Sometimes I can’t tell if the rest of you are better at love and relationships than I am or if you’re just more delusional.

I just constantly see all of you talking about your relationships like you fell out of a rom com, and I’m like, “I tried that and all I got was ghosted and abuse and now I’m very very guarded and cautious?”

The good thing about dating in a pandemic is that it forces me to take things slow and be mindful in a way I’ve never been before. But the bad thing is that it sucks to wake up thinking things like, “Do I like this person, or am I just addicted to the idea of being in love?”

The majority of my long term relationships started with me telling the person I didn’t want a relationship; I used to think that that denial of want allowed me to relax to the point where a relationship was possible — that the hunger was self sabotaging.

Not that I was doing that in a strategic way or anything: in all of those cases, I started out convinced that I didn’t want a relationship, and then I fell for the person and got swept up in my ideas of love and commitment and just kinda went for it.

The thing that’s been interesting about dating as a consciously self-partnered person, and dating during a pandemic even more so, is that there are additional breaks put on things that stop that acceleration and allow me to observe it in motion.

The first person I dated after my big breakup in 2019... even as I went in resisting the urge to build my life around them, I still saw myself falling into old patterns of fixating and focus. And thankfully they were in a place that put the breaks on that as well.

Because after a few months, some of the escalation that had felt necessary and desirable two months in — I was just really glad I hadn’t indulged it. And it caused me to reflect even further on how I confuse infatuation for love and get myself trapped.

Anyway I want to be clear that none of this is me saying, “The abstinence people were right! Don’t fuck on the first date!”, because, whatever, who cares, live your life.

But I am saying that the narrative of instant connection and passion has been harmful to me.

And in some ways the anhedonia of the pandemic has been a good way of reassessing things for myself and being intentional about who I pursue things with.

Anyway this thread was sparked by someone saying if you tell people you want “no expectations” you’re a bad partner and me being like... but my only expectation is honesty and respect