy #1: He is a travelin' music man I have know since I was 14, I have always been totally in love with him, he is one of my best friends. Every couple months he strolls through town and we have brief but wonderful dates of hand holding and familiar high school kisses. We never talk about what our relationship is or what it will or won't be, it's just there. We keep each other updated and talk on the phone every so often.

Guy #2: I met this guy at the gym, he had been trying to get my number for months when I started going there but I thought it was some kind of a cruel joke because he was this handsome built black man with the most charming and persuasive face I've ever known. We started hanging out, watching movies together, spending the night, working out together. He had a girlfriend that lived in Southern California, I knew it was casual between us, but his girlfriend had no clue that he was with other women. She would call or facetime and I would have to hide or be quiet, it totally creeped me out and at point I decided I was not into it anymore. We actually became really good friends, we still worked out together and gave each other advice. I still call him with guy dilemmas from time to time. 

Guy #3: This boy I met at work. He was 2 years younger than me but I could've guessed 4. I always had a thing for him so we got wasted, obviously, and slept together one night. We never text during the day or call to see how the day went, we only drank together and spent the night. Always at the same place, always the same situation. I don't know if he needed drunk courage to make a  move or just really wasn't into me that much. I will never know. We never once talked about the grey area we drunkenly floated in a couple times a month. I relocated for a job and we haven't really spoken since. 

Guy #4: This guy was my neighbor in my home town, we had known each other since high school and made-out behind some trees back then. We came back in contact when I moved back to the west coast from Upstate New York and had a few really amazing dates. I took a few days off of work to drive out for his birthday in San Francisco and I saw him a few times after that. He talked about coming to visit me and text pretty often until one day it stopped. I came into the city to play my first show with a ukulele, invited him and he never came, not even a "hey sorry, couldn't make it out" text, just nothing. My mom embarrasses me by hanging out with his mom in town and talking about our brief affair, but neither of them knew it ended so fucked up. Beyond all the adult fun we were having, I thought we were more on the friends side of things. How could you do that to someone you've known so long?  I guess I didn't know him as well as I thought I did. 

Guy #5: This guy I dated for a couple months when I first came back to California. When he found out I was coming back he immediately started the fury of daily on-going text conversations and it kept going like that for a while. I spent every weekend I could with him but the distance was too much. (Plus I had the hots for someone at work who I ended up being in a relationship with). We started seeing each other again at the end of spring and  it was going well again, we had to talk about the awkwardness that was left when I broke it off the year prior and we didn't talk. We both aired it all out over enough beer and weed to think everything was cool. After spending the weekend with him and coming home to Yosemite I didn't hear from him for a while. I finally sent a 'do-or-die' message. What exactly is going on between us?  and immediately his response was completely blown out of proportion, 'I don't want a girlfriend,' was his main point.

Guy #6: He is the last person on earth I should have brought into this complicated web. We were on-again off-again all summer. I asked him repeatedly to tell me if he was seeing other people and he always said "no." He allowed me to be open about the other men I was seeing, that's why I felt it extremely weird that he lied to me first hand before then spilling the truth like verbal diarrhea all over my perfect situation. That had to be called off and we are still good friends, I beat the truth out of him less often now.

Guy #7: I met him at my new job in the mountains, he is 7 years older than me but we have a lot in common and we cook a lot together. We have been seeing each other for 3 months or so, I've had dinner with his family a few times and we go out in public, so he likes me a little bit, I think. Finally the conversation had to come up about what we think of relationships and his response was literally "weary" and vague. "I like what we have going," means nothing. This brings in my pet peeve about telling the 'half-truth.' If you don't want a relationship at all because they are complicated, dramatic, or annoying, say it. Don't fall back on "I don't know" because you don't have the guts to say what you really mean, to protect what you think is me, but is really you. I went a long with it and that's where its been for weeks now. I've heard from other sources that he is a "commitment-phobe," which is common among people these days. 

This is where I make my point.

Hypothetically, if I had feelings for Guy #7 I would want to know if he was sleeping with other people. Not only to protect my emotional well being but also my sexual health. I don't think exclusivity is a bad thing to want to clarify. I have noticed a stigmata about women who ask for commitment or clarity from their sexual partners, often they are called "crazy" or "clingy," and left with unanswered texts and phone calls, just nothing. I'll never bring the subject up with him again because I am terrified he will contract one of those awful words and tell me that its "getting too serious" or maybe one day there will just be nothing. No text, no calls, just nothing. 

I am imaging my great grandparents and how they met at 19 and were married for decades. Was there such a thing as widespread "commitment phobia" back then? I at least hope my grandpa would have left a note or returned the message to tell the other girl he was in love with my grandma. Now it is so easy to simply ignore a text and it all goes away. You can end a relationship by never responding and it all goes away.  It is easier for people to not show up, cheat on their girlfriends, and float by without empathy. Men and women both take advantage of this, co-workers and roommates do this, I HAVE DONE THIS. It's easier but totally inconsiderate and low.

Maybe I am old fashioned and expect love to smash into me one day like it was as clear as a sunrise, but I do feel like the "dating" world has become unnecessarily complicated. Now when people are confronted in the real world, not through mobile face lighting devices, with real serious questions they have a tough time making eye contact, and telling the WHOLE TRUTH. I like to consider myself a highly rational and reasonable person, and any insightful one would know that telling the truth will set you free. 

Think rationally before you label a woman as "crazy" or "clingy," she may just want to know how to protect herself from someone who may not want to be monogamous, which can be agreeable in some cases. Don't let our generation be as selfish and thoughtless as the oldies think we are. 

    "Say what you mean and mean what you say because the people that matter don't mind and the people that mind don't matter."