A little over a year ago, I broke up with someone and decided to take a break from dating.
(I took a break from that when I was in Oxford.)
After much reflection, I’m not going to restart dating any time soon.
Now, I’m not saying that if I meet someone out in the wild and feel a spark that I won’t succumb, but the active search is off.
The very thought of activating a dating profile fills me with exhaustion and existential dread.
I’ve spent a lot of this year just staying alive, including surviving another herniated disc. I’m never bored, never lonely. There aren’t large gaps of time waiting for a guy to fill. I’d have to create gaps for one, and I don’t have the energy to do it.
And now for the existential dread. I’m not sure exactly what I even want. I just know what I don’t want. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want more kids. I don’t want to live with someone.
And in looking back at a factor of some failed relationships, I don’t want guys in my workspace. I can almost never take a whole weekend off, which is both a product of my workaholism and of the financial circumstances that have me teaching way more than a full-time load every year.
It’s sometimes okay when I’m grading papers at a guy’s place.
But I just can’t seem to do it when they’re at mine. I mean, I get the grading done, but it takes longer because I have to turn on the tv or whatever to keep him entertained in a space that’s not his own. And it wears on me a bit, having to work so much. And then I find myself getting annoyed by this person who isn’t working. And I feel pressure to finish faster cause he’s at my place.
This isn’t how it is at first, of course. In the honeymoon phase, I want to spend as much time as possible with the guy. Nothing annoys me, not even the objectively annoying stuff.
But the honeymoon phase is shorter and shorter as the years go by. I don’t know if this is because I’m getting more intolerant or just more honest. Or both.
I think, though, that the phase lasts longer if I only see him when I can actually carve out that time or when we can be at his place when the work has to overlap with the notwork.
I miss the sex, of course. And I definitely need more oxytocin.
But right now, I don’t miss having a boyfriend. I feel relieved I don’t have to negotiate someone else’s feelings with I’m suffering with this incredible flu.
I know all of this might change. But for now, don’t expect a lot of entries in this thread.
