There were two things I had sworn off after realizing they were doing more harm than good: alcohol and dating apps.
I don’t think I’d be wrong in assuming these are two things quite a few others have also resorted to in the past year.
Besides for the simple reason of being in dire need of some fun in this grey pandemic life, I was using both the drinks and the apps for the same purpose: trying to forget my ex. Admittedly, it took longer than it should have for me to realize they did not make a good combination.
Although a year had already passed since my breakup, I was still carrying around the dead weight of that love with me. And I knew that the split had been the right decision. We had both felt there would be someone else out there who’d be a better match for the traits each of us sought in a partner — so I didn’t exactly want him back but I didn’t know how to let go of his memory either.
I accepted the fact that maybe all I needed was more time. And maybe someone new.
So I did what any other lonely millennial trapped in a house in the midst of a pandemic would do: I downloaded Tinder. And Bumble. And all the rest of the damned lot.
My experience with dating apps can be summed up as follows:
You know when you’re hungry and you make the long and arduous trip to the fridge only to find there’s nothing good in there? And so you close the door and retreat to the comfort of your bed. But there is that lingering dissatisfaction of the itch that hasn’t quite been scratched. So you make the journey once more and this time content yourself with a piece of cold leftover chicken, a random cracker and pimento olive.
(Are you really hungry or is your mouth lonely? Who knows?!)
That’s what swiping was like for me. And I went on date after date with guys whom I felt were not quite right for me, which inevitably made me compare them to my ex. Add in the effects of alcohol and the tendency for my drunken feelings to slam into my heart at a hundred miles per hour and what you get is quite a few nights that ended with me in tears, talking in tongues about my ex.
Side note: It’s ridiculous, really, how much a guy who only wants to sleep with you is willing to overlook in the moment. Like the “I wish he were here” mutterings of a sad, crazed girl walking around the beach at night.
Safe to say, neither the men nor the alcohol were the medicine I needed and so I cut both of them out of my life.
Until a few months later, when the thing I least expected happened.
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The Strangest End to a First Date
I was living happily in complete sobriety and singledom for quite some time. I really genuinely had no problem being on my own and actually enjoyed my own company. But there was no denying that I craved human touch and connection with another soul too. I wanted to pour love into another’s heart and to be loved in return.
So I went back to my fridge. I downloaded ye old dating apps for the second time, slightly hating myself as I did it. To ameliorate my feelings of guilt and self-loathing, I told myself I’d delete them all after three days of seeing what kind of “snacks” I could find.
The very first day, I matched with a guy with whom I had an immediate connection. We hit it off instantly and pretty soon, I didn’t even want to be talking to anyone else. But I was also very conscious of the possibility that it could all crumble down in an instant, like every other time it had with someone from an app.
Our first date was beautiful and dreamy and everything I wanted it to be — which immediately meant that I couldn’t believe it. Me, being afflicted with an insatiable desire to always reach for more, more, decided to have a few drinks.
And then it happened. At one point in the car ride home, the tears started rolling down my cheeks, leaving behind ridiculous black streaks of the painful memories that still haunted me. And once more, I lost control of my mouth which kept murmuring things about him giving me up for his God!!
As it was happening, I was very much aware of the fact that I was an effing mess. But I don’t think I cared very much. Somewhere in my mind, I had already resolved myself to the likely possibility that I wouldn’t hear from this guy ever again.
And to be fair, considering the state I was in, I could’ve hardly blamed a man for wanting to run the other way. I think if it had been any other guy, he would have.
But this incredible, kind-hearted soul did something that I never would’ve expected.
He took me into his arms and, one by one, wiped away every tear that ran down my face. “Anybody who didn’t want you didn’t deserve you,” he told me. “It’s me and you now, alright?”
And it was in that moment, us sitting in his car, him holding me, my pain and the weight upon my back, that I really saw him.
That was the first time in the year since my breakup that I didn’t wish it could’ve been my ex in front of me. I was so moved by this guy’s reaction to my moment of vulnerability, his affection when I least expected it, that I started to forget why it was I was holding on for dear life to the past in the first place.
That was the last night I pined after or cried over my ex. This new person started taking up so much space in my heart and mind with every little unnecessary act of kindness, his deep empathy, honesty, and loyalty, that there simply ceased to be room for anyone else.
***
The Loss of a Beloved Bracelet
When I was little, I had a bracelet that my mom had bought as a gift for me. It was my favorite piece of jewelry and I adored it to bits. My excessive love for it probably also had something to do with the fact that I would get super attached to things and feel like something of the spirit of the memory, or part of the person I associated an object with, would be intertwined with it. So, as a child, when something would happen to such an object, I would feel the most overbearing sense of grief, as though I’d just lost a person.
One day, I lost my coveted bracelet at a waterpark. For me, it was nothing short of a tragedy. As ridiculous as it sounds, it felt like my heart was torn into a thousand little bits.
But my mother sat me down and told me she would buy me another to replace the one I’d lost and she promised it would make it hurt less. And, you know what, it did. I didn’t forget about the original one I’d lost and I was aware that it wasn’t the same but the new bracelet did make my heart hurt less.
Fast-forward to 2020 and, months and months after working through my emotions post-breakup, she told me the same thing she had about the bracelet, but in different terms. And this time, it really was a person I’d lost.
The antidote to the pain of love is love.
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Thaw the Ice of the Breakup
When you’re going through a breakup, it’s so easy to catastrophize the loss and give in to the idea that you’re never going to find a love like that again. Often, when we split up from someone, we fall into the “rose-tinted glasses” trap; we glorify the good parts of the relationship while glossing over every bit that was wrong with it.
Dating coach Laurel House, author of Screwing the Rules: The No-Games Guide to Love, says:
Imagine that your ex is a layer of ice that is covering your body and seeping into your cells, veins, head and heart. That ice may be filled with anger, or, on the opposite side it, could be filled with a romantic ideal made up of the good moments of your relationships — but totally unrealistic.
She says that we need to defrost that ice by staring nakedly at all aspects of the past relationship — the good, the bad and the ugly. This requires the courage of complete honesty with ourselves.
Sometimes, when we do the work of thawing that ice, we find that the relationship wasn’t actually all that we wanted it to be. After all, there was a reason (or many) it didn’t work out. House suggests that when we come to this realization, and we feel prepared to move on, it might be time to think about meeting someone new.
Julia Spira, another dating expert, says that once you’ve worked through those emotions and feel ready, that someone new can act as a ‘love drug’ to help you heal.
She says to be open and vulnerable with a potential new partner about the lingering bits of past relationships. Did I unwittingly do that? Check.
She also says that it’s okay if the conversation is messy. Also check.
And here’s the other interesting bit she adds:
There’s typically a crossover time between when you’re fully over your ex and when you start dating again.
This is exactly what happened to me. I spent an unbelievable amount of time processing my past relationship and its dissolution. I had come to terms with the knowledge that we had made the right decision to part ways, as much as it hurt. And despite how much I missed him, I didn’t want him back because I knew we’d run into the same problems again. But I did have hope that I would meet someone who would have some of my ex’s best qualities as well as other ones that he lacked.
Because I didn’t meet anyone like that for the longest time, my mind kept going back to my ex. I grew disillusioned. Just like the bracelet, the pain of the loss kept stabbing me out of the blue because I didn’t have anything like it to hold on to or hope for.
Maybe sometimes we do need someone else to help us let go of the last little bit of hurt. I spent a lot of time sorting through my feelings on my own but old memories would come back to haunt me still. It was only when I finally found someone else whose light was so bright that the past lost its last grip on me. It made me see that everything turned out the way it had to; that there was greater and brighter light to be discovered yet.
I really believe nothing is as powerful as love — there’s nothing it can’t fix. Maybe sometimes we need to be reminded that when one door closes, there’s always another that could open at the next corner. As long as there’s a tomorrow, there’s hope.
***
What I Learned About Acceptance
This amazing guy who is now my boyfriend and whom I’m falling in love with (shh don’t tell him) recently told me something that took me by surprise.
We were recalling that first date and how I’d broken down in front of him and he suddenly went, “That’s how I knew I liked you. You weren’t afraid to open up to me.”
By this point, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been taken aback by the beauty of this man’s heart.
He saw me in one of my most vulnerable, and perhaps pathetic, moments and he not only held space for my sadness but it also made him feel for me.
I’ve thought often about what I would’ve done if our places had been switched and I doubt I would’ve been as accepting.
This is one of my flaws — I want everything and everyone to be perfect and it never is. There have been times in this new relationship, even, when I’d wished something I didn’t like about him was different and tried to change it. And then I’ve immediately remembered that first night, and many other instances thereafter, when my behavior was less than ideal. And despite those moments, he has accepted me and all that I am, warts and all. To him, my goodness overshadows all my various weaknesses. Without knowing it, he’s teaching me to be as compassionate as he is.
He’s teaching me to love better.
Because as someone, somewhere, once said:
Love is not ‘if’ or ‘because.’ Love is ‘anyway’ and ‘even though’ and ‘in spite of’.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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