22. Under His Spell
Isn't it just so painfully annoying? You are single for a long time and live peacefully, there's nothing wrong with you or your life. Then someone special comes in to dominate a short chapter of your story, brings a huge tsunami with himself, and then leaves. And when he does that, when it happens, all you feel is emptiness. Forgetting that somehow you survived years or decades without him. That before he arrived, you were perfectly fine. Now it's like - what the hell we gonna do now?
Since you could taste heaven for some time, worldly pleasures are not enough anymore. You lived back then, when single, but what kind of life was it, if now you know the difference, how it feels to be desired and to desire someone, too? Nothing is good enough, now. Until you move on and forget him, when you can finally enjoy being alone again, and have no problems such as He's acting strange today, why? or He read my messages, saw my stories on Instagram, but didn't reply to me for hours, WHY?
Being single is peaceful, you have no headache from annoying men in your life. There is no drama. No need to smell his farts or actually see and hear him doing it right next to you. The only mess in your flat is the one you did (or your flatmates you'd love to murder on a daily basis). You don't have to figure out what the hell does he mean, how to read his mixed signals. It's just you, your daily activities, tear-jerking Grey's Anatomy episodes and your friends. But, as you already tasted this little piece of paradise and now know how it feels, you want more.
Of course, I'm not talking about the situation where you were in a long-term relationship that was so shitty it feels like a relief to get out of it. That you actually couldn't wait to do what single people do. To party, to date and taste new men, to get disappointed again, and again. No, I'm talking about being single and longing for something deep in your heart, getting it and then losing it soon after.
The only thing I wanted to do, was, once again, to find his replacement. Unfortunately, Frank set the bar a bit higher. So now when I was talking to all the guys with personality of a carrot, I was getting more and more disappointed and frustrated. Another thing - something I didn't even know you can get, or maybe just thought I'm immune to this issue. I got scared of going to dates again. Right after all this drama with Frank, I ignored, ghosted or cancelled on three guys, as I explained in my previous post. Then I wasn't much interested in talking to someone new, had a small break for a month or so, got back to Tinder and... once again I couldn't force myself to go on a date, when the opportunity arrived.
Not to mention how annoying was the whole process. I couldn't stop myself from comparing all those boring guys to him, from appreciating now what he was doing to me. How interested he was in me. Now I was surrounded by a bunch of zombies with no life force in them. No bios, no interesting qualities about them, nothing. I asked one guy how was his morning, he replied: Bad, I just buried the love of my life yesterday, my woman for 16 years. I was speechless. Said I'm sorry, then he added: She had a metastatic brain cancer.
What the hell? Or guys simply replying to my questions and not bothering to ask me anything. Tinder is a hellhole. Dante had it in mind when he was writing Divine Comedy, I'm sure of that. I asked another guy what's his plan for the day of the pride parade, he replied: I'm gonna go to the club and unfasten my butt for the tops. Lovely! It was just horrible, but at least this time I wasn't so naive to date those morons and check them out in reality, because you never know. You do know, you don't need to smell shit to know it stinks.
But finally someone emerged from this pile of trash, after a while. There was one candidate, ten years older than me, diabolically handsome, bright blue eyes, tattoos everywhere, a house in Spain. He was an artist having an exhibition there as well, but living in Warsaw at the moment. We had a long chat one Monday and it was so great we set the date for Wednesday. I got a bit scared he will be similar to one guy I met last year, who was telling me how amazing, intelligent and charismatic he was. I could sense a similar vibe here.
And his followers were mostly "artistic" gays who believe that posting everything on Instagram in monochrome makes them very artsy. The kind of guys that would post a picture of a vase with one flower in it, and the newest issue of Vogue Poland next to it, you get the picture. So to be honest, completely not my tribe. Also during our chat he mentioned that people nowadays don't want to go on dates. That seemed quite weird to me, as usually I didn't have any problems with that. The problem was maybe more in the dates themselves, as they were mostly shitty, but I couldn't relate to what he was saying. Until I could.
Even though I knew we are completely different, I wanted to give him a chance and see if he will be full of himself in reality, but we never met. On Tuesday I texted him something random, just to keep in touch, but he only replied to my messages and wasn't interested in continuing the talk. So I backed off and then we didn't talk at all. On Wednesday I was so irrationally angry and just wanted to cancel this date or stood him up. Everything inside of me was screaming to not go out with him, so I gave him (in my head) a deadline, as we were supposed to meet at 7pm, I gave him time until 5pm to text and check if we're still going on a date.
That's what people do nowadays, if you don't, there won't be any meeting or a date. Or in most cases people still talk normally so there is no need to do that, because it's natural, and you joke or talk about seeing each other in a minute. In this case we had this dead silence so I took a nap at 5pm since there was nothing from him, and woke up to his text, maybe 10 minutes before the planned date. He lived right next to the restaurant where he wanted to meet, so I knew he texted me when he was about to leave his flat. Asked if I'm ready. Obviously I wasn’t.
Then sent me some question marks after 7pm and after a while the last text: Not nice dude, but what can I say, Tinder :). And blocked me on Instagram. But forgot to unmatch on Tinder, so I sent him there a message shortly explaining what happened from my point of view and that now I understand why people don't want to go on dates with him.
Sure, I didn't like the idea of talking to someone once, setting a date in the future and then not talking to them for days until the date happened. But mostly I'm afraid something was happening with me after the story with Frank. I could see the history repeating itself, as after the Eastern Slavs last year I was also merciless to all my new dates and could cut them off immediately for any mistake or ick that they gave me.
You told me you don't go to the gay clubs, but then you were bragging how you enjoyed my favourite club and said you went there with another date? You're out. You try to sext too much? Gone. You'd like to form a textationship and only have someone to text whenever you're bored? Bye-bye. One too many spelling or grammar mistake? Wtf you mean you wont me? Off with his head.
And I think I got scared of dating again. I went on so many dates in my life. I know I seem like a shallow monster that judges their looks or would love to be with a big guy of certain qualities, but I can't even count how many times I met with guys I wasn't attracted to. Because there was something in our chat or we simply had a great fun while talking, or there was never enough topics for us to talk about. Or simply I wanted to give them a chance. And guess what? IT NEVER WORKED OUT. So maybe I was scared of wasting more time and money on pointless dates. Anyway those guys won't become my new friends if we don't click, it doesn't work like that anymore.
Not to mention that if you give a mediocre guy a chance, he will start acting like you're the mediocre one. Because men are mostly the same, selfish creatures. But then another one came my way, someone I already talked to before a few times. And I knew I shouldn't be doing it, because life proved to me that if you stopped talking to someone, there must have been a reason for that. Sure, sometimes it's because a more interesting guy came and swept you off your feet, but then again, if the first one didn't do it, it should already mean something to you.
I can't even remember how many guys I talked to a few times, again and again, naively believing that maybe this time it will work out or perhaps it was just a stupid mistake that we didn't meet the last time. And every time I was doing it, the Universe proved to me that reviving corpses from my archive of unsuccessful dates/chats is not a good idea, because once again it didn't work out. You stopped talking to them for some reason and this reason is still there, even if you're not aware of its existence at first.
So I gave a chance this guy once again, even though we talked a few times a year ago and some months ago again. This time it was quite good - maybe none of us had any other interesting options, so both of us focused fully on each other. We couldn't stop talking. But not in a way like with Frank, this time it was more like an exchange of boring information such as movies, dogs, past dates. Frank started flirting with me from the very beginning and I should have known back then that he likes me already before we even met. This guy however... was just meh. Okay kinda meh.
We met at last, went on a date. But once again I almost cancelled it, started panicking at home, anxiety level was as high as a skyscraper. I was scared he won't like me or find me unattractive. What if he sees me and says: No, sorry, can't do that? I couldn't calm down, but went out and when I saw him, with disappointment and relief I discovered he looked better on the pictures. But went along and talked to him for a few hours, we drunk some beers, so of course we both got more confident and talkative. Unfortunately, usually when I'm not attracted to someone and don't feel that spark, I start talking their ears off.
Then he got a bit touchy, trying to ask about my necklace or my shirt or something, walked with me to the metro and that's when it should be finished. It felt good in general, to be still liked. One or two (okay one was really weird and short) guys at the bar kept staring at me as well, so I felt like a peacock. What about my guy? We still talked a bit afterwards, made sure there will be a second date - he asked about it. I started to think it was actually pretty great, but when the alcohol disappeared from my body the next day, I had to admit it was only that.
We didn't click, I wasn't into him. But, as they say recently - you can't fall for the spark, you can't wait for this click, you need to go on a second date with someone you didn't like that much the first time. Why? Because when you click with someone and there is this strong chemistry, when you have this weird feeling like you know them already, apparently those are reminders of your past trauma. And your subconsciousness wants to fix this issue from your past, to make it right this time. That's why we are so driven to be with such person, to make it good, to make it work this time.
Apparently that's the thing we should avoid now, this spark. And go for the guy we didn't click with, because you never know, you might get to know him better on your second date, maybe he was just shy, maybe later on it will get better. Mhm, sure, that's how all the relationships start, don't they? We stopped talking maybe two days after our date, that's it. Just one day we didn't text each other at all. He still watches my stories on Instagram, though, but became another guy without a name and a face in my story.
The last member of this club was Peter, a very handsome traveller, with whom I already talked a year ago on Bumble. It was nice back then, we already planned a date, but then we wanted to move to Instagram and he sent me a message, that he is concerned I'm not smiling on any of my photos, so maybe we should take a rain check. I checked and counted on how many photos I'm smiling, told him so and added I'm not so interested in talking to him anymore and removed our match.
Then he texted me on OkCupid in December, and I saw it a few months later, because I simply forgot I have an account there. When I saw his text, it was already too late. And recently we matched again on Bumble. He said that maybe this time we will manage to meet, with a smile. So we talked again, quickly he became my number one candidate and a strong one, too. He could replace Frank easily. Much more handsome, muscular as well, travelling the world constantly. Seemed humble and kind. But.
And it's a big but. We talked once or twice a day, as he was replying after 10-15h. Then we moved to Instagram and I could see he's actually reading my texts quite soon, it's the replying part that was the problem. He'd see my stories almost immediately, so I knew the lack of time wasn't the problem here. But I was trying to train my patience and tried to ignore the fact he was constantly leaving me on read. We even had a call, since he couldn't see me that soon (travelling basically every other day). He sounded a bit gayish, or maybe it was the fact he grew up in Germany and sounded more like a foreigner, than a Polish guy. Either way, we kept on talking like that, until one day I got annoyed and couldn’t stand his behaviour anymore.
So I just sent him a message and said I'm not interested or turned on by this thing and unfortunately this time we won't meet and hopefully there won't be another pointless attempt. He read it immediately and replied with a shocked emoji. That's the end of the story with Peter, I hope. He only added another brick to the wall I started to build around myself. And my irritation caused by men has increased significantly, thanks to him.
I don't know what's wrong. Maybe it's just way too early. Some head specialist on Instagram said we need at least 3 months for the chemistry of our brain to change after losing someone. That until it happens we will be stuck with the guy that just left. But the whole thing with Frank lasted for a month, including all those times we were trying to renew the contact. It was short, it was nothing, I should forget about it already. But it seems like I just can't. And as I was trying to find someone else, but only ended up cutting all of those guys off or simply ghosting them, finally I had to ask myself a question - are they really all that horrible, or is it the fact that none of them was him.
I’m trying really hard to avoid seeing him as one of my mistakes. But can't deny this whole thing recently is doing my head in. Need to remember, that even if such mistakes are not giving us any great lessons, even if they don’t lead to a good thing immediately, they are a part of our history. Frustrating, tremendously annoying, but necessary. We are only humans, we change constantly, just like seasons. We don't know the future, we can't say when our life will change a tiny bit, when something good will happen, maybe that's why being stuck in this "in between" is even more annoying. But maybe, hopefully, meeting such monsters allows us to appreciate more all the good people we already have in our life. Or the ones that are about to come.