It was Monday afternoon and I was eagerly anticipating the first of 4 first dates I have scheduled this week.
I tend to go on dates in clusters like this. I connect with some people, meet them in person fairly quickly and pick one or two that I’d like to get to know better.
I’m usually very strategic in my dating. No nonsense if you will. I have high standards of how I want to be treated and if these can’t be met right off the bat then I usually don’t stick around to see what’s next.
And I’m completely transparent.
If someone has to wait two weeks to hang out with me I let the know the reason is because I already have several dates planned.
Or if I just don’t connect with someone or feel we could move forward I let them know in as kind of a way as possible.
I mean we’re on a dating app. Obviously we are dating.
If I played games and beat around the ever popular bush I would waste my time and energy and what is fun and exciting quickly becomes draining and overwhelming.
For me dating can be so much fun.
But it’s the most fun when I don’t have an agenda.
Which brings me back to Monday afternoon.
My date for that evening got caught up with a job two hours away and had to cancel last minute.
It just so happened that in that exact moment I received his text I was chatting with someone I just matched with.
Someone who I’ve connected with on dating apps before. Someone who has been rather flaky in the past. Someone who is a model and yes, very very ridiculously good looking (for my Zoolander fans).
So I planned a date with him instead. Just like that I spontaneously made a date with someone new.
Not because I couldn’t be alone on a Monday. Not because I felt rejected from the other cancellation. Simply because I wanted to have fun.
But that didn’t stop the voices in my head from judging the shit out of me.
It felt so weird to do this.
I felt shame because I was going out with someone simply because I found them attractive and wanted to have a fun date. Someone who I probably won’t have a deep relationship with.
I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t follow the plan I had set two week prior and instead went with the unexpected flow that presented itself to me.
But yet I had a great time. There were things about him I enjoyed and some I’m still on the fence about. But still it was a success. Because the only agenda I had was fun.
When I find myself dating because I want to find my next serious long term polyamourous relationship suddenly all the joy and mystery and fun get sucked out leaving a hallow shell of expectations, fear and stress.
And attracting someone awesome from that place isn’t all that effective.
But even though I have a loving committed eight-year relationship with the most amazing man and life partner, I still find myself getting strangled by the choke hold that is the traditional dating agenda.
Meet someone. Fall in love. Move in. Get married. Have babies.
Even though I don’t want most of the above with a new person there is a part of my conditioning that tells me I do and if I don’t I am wrong or bad or slutty.
It’s the classic “looking for my soulmate” curse. Often when I date I find myself whisked away into that starry eyed space where I am looking for someone to fill a void that only I can fill.
For the record I don’t believe there is one soul mate for each of us.
I know, this is shocking (sarcasm dripping from my tongue).
I believe our souls have many mates.
Some are romantic and others are familial and still others are friendship-based. Hell our pets can also be soul mates. They have souls right?
When I was single looking for one mate I often let myself get so caught up in finding “the one” that my agenda blinded me to the reality of so many shitty or simply mismatched relationships because I just wanted someone to wake up on Sunday mornings and go to brunch with.
And I see that energy show up even now that I have my Sunday brunch or beach partner and so much more.
It’s this idea that I am incomplete without the particular kind of relationship I want.
Before it was one. Now it is multiple.
But this is shifting. Or at least it feels like the potential to shift this is there.
It feels like I am on the edge of fully embracing the romantic and sexual life that I want. One that is a combination of deep love and kinky sex and wild fun and awesome connection.
But realizing that not every relationship has to be all of these things.
I’m at an unprecedented place in my life where I am on the verge of many new relationships that hold buckets of unknowns and I’m actually excepting them end enjoying them.
I am not thrusting my expectations on them like a straight jacket and wringing the life out of them before they even have a chance to blossom.
Because I’ve been know to do that. Agendas are intense that way.
My needs are intense in this way too. They dominate situations with a fiery force that often piles demands on the other.
But lately I’ve been working with the radical idea that the needs I thrust on others can perhaps be met by me. THIS is what is changing. This is why my grip is loosening. I am what I am searching for. I’m the key to my own happiness. It’s always been me.
When we can loosen our grip on our agendas and recognize that the love we seek isn’t so perfectly nestled inside life opens a bit more. Constricts a bit less.
It feels good be not be so constricted. Spacious. Free.