The Life Of Someone Who’s Always Been Single And How It Works” references personal experiences from coming out by asking Google for a gay quiz, having a roller-coaster type of relationship with a girlfriend, dating straight girls with no attachments and finally ”dating”, and the real meaning of the word, all tied up by friends in couples pressuring singles like me to be in a relationship.
As I get older the more I see my friends partner up and most of them, who once were single for a long time ask me if I’ve ever been in a real relationship, how come I don’t get into one and similar questions. So I decided to write this blog to explain it. I feel it could help someone.
When I was twelve years old I had this friend, let’s call her Lolita. Lolita and I would get together and talk about what we thought sex was like and if it would hurt because all these girls in porn films were always yelling! We fantasized about the time when we’d have boobs and a boyfriend. Her idea of the perfect boyfriend would be someone sensible who’d probably be a musician that would write her love songs all the time, for the most part he’d just sing whatever he needed to say to her, so life would be kind of like a musical. For me it was gonna be a big muscular guy would just do very manly things like bottle up his feelings and fix my car. He’d also have to be okay with my job and let me work, I was gonna be a rockstar so going on tours, signing autographs and going to parties at the playboy mansion would be my lifestyle. In a way I guess you could say I fantasized him being almost an accessory to my happiness and so did she.
We grew up a little bit, she found a romantic drummer to pair up with and started pressuring me into having a boyfriend so we could go out in a group, etc. I said ”yeah sure I’ll get one of those”. I looked around and slowly but surely realized I loved hanging out with guys but I never wanted to kiss them… so I asked Google ”Am I Gay?” and all of the sudden my search results were online gay tests I could take to find out if I was, in fact, a lesbian. So I took about five tests, some of them were stupid and some of them were more in depth, but the most helpful one was a one question quiz; ”What’s your name?”, I typed ”Karina” and then the freakin’ computer replied ”Karina, if you’re taking this test, you’re probably gay.” The question and my acceptance lasted two years and after I was sure of who I was, I went out there and tried to find a girlfriend, I wanted to be in a relationship because everyone else was, and this is how things started getting funky.
When I came out I had no idea a sexual revolution was going on, it was almost like a trend where most girls would say they were bisexual or gay but they weren’t. Boys did it too. So when I started flirting with girls they would flirt back all right, but then they wouldn’t do anything other than that. Accidentally I started dating a friend who I already loved and before I knew it we were in a relationship, a chaotic, dramatic, soon to be long distance relationship trapped in co-dependency of thirds and fourths that led to endless fights, misunderstandings and so forth. Despite the fact that we had our happy moments, there were a lot of terrible moments, and that was because I idealized who I wanted her to be for me and vice-versa. There were tons of times when she would say something, I would respond and all of the sudden she’d be upset, and I didn’t know why the fuck she was so upset. There were also plenty of drunken mistakes, the funniest was one time when we were leaving a party, we got in the car and she asked,
”Who’s that?”
”She’s just some loser that goes to my school”, then I looked out the window and I see my girlfriend with her hands up super pissed. So I turn around and oh, oh… the loser was next to me. I couldn’t stop laughing about my stupid mistake but she didn’t find it funny at all. Despite it all, I loved her with all my heart… so it was only normal that we broke up about five times, spoke about moving in together, said the most hurtful things and the most beautiful things. In the end I ended it because I was frustrated, I felt I wasn’t living my life because I was always worried about hers.
Because of the shortness of this blog, the point of it and my desperate attempt not to get off tangent, I will summarize her chapter by letting you know that she passed away, and it has taken me years to accept that, but it taught me a valuable lesson you will read throughout this entry.
A couple months later I met a girl who we’re gonna call Isabel. She asked me out in a very straightforward way. I found her aggressiveness attractive so I did go out with her. We went to a party in Brooklyn and I drank enough to numb my thoughts and focus on her. Our mechanics were pretty simple, she wanted me and I wanted her, badly. We hooked up and left the party. We went out again but didn’t hook up, I couldn’t. After realizing I wasn’t ready to date I focused on work and school. It took a lot of writing and the analyzation of my own dreams to heal the loss of my best friend/first love to get back in the game. After a year I was back but now everything was different.
In just a year I’d gone from cute little freshmen to hot skinny bitch. I was taking pills because I was under a treatment, I didn’t work out, I smoked a pack a day and my breakfast consisted of coffee and a banana. Apparently my half-dead look was very appealing and so I dated around. In general these girls were straight, looking for some fun time, and so was I, but it wasn’t fun… It would all start and end the same way, at first they would bring it up as a fun idea, then we would hook up, all of the sudden because we hooked up they wanted to confront me all the time about things in my personal life and it would end when it got too suffocating. It didn’t make sense to me because they liked dudes anyway. Then one night at a bar I bumped into a girl who I’d gone out with during this haze,
”So how are you? Still breaking hearts?” she asked coyly.
I remember at the moment I smirked, but then while walking home I thought about how she said that and why she said it. My conclusion was that she was hurt, so I stopped dating for a couple months to find out what I was doing wrong and fix it.
I traveled and opened myself to nature. I studied everything I liked and why, why do I love the ocean? Because it’s massive, powerful, beautiful and I want to be like it. Why do I love stars? Because they’re endless and they hold a lot of moments people mark in their lives, they’re filled with hope. Why do I love the sun? Because it paints the sky, it makes me happy and about 90% of the population in this planet think it’s God, or God’s house I’m not sure. Then finally, why do all these beautiful things exist? By accident. The ocean is melted ice, the stars are pieces of a whole that exploded and the sun is actually one big-ass star. Life is so simple and yet so complicated. You might go across the street and meet someone who you tell a bad joke to and they get it, and you like that, the fact that they understand your language is the sexiest, most attractive thing there is. So I realized that I was being a jerk, that I had trapped my feelings and I needed to get them out there and express them whenever I felt like it, so I guess this part of the blog is called ”How I Became a Hippie”.
When I dug myself out of that hole and got back from China, I had changed, and in less than a week I was dating a girl. Because it does happen, when you’re single and you want to date again you just think it and it occurs. So I met one of my first psychos, let’s call her Anastasia. She was a Russian girl from Brooklyn who taught yoga on the weekends while going to school for History, I think. She lived alllllll the way deep in Brooklyn, close to Coney Island, so Russian. The commute was terrible but I thought well, lemme see how it goes. It went like shit. In less than a week we’d had about five arguments over the most stupid things. One night we were walking back from this awful comedy show and I was hungry so we went to an Indian restaurant even though I said I didn’t want Indian. Once we were there I spent about five minutes looking at the menu because it was just one of those nights when you just don’t want curry. I was about to order something when she said,
”Well let’s just go because clearly you don’t wanna eat here.”
”No it’s fine, I’m gonna get some appetizers.”
”No, let’s go, we’ll find something else.”
”Seriously, I’m gonna get some rolls.”
”Let’s go!” She ordered, stood up and grabbed her big furry Russian coat.
”They already brought the water, let’s just eat!” I said, smiling awkwardly.
”Who gives a shit you don’twanna eat here so let’s GO.” Embarrassed, I left five bucks on the table and left.
The other arguments were similar to this one, I always felt she didn’t even listen to me because she probably was portraying the idea of her ex-girlfriend on me. Still, I gave her one last chance and decided to hang out again but she blew it. At that time I would work more as an editor which means countless hours organizing footage, cutting it and letting it render while I sleep. That particular day I pulled an all-nighter and didn’t go to sleep until 5PM of the following day. I woke up at 11PM, checked my phone and there it was, blasted by missed calls and voice messages from Anastasia. My poor phone’s battery was completely drained, I listened to the voice messages to find out who died, and they went pretty much like this,
1. ”Let me know when you’re off the stop to pick you up.”
2. ”Hey I’m guessing you’re late so let me know when you’re off the train, I’ll be at the deli.”
3. ”Hey um… (crying). I don’t know what’s going on! I thought everything was going so well and I thought you really cared about me and I can’t go through this again and I wanna know what is up with you!!!!”
Holy. Shit. Conclusion, some girls are what I like to call grenade girls, they’re a ticking bomb who’ll destroy whatever’s around them. These girls don’t need girlfriends, they need shrinks. Obviously that ended right then and there. For the record, Anastasia and I only dated for a week.
I took a step back, I was sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong anymore so what was that? That was a trap. You see, since generally most people are nice and enjoy company, they put up with crap like this. Sometimes it’s because of sex, as if you couldn’t find someone else to have sex with. Some other times it’s selfish, it’s because of looks and status. I see it all over my news feed and at parties. Guys smothering their girlfriends, exploiting photos of them kissing in multiple selfies that I still try to find the logic of because they’re kissing while smiling but someone is holding the camera… it just doesn’t make sense! When I kiss someone the last thing that I think of is photography.
So what now? I date, nobody owns my happiness other than myself and only when the time is right I share it and have a great time. This doesn’t mean I sleep around with 10 girls at a time though, like any other date I get to know them and then see if the chemistry is right for anything else to happen and it either is or it isn’t. This allows me to have time for myself without having a guest eating my food, not paying rent.
One last thing, ”love”, that fine wine you keep in your basement, well let’s just say it’s nice to share it whenever you have a nice meal. Otherwise it’s just gonna go bad and when you finally decide to drink the bottle, you’re just gonna get drunk and have a terrible hangover in the morning.
P.S. Wear condoms, take birth control, get tested and remember that toys aren’t just for kids.
Yours truly,
K