My friend was terrified that she would never be able to enjoy sex with another man.
It’d been too good with Karl. Nobody would ever compare.
They’d been together for five years, though I use the term “together” loosely.
By which I mean: he was “in the process of getting divorced” the entire time, whilst forbidding my friend to post his likeness to her social media.
Neither did he introduce her to his teenage kids or his close friends.
Still, Ashley thought he was the best thing to happen to her.
…
She was at rock bottom when they met, having left her abusive, terminally unemployed husband.
After him, she’d dated and fallen in love with a well-meaning, big-hearted goof who, like her ex-husband, couldn’t sustain stable employment.
When they, too, didn’t work out, Ashley spiraled into a very dark place, turning to alcoholism and sex addiction to cope with the pain.
In the wake of that spiral, she met Karl. He was the opposite of the career-challenged couch potatoes she usually attracted.
He was a meticulously dedicated career man, who both worked for the City as a respected engineer and co-owned a thriving business with his (ex?) wife.
Ashley nagged him for years to marry her, or least come around a little bit more.
After five years of chasing after him, begging for a little help with the bills when he wouldn’t commit any other way, she got sick of it.
She realized that maybe, just maybe, she could do better than him.
And even if she couldn’t, what good was he to her anyways?
Good riddance, she decided. Even the best sex of her life wasn’t worth the loneliness and disrespect. She’d rather give up the physical aspect and search for something real.
…
At the same time that my best friend Ashley was struggling to move on from Karl, I was struggling to move on from an ill-fated, half-assed “relationship” of my own.
But while Karl at least claimed that he was divorcing his wife, my situation was more, um, nuanced.
The truth is, Jared — my lover — was in a relationship with his longterm girlfriend the entire time that he and I were messing around.
It was relatively easy for me to play dumb, seeing as how this girlfriend of seven years had recently taken off to live in a city three hours away.
The sex was so good that we rode those fumes for awhile.
After awhile, of course, I’d wanted more.
At the same time, I’d come to realize, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Jared was not only an obvious cheater, but a prolific drunk.
…
Separating myself from Jared was the easy part. I knew I deserved better. I knew I’d never let myself get serious enough with someone like that to bring them around my daughter in a serious way.
Distancing myself was the easy part. Moving on mentally, though, is very hard. I can’t seem to do it.
I still think of Jared daily, multiple times a day, sometimes first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
It’s been years like this, now.
…
My friend and I recently had a come-to-Jesus moment.
We decided that since we are clearly attracted to the wrong type of men, we should try out dating guys to whom we aren’t normally attracted.
I took this mission very seriously, and very literally.
I became determined to swipe my way to the most “perfect on paper” guy imaginable.
For me, “perfect on paper” meant the polar opposite of what I’d attracted in the past. It meant: stability, security, steadfastness. But also boredom, lack of imagination, lack of humor, lack of depth.
And that’s what I found, via a dating app for single parents. The perfect specimen: a bald, hard-working, stick-up-his-ass type.
I was very open to this new experience. I don’t know if he was. He didn’t laugh at any of my jokes, or express interest in me personally, though he did tell me a couple semi-interesting stories about the area where I work.
Still, I felt our interaction was forced, awkward, almost squeamish. I masked it with my own charm, being that I am gifted with the gift of gab.
After the date, at my car, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then, I went back into the restaurant to pee.
Why hadn’t I done that before? I wondered.
…
Ashley says I should give him a second chance if he contacts me again.
I’m very much not attracted, I tell her.
Nerves and walls and trauma screw up attraction, she says.
She tells me about the guy she is dating post-Karl. Initially, she had not been interested in him, to the point she evaded his texts.
She finally only agreed to meet with him for a third date so that she could break the news to him, gently, that she wasn’t feeling it.
Then, something interesting happened, something that flipped that dynamic right on its head.
Her ex-husband, who’d been AWOL for years, suddenly reappeared in their sleepy beach town on the East Coast.
He was back, temporarily, to fulfill Visa requirements for the Philiphines where he stays with his mail-order bride and new baby.
Ever the broke bum, he needed a place to crash.
My friend, despite her internal horror and marital PTSD, let him stay at her house. I’m only doing this for my kids, she lamented to me.
She needed an escape, desperately. She agreed to meet up with the dude she was planning to dump. But something was alive and raw in her now, desperately needing healing.
So she did what she’s always done. She slept with the first guy to give her any sort of attention. This time, that guy was her date.
Now, she’s crestfallen, because she’s attached and he lost interest after she put out so quickly and abruptly.
She’s left, once again, only with herself and her misguided, manic choices.
On the bright side, she is no longer worried that Karl was so good that no other man could ever compare.
She can put that doubt firmly to rest now.
…
After my awkward date with the perfect on paper, boring bald man, I flaked on my second dating prospect. He was also bald, but more goofy than boring.
The attraction factor, however, was still not there, not at all.
I’ve got to try harder than this, I decided. So, after initially agreeing to tentative plans, I ghosted.
But is it really ghosting when you haven’t even exchanged pleasantries yet?
…
I’m still on the dating app. I’m curious now, to see if I can meet up with a guy that is both decent on paper and decently attractive.
It’s a combination I’d like to experience.
Ashley, meanwhile, is trying to turn over a new leaf. Again.
She wants to put dating on the back-burner so that she can focus on her increasingly poor health. Riddled with hormonal issues and unexplained weight gain, she wants to get back the body and energy she once had as an avid fitness enthusiast.
Life hit her hard, she fell off, and now she’s stumbling to get back on.
I feel somewhat the same, in terms of dating most of all. I feel like I’ve been off the wheel for a regrettably long time, and I’m certainly stumbling to get back up.
For now, curiosity keeps me going.
I’m genuinely interested to experience commitment and the sacrifices that inherently entails.
I’m interested in seeing what types of people with whom I forge connections going forward.
I’m interested in who I become.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Ben White on Unsplash