Sexless In Seattle

Hello friends. I can call you all friends now right? We’ve been together for a time now. How are all of you? Thank you for joining me again. I’m so thankful for all of the love and support I’ve received from those of you who are following my journey. It’s brought so much light and love into my life.

Let’s get into it! One of the things I am learning on this dating journey is, in order to find the person who I feel I’m met to be with I am going to have to have a lot of dates (so many dates) and a lot of experiences both good and bad. I’m also realizing that most of the men I interact with I will only ever go on maybe two dates with or I will only ever be texting them and never have an interaction with them IRL. With that in mind let me tell you about my last, almost, date, we’ll call him Fragile Ego Fred. Fred and I met online (as is the case with all of the men I’ve dated so far) we exchanged numbers and we texted (well he called me out of the blue without a heads up, which I am not a fan of, please text me before you call me) and the texting was a little lacking “hey how are you?” “I’m fine, how are you?” “Weather is nice today isn’t it?” Nothing to write home about (pun intended) but that was because I realized he was a talker on the phone (alright boomer, j/k).

 I set some time aside to chat with him, which was a lovely experience because it let me be very present with the conversation and very tuned into what we were discussing. I learned he was former military who had a short stint as an exotic dancer (oh boy!). He transitioned into being a massage therapist as well as other roles in health and beauty. I also learned that he was only in town for a period of time, which, as an aside, I’ve learned that a lot of men create dating profiles just for travel. No judgement but something you should definitely be aware of on your dating journey. Some of them may travel so much for work that the only way they can date is to travel and date, but some of them may also have more complicated situations at home (if you know what I mean) and it’s important to keep that in mind. Okay, back to the story. So, Fred and I had a great phone conversation. He spoke about how his different jobs working as an exotic dancer and as a hair stylist and beauty expert had given him a different perspective about women and how we are treated in the world. He spoke about his own personal experiences as an exotic dancer, exposed him to being objectified and while it was nowhere near the same as what us women experience, he started to understand how women are treated daily and how it shaped how we move through the world as well as how he views and interacts with women. He actually reminded me of a character from a fantasy book I’m reading now and I really started digging his vibe. Well, we made plans to have a date the day before he was scheduled to go home. I had other plans earlier that day so I told him I would definitely be done after 6pm but I would reach out to him if I was done earlier.

The day of our date comes and I have my plans earlier in the day. I wrap them up pretty early (around 1:00pm) and so I send Fred a text to see if he was interested in meeting earlier. I mentioned we could go grab a bite or even just sight see (seeing as he was not from the area and seemed interested in exploring). He had mentioned to me that he was free all day and so I expected to hear from him but I didn’t. An hour passes then two and I hadn’t heard from him,  so I figured I would reach out to him around 6pm (our original meet up time) and instead take myself out to the movies. I make myself a little sandwich and throw some snacks in a bag, head to the movies (side bar: If you like action and haven’t seen the latest Mission Impossible movie, definitely go check it out). I’m about an hour into the movie, and almost three hours after my text to him, and he calls me on the phone. I obviously can’t answer (I keep my phone silent all the time but my watch vibrated to notify me). He sends me a message saying he’s heading out tomorrow and is ‘running out of time’ and wants to meet in that very moment. Now, I’m at least 40 minutes from him (traffic not withstanding) and I’m in a movie. I discreetly grab my phone and text him that I’m in the middle of something and will call him as soon as possible but I’m open to meeting at the time we originally discussed (6pm). I go back to the movie, which was so entertaining and when I’m ready to leave the theatre I give him a call, 5:30pm, no answer. I walk to my car and start heading home and when I get back to my place I send him a text. An hour later he texts me back telling me he’s, ‘staying in’ now. Okay.

In that moment I realized that although this man seemed to be down to earth, empathetic to other humans and interested in me, I had done the ultimate betrayal. I had bruised his ego. When I told him I was busy and couldn’t talk to him and made him wait (although not intentionally, I was, after all, in a movie) I believe he saw that as a form of disrespect. I imagine he expected me to be waiting for him to reach out to me and for me to “jump” when he called but as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m the star of my dating show. I understand when people are busy or have to cancel or life gets in the way. We all deserve grace in those moments, but I’m not sitting around like Rapunzel waiting for a man to come pull on my hair to get my attention either. I’m living my best life and if you want to be a part of that I will gladly include you but you are not the center of my world. Well, I replied to his message with the understanding that, while unintentional, I had wounded his ego. I apologized for the misunderstanding and sympathized with the fact that it was late (now 7pm) and I understood he had to travel the next morning. I showed gratitude for the conversation we did have because although we didn’t end up meeting, it was a lovely conversation and I truly enjoyed myself.

After some thought this experience had incited some thought in me. I came to a theory that in my experience I was encountering men with two archetypes, that fell under ‘Intention’ and ‘Effort.’ Let’s start with intention; the men I’ve encountered so far have one of two intentions, to get to know me, build a connection and maybe form a more intense relationship or they just want to get physical, pretty standard I think in dating. Now, for effort even easier to understand because the men I am encountering are low effort or high effort. So, what does that mean? It means I am encountering men whose intention it is to get to know me beyond the physical but they are giving low effort energy or men whose intention it is to get physical immediately but they are giving low effort energy. On the other side there are the men who want to get to know a person and give high effort or they just want to get physical and are high effort towards that goal. What ‘effort’ looks like is different for all of us but for me I’m getting a lot of low effort energy across the board.

It actually makes me even more appreciative towards Fragile Ego Fred because he helped me get to this realization, now what will I do with it? I will keep my standards high and be insightful as to what intentions, I believe, a prospective suitor has and be mindful of how much energy he is putting towards whichever goal he is trying to achieve. Ultimately, I am only accepting high effort energy, regardless of the intentions. With all of that said, I continue to move through my dating journey, having fun and shining my light everywhere I go. I am forever grateful to all of you who continue to support me and share my content and with that I remain…

Sexless In Seattle