My Love Affair With Messy Women

Out of the blue, my married friend messages me on Instagram with a dating meme. “I’m single now btw,” she adds nonchalantly.

She’s going through a painful divorce, but the announcement-by-meme doesn’t entirely surprise me.

Dark memes is how my single friends are surviving.

But … is singledom something we’re really surviving? It’s not like the men aren’t complaining about a loneliness epidemic.

I’d love to be locked down, especially come winter: cuddle buddy, easy sex, not having to leave or clean the house to see another human? Yes, please.

My friend N is a very bright woman, and also a very silly goose who happens to have the poshest London accent. We live on different continents and stay in touch with darkly humorous memes about the nonsense in our love lives.

N and I both crave boyfriend-type-folks in our lives. We both spend time pining for emotionally unavailable men.

But meme by meme, we’ve inched toward recognition: We may be the responsible parties.

It’s not just that we don’t want to leave the house in the cold and dark to go on a date with a stranger — who would want that? — but the second we find someone, we run for Netflix or books or each other.

The emotional unavailability of the men we desire? Probably not an accident.

I rename our friend group chat Emotionally Unavailable Biscuits, and no one questions it.

Heartbreak or memes

One Friday while I’m at work — five hours behind her time zone — N starts texting me about a Situation: She’s out with an ex-colleague. She’s beginning to think he’s cute. Is he cute? I get a picture: He’s cute.

She’s not sure if he likes her. I’m pretty sure he does. It’s like the fourth hour of their catch-up and what are they doing, drinking hot chocolate in the snow?

Then, poof! Not only does he like her, he’s been carrying a torch for a year.

Then another message: They’ve kissed.

And more messages about kissing. She is feeling this.

… And much later, a distress call: He likes her likes her and now she’s wondering what to do with that.

It’s not lost on me that N is live-texting instead of focusing on her date.

I get it. It’s terrifying to stand in the tracks of oncoming feelings. The least scary way to let romance in is to let it sneak up behind you with a chloroform-soaked rag.

It’s probably why I keep gambling with dates instead of calling the people I already know.

Messy af. And maybe a bit proud.

Maybe my friends enjoy the spicy side too much to make good decisions.

(Also, what would I write about? Stability is the natural predator of jokes and stories).

I go to New York to meet up with two coworker friends for the world’s tiniest, latest holiday party. We do the quintessentially NYC thing: eat dinner at a restaurant you “can’t” get into.

And we do the quintessentially ad agency thing: drink too much on the company’s dime.

And then we do the quintessentially woman thing: overshare in front of strangers.

I’m single, so they want the gossip. They ask me about Mr. Avoidant, an ex I’ve been friends with longer than we dated. “What’s the deal with him?”

Mr. Avoidant and I aren’t dating or even talking about dating but our friendship skirts the edges of flirtation enough to add a ‘will they or won’t they’ plot line to spice up my gossip.

I share that Mr. Avoidant and I have started joking in an explicitly sexual way, in contrast to when we dated and he was often indifferent to actual sex. “Something about warming up his penis this time.” A man who is sitting near us despite the nearly empty boat we’re on starts glancing our way a lot, intrusively. I don’t care.

I share my other pet theory about my persistent singledom: I’m collecting enough dopamine from passing breadcrumbs back and forth with Mr. Avoidant to ease my cravings for romance. He’s probably doing the same.

Meanwhile, on a parallel, our actual friendship is slowly growing. But our charged dynamic — and why I allow it to cloud my headspace — is too confusing for me to understand, let alone explain.

I guarantee you there’s a meme that encapsulates it perfectly, though.

I don’t crave male energy these days.

I’m craving women, as I think we all are these days. Maybe it’s the not-so-faint whiff of patriarchy in the air.

I attend a New Year’s Eve party with my friend and ex “Leo” and his female best friend, and I’m instantly seduced by her sparkly girl energy. She’s a brilliant mathematician but what do we talk about? Our love lives.

I immediately overshare that I want to find it in me to date women. “My best friend says, ‘I fucking love you’ when we get off the phone like she means it. Can you imagine being loved like that by a man?”

The mathematician sighs. No.

But while I sigh about the men, it’s me who’s being kind of a jerk. Leo, who is right there, would love me like that and we both full well know it. It’s how he’s built.

It’s me. I’m the problem.

That weekend, after a promising date goes sideways, I go to my favorite pub to clear the drink out of my system.

At the pub, I chat with a handsome teacher I have a tiny, cautious crush on. Even my crushes are afraid to commit these days.

But I’m quickly distracted by a new woman who’s listening to me talk about my meh date, and I leave Teacher Crush. Within 10 seconds of meeting, the woman tells me she was engaged to a man she thought was the love of her life. He dumped her months after proposing without warning or even saying why.

I suggest arson and offer my help.

She laughs and says it’s not necessary — she’s moved on — but I tell her, look, you don’t know me but this is a good offer. I was married to a firefighter and know a lot about arson, and even more about how arsonists get caught.

I’m bluffing, of course. I remember very little about getting away with arson except not to use an accelerant (you’re welcome) and I’m also a rule follower (sigh). I just enjoy the instant bonding of Wronged Women, even if I’m only cosplaying.

I message N that I offered to perform arson for a woman I just met, and she answers, “I love this for you.”

Really, our singledom isn’t any great mystery. How could hypothetical romance compete with the very real charm of Women Who Are Messy AF and Kinda Proud, or as Jonah Hill tried (and failed) to disparage us, “friendships with women who are in unstable places”?

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This post was previously published on medium.com.