#38 Being chosen
making friends with desire
“Will I be in one of your essays?” he asks me, looking at me in the half-lit room, the small lamp on my nightstand cutting a clear line between our faces, covering half our mouths in the dark. “That depends,” I tell him.
I trace it all back. In womanhood, dating is a landmine of mixed and contradicting messaging. Don’t show too much interest too quickly! That might be a bit intense. You might scare him off. Don’t think too much about it! Overthinking is going to make you act a little crazy. Don’t give him what he wants right away — build some kind of tension, some kind of curiosity. Don’t text him! Don’t do it! Wait for hours before you reply! It’s dizzying.
We discussed how we feel about the state of men, of being a man, in today’s world on the train. I say that I think all men really need is a long talk about their feelings, a big hug, the feeling that their feelings matter, to be held. Discussing those feelings, that shared humanity, that’s something he was uncomfortable with - he said so himself - something I forgot about hours later already in the bar, talking about therapy and our parents and how these things sneak up on us; one minute we’re stressed about work and the next we’re unpacking all the tidy boxes of our childhood in a therapist’s office. Him and I laugh about it, the weird echoes of the past and how they’re bound to come up again at some point. He asks me what I am like when I date. I tell him I can get nervous and tend to ruminate. He just listens, and later, asks me if I want to kiss him. I do.
That is the anatomy of a night, at a bar, after some event, isn’t it? There is a thin line between enjoying it for what it is, for what it was, and wishing that it could’ve been different. I remember being younger and wanting so badly to be chosen; to be someone’s daily life, or to be someone’s curiosity, stretched before us, just like mine often was, by a guy I liked. Nowadays I have some sort of measured distance from a moment, even as I am living it - a voice in my head tells me when we’ve gone to sleep, just bask in this moment because it won’t last! It will end. So you better enjoy it now, don’t think about anything else. Just be here.
It’s obvious we do this to protect ourselves, our feelings. Back home now, my oldest sister tells me she feels silly. You all manage to have these flings! Look at me, all I’ve ever had are long, tormented relationships. I tell her it’s not exactly by choice - a romantic relationship isn’t something that you just pick up at the store among the spinach and the celery. It made me think about being chosen and why I think of it as being chosen. It made me think about why that would be such a bad thing - why should it be frowned upon to want to be chosen? Doesn’t everyone want the same thing?
In the end, like it sometimes goes with these things, he disappeared. Social etiquette these days is a flimsy thing. And I’m once again confronted with the same question: is it so wrong to want to be chosen for another moment, or another chance to get to know someone a little bit more? Is it a symptom of wanting something too much, or wanting too much, of something that isn’t able to become something more?
It may be. But it may also be that expecting some sort of acknowledgement that this was a temporary, one-off thing is not an exorbitant demand. Maybe in no man’s land we can at least owe each other that much - skip on the pleasantries and the overly sentimental talk, the showering of compliments that make you feel like there might, just be something there that isn’t only two people who are physically drawn to each other. I never understood the need for all the window dressing of it, the endless complimenting and the dramatics - I’ve been wanting to kiss you all night - what are you doing to me? - and their variations. We could also be together and agree to leave it at that.
I understand, you know: I understand that wanting to be chosen can make us act in ways we didn’t foresee, or make us want to contort into impossible shapes, like maybe if we tried hard enough, we might be.
I don’t debate that reality, because I’ve been in it before. I think what I debate is that part right after - the part where you can choose to ask a question, would you want to see me again? And then, out of a yes/no question, no answer comes at all. Silence. See, that is the part that makes the moment before it turn a little sour. A little tinge of bitter taste in your mouth after having really delicious ice cream. And so this essay isn’t even about him. It’s not even about being left hung up to dry hoping that I’ll get some kind of response back. It’s about that little desire to be chosen and how women tend to put each other down for having that desire, as if wanting to be chosen is a crime. As if you shouldn’t want it because who is he, anyway and you need to have higher standards.
A lot of the talk surrounding dating and romance is so much about another bid for control rather than connection. So many different tests and mating dances and assumptions, it’s like trying to trap each other in a relationship that is full of attempts for control. Loving is easy. Romance is easy. I want it to be! When I talk, I say what I mean. And I want to be able to expect the same in return, instead of this weird self-inflicted protection measure of you never know, he says that now but he might not mean any of it! Don’t hang on to a single word, don’t dwell on it!
You know, it would be okay if you did. It would be okay if you hung on to every word he said about your smile or how interesting you are or how you should celebrate yourself more. Those things won’t stop being true; not even after the moment in which he ended up choosing to vanish. And there are, I’m afraid, a lot of vanishing acts. It’s weird: in the pursuit of connection, sometimes the least scary thing is the physical plane of it. Someone can learn all your corners and softness one evening, and you can just enjoy it for what it is. That isn’t the part that’s surprising about it.
There is something to be said for enjoying something, appreciating it, and still living with the feeling that you wanted more. It’s not a sin to want more. Lay down all your wretched monologues about how you should want less, so that if you don’t get anything, you won’t be ruined. Lay down all your sins about how you want to be chosen for more than a few moments. Lay down all the little pains about enjoying something and wondering if you shouldn’t have given someone access to you for fear of what could’ve happened after — there was nothing to be done after. There is only now.
There is only now. Choose your desires, even if they weren’t met after that one time. Choose yourself.
