Why are you so determined to be into someone who isn’t giving you much to work with?

By Naomi Foster

I have watched my friends fall in love, and they talk about it like it is the greatest thing that has ever happened to them. It’s better than the day that they were born, it’s better than friendship, it’s better than money and it’s something that I’ll understand when I get to that point. They tell me about dates, weekend trips, birthdays, meeting each other’s families, quirky little moments that replay so much they just have to share.They have someone to call when something funny happens at work. They have someone who wants to know how their day went and it’s beautiful.  And I listen because that is what a good friend does. And because I am happy for them. I will always support someone receiving the love that they deserve. 

Then they ask me about my love life.

And I can’t tell whether I want to get hit by a car or get eaten by a shark.

Because what am I supposed to say? That the guy I’ve been talking to and I mostly have sex, but only exclusively between the hours of 10pm and 3am? That when we go out to eat, it isn’t necessarily a date. It’s more or less that he’s hungry, I’m there, and we happen to eat together. He pays and I can tell he would rather split it.  That we don’t have the kind of relationship I would describe with excitement to another person?

The embarrassing part is that when I’m actually in it, I don’t see it that way. It’s actually kind of scary. When I’m attached to someone, you cannot tell me anything. I can turn a handful of inconsistent interactions into a whirlwind romance that I am convinced only we understand. I’ll tell myself that our connection is different. That we are complicated and  other people wouldn’t understand that this is what works for us and that maybe he’ll do better and I’ll do better and we will be happy together, eventually.. In those moments of nauseating lustful psychosis dressed up as romance, I am fully convinced that what looks casual from the outside is actually something much deeper. And then I get out of it.

Suddenly, I can see exactly what everyone else was seeing. The tall man that only ever texts you “scoop?”, is 1.slightly illiterate and 2. Just using you for rides. It does not matter if in between driving him to his errands you two become physically intimate or get food or listen to music. It was in fact a day of me burning gas and him not caring. When you’re in love you do stupid things like excessive pda or matching outfits . When you are in lust, you back pedal and risk losing the next few months or years of your life to someone who hardly sees you as a person.

The man that cannot be bothered to respond to your messages that only works part time and is always on his phone doesn’t hate you. Honestly, it would be easier if he did. The truth is, he simply isn’t thinking about you as you’re thinking about him.. There is no other explanation. He’ll tell you that he is so busy or that he is tired or even that he just didn’t see the message. And of course you will believe him the first few times, despite your common sense crying out. But then you remember that there was a time when he was in active pursuit of you and your body. And he sure responded quickly then.

I had a man tell me to my face, “kissing you feels wrong, but fucking you doesn’t. He said it with a smile, in the same tone you use to tell someone they have food in their teeth. Wrapped up like mummies in the sheets of his queen bed, I prayed that a meteor would take us both out and spare me the embarrassment. His hand lingered on my waist as he awaited my response. He stared. I stared back, tears puddled in the corner of my eyes. My cheeks felt hot and I had forgotten how to speak. My body stiffened as a stream of tears ran down my face. Such a gentleman, he took a puff of his cotton candy vape before wiping my tears. “Maybe I said it weird”, “Naomi, I’m just trying to be honest”, and so on and so forth. I wasn’t even listening. My soul had floated away 3 minutes ago when he said that foolishness. 

 Looking back, I should’ve never spoken to him after that point, but I gave him another chance and a year later, he decided that sleeping with me felt wrong too. But I want to take a second to unpack what he said. A kiss is truly one of the most intimate moments you can have with someone. It’s physically gratifying but not in the same way that penetration is. A kiss is only good if you want it.  A kiss is only good when you care. By saying that kissing felt wrong as opposed to penetrative sex, it suggests that there is a fundamental issue  and lack of connection between one or more parties involved. You can put your dick in anything and it can’t really tell the difference. Sex can exist without intimacy. Kissing exposes that intimacy. The tension is three and  your emotions determine what you do next. A kiss is different, softer, lighter. A kiss from the wrong person is torturous.

 When that guy said that to me years ago, I froze, I cried and I went home. I realized I was merely a vessel, one for him to release frustration and stress. I didn’t know how to fix it. My ego wouldn’t let me walk away and accept the truth which was so explicitly revealed to me in his bed. I spent the next few months trying to get him to change his mind and apologize and say that he wished he never said it. The apology never came and I’ve been living in fear scared that someone else might say that again. I’ve been so focused on hearing that sentence again that I forgot to watch out for the feeling.

The man that only asks for sex, also feels like kissing you is wrong. The man that is never available when you want also feels like kissing you is wrong, It’s not about an actual kiss. Rather the absence of romantic chemistry and intention being a non determining factor for man to decided that he wants to have sex with you. 

Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to have low standards.

It happens incrementally.

You meet someone you really like and you just feel  excited about them. Maybe they’re attractive. Maybe there is chemistry and they make you laugh in a way that makes you feel like you’ve known them forever. And because you want to keep getting to know them, you start making exceptions.

You accept the first canceled plan. Then the second. Possibly the third if enough time passes.

You stop asking why you’ve never actually been taken on a date because you don’t want to seem demanding.The late-night invitations aren’t as they seem,  because the alternative is not seeing that person at all. You tell yourself that sex is part of getting closer and that he relationship that had remained undefined for half a year is still new. Then one day you realize you have been defending the relationship more than enjoying it.

At some point, you stop dating the man in front of you and start dating the version of him you’ve written in your head. And the worst part is that you’re not stupid. You know exactly what you’re doing.

You just don’t want to stop.

There is a particular humiliation in realizing that you spent months trying to turn something into a relationship that the other person never intended to make one. Being alone can feel even worse when everyone around you seems to have someone. Your friends go home to their boyfriends. They have someone to call. Someone is waiting for them. So you stay. 

 It is easy to look back at the things you once tolerated and wonder how you ever accepted them. Everyone becomes an expert on standards once they are in a relationship. And that’s great. I’m happy for them. But I think we can have intelligent conversations about standards without pretending that loneliness doesn’t make them harder to maintain.

Because the standard you have when you are single and freshly recovering from one of these humiliations is not necessarily the standard you maintain when you really, really like somebody.

That’s the part nobody tells you.

I think that is the part people leave out when they talk about standards. It is very easy to tell someone to walk away when you are not the person who has to go home alone afterward.

Everyone becomes the expert on standards once they are in a relationship. They can look back at the things they tolerated and tell you that they would never do that again. And maybe they wouldn’t. But it is different when you are standing in the middle of it, when you actually like the person and walking away means losing the possibility that this could eventually become what you wanted.

That is why standards cannot only be about what you refuse to tolerate.

They have to include what you need in order to feel secure.Your non-negotiables cannot disappear every time you meet someone you really like. You cannot keep rearranging your life around someone because you are afraid that asking for more will make them leave. Eventually, you are no longer making room for someone in your life. You are building your life around their availability.

And I don’t think that makes anyone more desirable. It just makes the imbalance harder to ignore. A person can be kind to you and still not give you the relationship you want. You can have incredible chemistry. You can laugh together. You can have great sex. You can genuinely care about each other. And it can still not be enough. This is also where the comparison starts. You check his Instagram and see that he was capable of taking someone on dates. He planned things for her. He was consistent. Suddenly, the question becomes: Why wasn’t I worth that?

That question has eaten up an embarrassing amount of my own time. Because when someone treats another woman differently, it is very easy to turn their behavior into a measurement of your own value. You start looking for the flaw in yourself. Was she prettier? Easier to love? Less demanding? Did I do something wrong? But his willingness to show up for someone else does not tell me what is wrong with me. Not really.It tells me something about what he was willing to give me.And that leaves me with a much more uncomfortable question: Why was I waiting for someone to choose me when his behavior had already given me an answer? 

You accept the bare minimum because at least he is something. You become emotionally invested in someone who has never actually given you much to build on. The relationship starts living in the spaces between what he does and what you hope he will eventually do.

And that is a terrible place to live.