Aye Aye Captain

 My daughter and I had a conversation yesterday that paralleled a train of thought I had been having about personal identity and how it relates to activities, events, and plans. And how really unhealthy I have been sometimes about it.

I have been dating.  And as is required during the first few dates, there are the required interview questions.  Where do you work? What college did you go to?  Tell me about your favorite vacation? All good enough questions to help paint the landscape.  But the answers were sometimes awkward in my head because of the pronouns I assigned.

See, if I talked about graduation, or jobs, that was pretty easy most of the time. *I* went to college in Sacramento. *I* have worked for the government for the last 16 years. *I* write a blog that let's my innermost thoughts be critiqued by the random public. *I* have a pretty fucked up sense of self that is wrapped around approval and permission from others. But when I talk about events, or travels, or activities, it always defaulted to *we*.

It is as if I had not gone to the White House.  That was a We Went.  I must not have gone on the ferry to Alcatraz, because WE went on the boat together. I couldn't have seen a Broadway play because WE sat next to each other.  We rode the cable car. We saw the band.  We sat in the box seats. We saw the world's largest knitting needles. We ate the fresh baked french bread. We. We. We.  As if I had no memory of doing them myself without that identifier.  Fuck, really?  This was MY story wasn't it?  The person I was telling the story would only get the details I wanted, and yet, here I was still giving credit to my journey to a couplehood that no longer existed, and that I was specifically trying to have not be part of my moving forward love life.

Turns out, my daughter does this, too.  And she and I together thought it was both funny and sad that we did this for not just major events like vacations, but for everyday things as well, like taking public transportation or grocery shopping.  Were we really so involved in our significant others that we had legit lost ourselves into the identity being as a couple? Apparently, yes. The partners in our lives (or formerly in our lives) had no problems with the word *I*, even if it was a couple event. They could easily say "I went to a really great steak place", or "I bought some really great fresh blueberries", even if both events only happened because either she or I were that responsible party.

She and I decided this was pathetic, and something women do more than men, and realized that changing it was going to be harder than it sounded.  There would need to be events we owned, and activities we participated in, and conversations about them after that we would describe to others using individual pronouns on purpose.  *I* went to the museum in Kansas City to see the Caravaggio.  *I* went to the Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas right before the shutdown. I bought this really pretty poster. I saw my favorite band. I climbed the Lyon Street street stairs to find the hidden SF Heart. 

She validated for me that I had, in fact, done lots of stuff. That I was both capable of doing them, and had experienced them with my own memory without that need for others to always be in the same memory bubble conversation.  I validated to her that I had probably modeled that for her, and she was doing the same memory building for herself, with her own activities and life, even if they happened to have someone else along for the experience.  They could own it, too, without either of our acknowledgment, and it took nothing away from anyone's experience to have it belong to ourselves. Especially in personal pronoun format when telling our stories to someone else.  We did not have to be beholden, or even share in the joy.  Each of us could be *I*, and anyone else that sailed in our ocean could be an *I* as well.

I truly hope to become part of an US and a WE again. I actually like couplehood, and  I am holding interviews right now for the position.  But I also need to see how MY identity and memories are completely separate from that, and how that is actually a much more healthy way to be.  Maybe I could model it for my daughter, and she won't get lost to it either. Our *I* identities are counting on it and there is too much stuff for she and I to do!

Unbound

 Last night I had a dinner with an old lover.

I hadn't seen him in a bit under five years.  Technically I hadn't talked to him in over five years either since he is terrible on the phone, though great over text, and we had texted a few times a year just to say hello even while I was with my ex.

Technically I don't think my ex knew this. See, early on in our relationship, my ex had a kind of meltdown involving a ridiculously long text message, a subsequent phone call,  and a weird kind of compromise because of his belief he was not on a level playing field with other men I had in my life. (He was completely wrong about this, as I already had feelings for him that made the others, including the old lover, not even on the field.) The text and conversation happened at like 3am on April 1st 2017.  I remember it because I laughed that is was April's Fools Day,  but having made another type of obligation for my three days off just after that, I rolled with it, hoping I wasn't being punked.  But the conversation also meant that while he was becoming the primary person I would commit to, I legit could not tell him I was not willing to let myself be swallowed into that confinement.  I was pretty sure, even then, that he would only feel safe inside of what he could control, and he would ignore or avoid the rest. The very very brief conversation we had when I got back was about the commitment I was making to him in the way he understood it and I would honor.  I never strayed from that. Bound to those commitments in a truly willing way. Attached.

I had done that kind of dedicated oneness before. My ex husband, my children's father, several boyfriends and a girlfriend along the way.  All became my entire world and I was lost inside of it.  I relied heavily on their love and company to fill my affection and physical needs, and often they were the only ones there.  I didn't talk to seriously, or go out for any activities with anyone but them. My therapist called this codependency. He was right.

So during that three days in April 2017, I went on a roadtrip at the suggestion (more like a command, but that is a different blog) of someone I had complete trust in, and had it suggested (again, told, but more about that part of my life some other time) that if my feelings for this man who would become my ex were legit, I better figure out what the other people in my life's roles were, and just how much or how little I wanted to keep, and what that looked like.

So I went.  I all but ignored my now-ex for those three days.  A couple texts and maybe a photo, but this was about me, and how I wanted, or didn't want to connect with others. I ended up seeing several people.  Old lovers, friends I rarely connected with, a couple people I barely knew, all in a whirl wind of drinks, and meals, and activities, and sex, and driving a total of about 1500 miles over several parts of the state with almost no sleep.  I made choices, and welcomed connections, and said good bye.  It may have been the most adult thing I have ever done.  And I own every minute.

The lover I met last night was one of the people I saw during that time (the last time as a matter of fact before last night)  He was always good for my body, never judgey or preachy, or in anyway demeaning to my choices.  I could tell him what was going on, but in the way you might write in a journal, or tell in a confessional, without having him try to fix it.  And the sex was always good, with him being more giving than I was most of the time, and I was satisfied physically without any of the emotional baggage that sometimes comes with that.  He was one of the people I did not say goodbye to even with the parameters changing.  He didn't have to know my heart; he never really had, and we both liked it that way.  His heart was often elsewhere as well. We had an understanding that we could, and would, always know the difference between sex and love, and sex could be what we did when it was uncomplicated by our own commitments. I always knew what that meant.

So when I came back from the three days of self service (and it truly was all about me), I made some decisions.  I was heading towards making an exclusive emotional and physical commitment with James, if he and I could get through some other obstacles I was sure we could figure out.  I have never cheated on a relationship. I am not built that way. I know the boundaries. And like I said before, I completely honored them with my ex, verbally, emotionally, physically,  But I also know, having done a lot of self discovery and healing my own trauma since my relationship with my children's father ended, that I could never stop having other things in my life.  People, experiences, thoughts of my own. Values and excitement, and new adventures, even if they slowed to meet a partner's pace.  I didn't want to get lost, again, to the expectations and needs of someone who did not want to go there. 

And to be fair, for the last five years, I truly thought my ex was heading there with me. I wrote in another blog about how I had lost myself into him in some ways, but also recognize that a person can only give to the level of love they give themselves. He did not love himself very much, measuring his worth by money and titles mostly, neglecting his body, heart, and mind needs almost completely, and having that spill over into our sex life, or activities, and most prevalently into him dodging any talk of emotions, including love.  His go to emotion was anger, an easy enough emotion to live in if you have no other skills. I pushed, and tried patience, and even did some ignoring, all for the sake of the love I was giving by choice. And I did love him, do love him, I am just not sure he knew, or knew how to understand it.

But, I didn't completely lose myself this time.  I know exactly where I need to go to heal the grief I still feel, and be okay with others playing their roles. Friends. Lovers. Confidants. I am not alone. I am sad he never knew that, either.

So last night I had dinner with an old lover, and all the euphemisms that implies.  And our rules had stayed the same. I didn't lose myself to him in anyway I didn't want to.  I am pretty sure I never will,  even as I open up all the possibilities. I am going to be okay with the strings untied.

Snapshot

I like taking photos. I always have.  I don't always like being in them because body issues and all kinds of fucked up excuses in my head. But I take them, and I will pose for selfies with someone most of the time. SelfieBeautyProject is a thing.

And of course, with the kind of headspin that makes the Exorcist look kinda lame, I have tried to figure out what I am supposed to do with all the photos I have of exes.

When my ex husband and I split, besides opening a bank account he had no access to, and reformatting the hard drive on our shared computer 12 different times to make sure that the chatroom (and the saved chats) he used to contact his girlfriend was no longer there, I also took care of our wedding photo.  You know the one.  The one in the crystal frame that was a wedding gift from some aunt.  The one where you are staring into each other's eyes,  wondering how lucky you got, dripping with happiness and promises.  The one you had in an 8x10 color glossy, sitting on your shelf at eye level for guests to see the first millisecond they walked in. The one you burned, after smashing the frame into little shards with a sledge hammer dropped repeatedly in the bottom of the trash bin. That one. Twenty four years ago.

It was easier then.  Photos were prints, and tangible, and semi-irreplaceable if you did not have the film negatives neatly sorted in binders to keep forever. There was one, maybe two of them to deal with, and you carefully put one print (maybe two, because the one with the puppy is just so sweet) into a box to never look at again.  Or it will be years, and by then you will be okay.

When my children's father and I split, after babies and almost 11 years together, the photos were also easy to deal with.  Sort them into the photos that had him in it, either digital or prints, pull them all onto a thumb drive and toss them in a box marked *save for H and M* and walk away.  Do it once, don't destroy anything, but never look at it again.  Keep all baby pics separate, and labeled, and I was good to go.

When my most recent partner and I split, part of the verbal vomit he threw at me was how he hated that I took selfies, and couples photos. This was news to me because while I knew he didn't particularly feel good in his body, and I had seriously curbed my public albums at his request, he smiled, kissed me, put his arms around me, and posed just the same anytime I asked. 

So  tonight, as I looked at the photos,  I started to delete the albums from Facebook so they wouldn't wreck me showing up on my memories, and wondered what do I do with all these photos now? Because reality is they are fucking everywhere.  They were on posts, and in my camera roll, and as part of cover photos and profile pics.  They were backed up in my cloud storage on three different sites, and on my laptop hard drive.  They were sorted with facial recognition software so I would never not be able to find them. One thousand, seven hundred and seventy three photos in the drive correctly labeled as him.  Him leaning against his new car.  Him at his desk at one of the six  jobs he held in the last five years. Him on the couch. Him at dinner.  Him in groups with my kids. Him with his mom, his daughter, his best friend, his brother.  But (and this is a big but),  one thousand, three hundred and eighty two of them are of him and me together. Nearly 1400 photos documenting our adventures, our togetherness, our lives. Seriously. Over,fucking,whelming.

So what the fuck do I do with them?  

I have no reason to believe they will ever be wanted. Not by him for sure, and not yet for me.  I can cruelly imagine all kinds of reasons for keeping them. Like for when he is indicted for fraud and murder in a very public trial and the news agencies want them, for large amounts of cash. Or maybe for the collage at his funeral after he is shot dead by some jilted mistress, or dead because of a fall from the balcony of his apartment that he was afraid to be on.  Or maybe for one of his daughters because for the last five years the only photos taken at all were by me, and no one has any others. 

Five years is a big enough chunk of time that I may want to keep the memories of MY trips, and MY outings, and MY love. I need to figure out a way to make this visual noise be quieter so that I can find MY life in there somewhere, but not have it feel so difficult, or so immediate. It is not like randomly finding a photo in an old box.  I have to actively delete them on multiple platforms, while deciding what I value.  Can I be okay with that great pic of the Lincoln Memorial with us standing together on the top step? What about the selfie at the Golden Gate Bridge, or from the window of the Rainbow Room?  I was there. There is visual proof. He was there, too. Just as smiling, just as present. One thousand, three hundred and eight two times. 

I pulled the photos labeled with his image into a folder marked "ex". I pulled the nudes I have of him into  a sub folder in the secure folder (under password protection), also marked "ex". He probably won't be happy I am keeping those.  I am okay with that, he has company.

What I really need to do is figure out how to smash the frame without cutting myself in the process.  I need a different kind of sledge hammer this time because it won't be as easy to just burn the photo at the end, and there will be no accidental boxes to find that prompt nostalgia.  Delete is so much more permanent. How much of me will be left?  I am guessing a lot, since I still have ones of me in my wedding dress, and me with my babies, and me that day at the beach.  Me. I still exist, and I am keeping the photos to prove it. Him maybe not so much.

I might actually print a couple of me just because. 

Piercing

 As I have been recently trying to navigate the dating world, deciding who to date, why to date them, if they are already interesting enough but also in the friendship category, I have been dissecting what I want to do differently if and when I get into another relationship.  Do I want to have a talk about finances early, or never?  Do I want my adult children to approve, or meet them only when absolutely necessary? Would I want to live with someone, or have the freedom of separate households? It worked for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, right? Would we have to have the same political views if we never talked about politics? What about free time, sporting events, sushi?  How much of myself do I share, and how much do I know there is no room for compromise? Who will they be in my world, and will I know if they are right for now, or forever?

Most importantly, I needed to know what was truly missing that I would want for sure from myself so that I would know if I was not getting it or giving it.

My answer: Earrings.

I wasn't expecting that to be the answer either when I started thinking about it, but it is true.  Everything could be summed up in whether or not I was willing to wearing earrings.

See, I love earrings.  I don't mean lots of earrings like on those multi packs from Claire's. I mean earrings that I put on because they make me happy, and feel pretty or sexy, or at least pulled together and caring about stuff.  Days I put on earrings are days when I have thought about what I look like, what I want other people to see, what activities I might be doing, and how much I care about the earrings being lost or taken off in the process.

I have a pair of stylized cat earrings.  The tail is the hook that goes through your ear, so you have to put them on from the backside.  They are silver and a little heavy,  but they make this great whoosh sound when I turn my head.  They were a gift from my boyfriend when I was 19, along with a cute little black dress I still own, so that I would have something he wanted to see me in to go out that night. It was a whim, and a total testament to youth and lack of planning.

I have a pair of light green Big Sur jade earrings.  They are triangles and dangle against my neck. They are always cool to the touch even in the hottest weather. They look best when my hair is up, or smoothed back in some way.  They are so thin, the light shines through them, and they feel like fragile pieces of china instead of stone.  I bought them for myself with money I had forgotten about in an account I opened the day my ex husband and I spilt in 1998.  I had opened my first account without him, and it was the first account I had that I didn't share with anyone else, and have never shared with anyone since.  I had "found" the money because of one of those "lost money to the state" searches, went in and closed the account, receiving cash, and spent it almost immediately on the earrings at the farmer's market that night.  I have been known to wear them on first dates.

I have a pair of earrings made from old typewriter keys with the letters H and M (my children's initials) on them. The earrings don't technically match, but look like a pair nonetheless. I got them from a small booth at an antique faire I went to alone because the person I was seeing was too hungover to get out of bed that morning.  He had wanted me to stay, but I went ahead and did our plans without him.  I wear those earrings to important events that celebrate my kids.

I have a pair of niobium rainbow sunset earrings. No idea where I got them but I have had them forever.  They hum when I walk.

I have pearls. I used to wear them to job interviews.  They live in the jewelry box now. I hear that when you don't wear pearls, they lose their shine.  I think they are too stuffy and expectant, and try too hard.  I am not sad that they are kind of meh.  Things change, priorities change. I keep them, like a gift and a touchstone, but I never wear them.  I don't need them anymore.

I have a single earring left of what is still my favorite "pair".  I bought them with my own money from my first paycheck at a summer job when I was 18.  They are drop squares, sterling silver, the perfect every day earrings.  I used to wear them daily, and for every occasion for years, decades even. I lost one of them at a strip club in Vegas just a couple years ago.  I had gone with my ex, because he had never taken a woman to a strip club, and was unsure I would like it. It was kinda a test. He had gone to them often, in different cities while on work assignments or living apart from his family, so he knew his way around.  He thought I didn't because I hadn't really told him everything there was to know about my mid twenties.  I should have known better than to wear earrings at all because true to their professions, beautiful nearly naked women enjoyed his lap, or the padded cocktail table in front of me, fondling and nuzzling.  It was super fun, until it was wasn't.  Might have been the alcohol.  Might have been the last couple of girls paying more attention to me than him.  Might have been me enjoying it a little less demurely than he had seen before, and being a woman on my own in what he had sorta deemed as his territory.  Years of doing that will give you that impression. We left, and an earring and a pair of sunglasses was the price for the ride. The rest of the night was a blur of being turned on and disconnected at the same time.  Lost and founds in strips clubs don't really exist.  I wear the singular earring now when I can feel something shifting, but don't have a clear picture of what it is. A blur of anticipation, knowing that whatever it is, I am in the space alone for a while. I have been wearing it most of the week.

Yes, this week is when I started wearing earring(s) again, as I have been writing and thinking about what I want.  I hadn't been wearing earrings for the last 18 months or so, stuck in my own head of not needing them, not wanting them, not wanting to lose them.  I had done it to myself (again) and forgot that I existed.  I started not wearing them because I thought they didn't matter.  My whole rack of earrings, collecting dust for the most part, only occasionally get spun around to see if something felt right here or there.  Without earrings on, I could be invisible. 

This week I remembered that every time I buy or wear earrings purposefully, I feel different.  Every time I wear earrings, I feel more myself and comfortable with my choices.  Every time I wear earrings I know I have tried for myself to get out of my head, out of my own way, to make a choice.  And own the choice, too, without having to explain it, even if it would never make sense to someone else. It is not their earrings. 

So what does this have to do with dating?  I realized that everything I do from now on, is wide open.  I can try the people on like earrings, and see if they fit.  That ever time I have something new, I get to form an opinion and a memory just like that. I can, if I want to, wear it for a while, and then not ever again.  All those differences for new people in my world, and what I want to do with them, can be like my spinning rack.  Maybe today, it is a the gold antique hoops. Maybe tomorrow it is the filigree and amethyst. Maybe it is just one, maybe it is a pair. Do I wear my hair back and show them off to a new date, or do I take them off and put them in my purse (not my pocket because we know how well that went last time, HA!)?

Maybe I will even buy a new pair.  

 

 

Roadblock

 It was raining when I left work today.  I was wearing a short sleeved shirt, and no socks with my shoes, and I hadn't brought a jacket. I had parked a little further away than usual this morning because it was warm when I had walked in, and the idea of taking a little longer to get inside was not going to be a bad decision.  I thought I didn't care about a little weather.

So when I started my engine, and cranked up the heat to warm my feet and dry my hands, I wondered if I could get away with driving down the coast a bit, and finding a warm latte before it got dark. Like all good spontaneous adventures I have ever had, I had no idea what I would find, or where, or if I would regret it or celebrate it when I was done.  Would there be a café open?  Would they have run out of decaf, but instead offer me a house special that was more chai and spice than what I had pictured? Would there be musicians just picking up guitars over there in the corner, stashing cases and coats before putting on their stage hats and heading to adjust the mic?  Would there be other tables with just one person at them, newspaper folded in front of them, and a pen attached to a journal with a large rubberband, peeking from the top of a slumped messenger bag? Would I talk to them about writing and getting published for over an hour and never ask their name?

All those were possibilities, because they had already happened once upon a time.  Them, and dozens more. And I had been open to the magic before, so it found me. I could almost feel the latte foam on  my tongue.  The craving, the desire, was real. I could taste it.

But then something else happened. I heard the voice in my head ask me what I was trying to get away with and from whom?  You would have no one to tell this story to, Elise, so why are you going?  Rain, well,  rain was just going to make the roads slippery, not more romantic, and you could get in a car accident.  And traffic.  It is just a regular old Thursday.  No magic here. And the rain without a coat suddenly seemed just wet, and cold, and ridiculously lonely. As immediate as the desire was, the reality was really different in my head. I couldn't shake it. Blocked.

And I didn't go.

I am kicking myself now, as I write this, having just watched the last of the light slip away too early, and for already having put on slippers.  I am trying to figure out what my brain did.  Was that fear?  Was that anxiety?  Was it plain old fucked up depression?  Had I hit this wall? Again? Fuck. I wanted a latte.  I settled for a glass of milk.  It is not enough. This space I am in is not enough, and I am fighting leaving it anyway. Sigh. Apparently today I could not get away with it, whatever that means. And I don't want to fake it. I do actually care, just not enough today to move in the right direction, as baby steps as a latte could have been. As easy as a drive could have been.

I will call and start looking for a counselor tomorrow, because I don't want this.  And I will write, I know that, because I have to again, and that sucks. I want the magic voice back. The one that I started with right after work. I want to listen. I want to trust.  This time feels rougher, but not as deep.  It will pass, I know. Wait five minutes the weather will change. The road will be free of traffic.  My latte will be waiting

But, fuck, I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow. 

Scarred

Did you know that you can Google "how to get rid of a wedding ring indent?" and there will be dozens of articles and advice tips in less than a nanosecond.  I learned that today.

I was sitting on my porch, sipping tea, reading, sun just high enough to not be in my eyes, but still warm on my legs. and I look down at my left hand to see the dent on my third finger.  To be honest, it took me a second to realize what it was, then another second to be mad, then sad, then frustrated that it was there.

I wore a ring there for a little over four and a half years. I took it off to shower sometimes, or to sleep if it was hot.  I would take it off when my hands would swell if I was walking, or had eaten too much salt the day before. But for the most part, I wore it daily since the day in June it was given to me.

It was his grandmother's ring. A lovely wedding band type, set with channel diamonds in antique cushion cut.  Not expensive; the engagement ring to the set would have cost more.  He didn't have the engagement ring, he said, because the jewelry had been divided up when the grandmother died, and this was what he got.  He had never let anyone else wear the ring before, and had pulled it from a plastic film container he had retrieved from his junk drawer.

It never came with a question, and I liked it that way.  He had been married before, and so had I, and while we planned a future, the idea of matrimony never came up for longer than to work out if a certificate once we retired would make finances better.  It would be a transaction.

But as I looked at the dent on my finger today, and thought about the memory of the day he gifted it to me, all I could think was that the word transactional was actually the best word for most of our relationship.  

I gave him a ring later that year, just before Christmas.  At first he didn't want to wear it.  I asked him about jewelry, and he said that was not the issue, he had worn rings before.  I ask him about comfort, and he said that he was okay with wearing rings that fit him.  So I asked the elephant in the room question, and wondered how he felt about outward physical signs that our relationship was more than casual. 

This is where he balked. He wanted me to wear a ring, but he didn't want to.  He wanted the casual freedom of not having to be asked about his "wife" (the reason men wear rings on their third finger on their left hand) and then either have to explain that I was his girlfriend (that got some looks a few times), or cringe at the word. It was okay for me to have to explain, but he didn't want that. Because almost invariably the questions would become about why we weren't married, when we would get married, how long had we been married if we chose not to talk about girlfriend status.  Fielding them when we were together was easy, I had more language for the ways to answer.  And after a couple times when he had just rolled his eyes, or said something truly vile like "Oh God no she's not my wife!" my responsibility was clear. If he was going to wear a ring, I was to protect him from looking like a flake.  Men whose opinion he valued, and women whose attention he desired, needed to think he was shiny.

So on the day I gave him his ring, and he didn't wear it, I put mine in a bowl on the nightstand and didn't wear mine either.  This bothered him.  He didn't have my undivided adoration right then. Manipulative, maybe, but more than anything, I wanted us to be equal.  Partners without the paper.  If rings meant something to him if I wore one, I needed for him to have that same kind of faith.

He broke the first ring.  It was black hematite and shattered completely one day, without a good reason.  The next ring I got him was titanium. 

The day we ended, we had been out for a walk.  As I said before, my hands swell and, like had dozens of times before, I took the ring off and put it in the inside zipper pocket with my wallet of the jacket I was wearing.  It was his jacket, and I loved it almost specifically for the pocket that held my wallet and ring so perfectly.  When I left that night, I took my wallet, but not the jacket, and hadn't put the ring back on after coming home. When I left that night, I didn't take the ring with me.  When I left that night, he still had his ring on.

He told me two days later that he wanted the ring back. Another day went by before I told him he already had the ring, and where to look.  He informed me it wasn't there.  The ring is gone.  Maybe still in the lining of the jacket. Maybe on his floor near his dining table from it coming out of the pocket when I took my wallet.  Maybe on Market Street somewhere. I don't know.  I only slightly care.

When I returned his keys, dropping them with his concierge without seeing him, he texted later and asked about the ring again. I told him again that I didn't have it, but asked if he was willing to talk about something other than possessions.  He wasn't willing, and honestly, I am glad he was just as transactional this time as he had been with most everything else. He didn't give back his ring, so maybe it lives in the film canister now. No matter, I didn't ask for it or want it back. 

But what I have is this dent where the ring used to be. I took a photo to see if it was truly noticeable to anyone but me. It is, but barely.  Google says the only thing that truly gets rid of it is time.  I added lotion just in case.  I am hoping it just stops being there, and I don't notice when. Apparently, not yet.

I semi-wonder how long his dent will be there, but not really.

Levelup

Today I started my earnest effort to not bother trying to date (or even talk to for that matter) any person who simply does not meet my basic criteria.

You would think this is a no brainer.  Like hey, Elise, maybe don't date people with giant ass red flags, or creepy first impressions.  Legit, maybe pay attention to all of them, because if you are lucky enough to have them show up as who they will be eventually, you really should believe them.  

But something changed in my level of initial acceptance.  Maybe it has to do with the left over remnants of the 2016 election.  Maybe it has to do with the trials against racist slugs currently in the headlines.  Maybe it is just my extrovert tendencies that got all thwarted during a pandemic while watching selfish people cause it to feel prolonged and isolating.  Maybe it is because I am just tired of rudeness.

Don't get me wrong, this blog is not the most polite thing you will ever read.  I fucking cuss.  I call out crap behavior that has me angry or sad ,and I don't really worry much about that person's feeling when doing it. I talk bad about myself with both pity and self righteousness, and am sure I hit plenty of nerves by pointing out the obvious as I see it in the world.  My blog.  I can do that.

What I don't do, though, is try to convince potential romantic partners that they need to see things my way, and then expect them to still like me when they don't. Because I don't and I won't. I promise not to  like you, and I don't want you to like me, either.

Case in point, since I am on dating apps, is having someone tell me that I am too sensitive when I am told that I would be so much prettier if I just stopped having (the wrong) opinion about politics and I tell them (politely as I could manage) to fuck off.  Seems that does not go over well, and I end up having to block them.  Today that happened with one person wanting me to be *an intellectual sparring partner*, then showing me a TikTok of Biden getting hit with a baseball bat and a caption saying that explains everything, while laughing. It happened a second time with someone else I dated like 7 years ago who wondered why I had unfriended him on Facebook. So I accepted the new friend request, only to have his cover photo be a Let's Go Brandon logo over an American flag.  I not only unfriended him again, but also blocked him this time.  A third person (I had to assume was actually a scammer because of all the personal questions), was angry when I wouldn't answer.  I told them I would be happy to answer all of their questions over coffee tomorrow morning, just pick the place since we are local.  They couldn't, of course, because they are currently out of the country on a contract in Syria for an oil company, but will be back in the Americans (yes, that is how they spelled it) in a few months, but for me to please wait for them by talking to them on WhatApp.  I said no, told them I would be happy to help them stay faithful to me by having their profile blocked, and then laughed.  I got called a bitch right before I reported them.

Because, it turns out, I didn't like them. And that is fine. Next.

But this isn't the worst part to me.  The worst part is recognizing that I have, in the past, not had these kinds of boundaries when the person is real, but is really just a not a good match for me, or worse, an actual douchebag. I have believed that certain traits are things I can just adjust to, because people are just different, and I need to be open minded.  But really, why? Why do I have to accept bad behavior, or things that are just kinda gross to me.? Do I have to be okay with someone who justifies why they voted for Trump twice?  Do I have to be okay with people who think the men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery should not have been put on trial for hate crimes?  Do I need to just feel pity for the people cheering for the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green as she talks about her like for Putin, or can I just fucking punch them in the face and be done with it?

Apparently I don't have the patience to date people anymore who complain about the state of the world (and by world, they always mean *'Merica*) but do no work to help, make no effort to educate themselves on multiple views and solutions, and don't vote. My ex was that, by the way, and all I can think now is how gross, arrogant, and repulsively stagnant he was about this.  I am actually grateful today because it helped me see a whole bunch of crap I might have overlooked before for the sake of romance.  I am not desperate, and I don't need to spend another five years figuring out just how useless someone was in my life before it ends.  It can end before date one, and I can be just fine without them in a truly never kind of way.

I wonder what kinds of people will show up tomorrow.  I am sure my list of requirements will just get more defined all the time. Time to Level Up.