Going through dating profiles is like reading the same book over and over again. Everyone is happy and loves to laugh. Everyone likes beer and coffee and rain. They all spend their weekends hiking and camping. They’re all gentlemen from the Midwest who dislike drama and are on the lookout for a sweet girl.
On the dating site, I tell charming stories about setting off the smoke detector whenever I attempt to cook and spilling coffee on my shirt daily. I join the masses in declaring my love for Happy Hour and brunch on Sundays. I am bombarded with responses from men who claim they’ve found their dream girl.
I go on one of these dates, and the guy treats it like a job interview. He asks me how much I make; he asks me how much I weigh. On another date, the architect-who-runs-marathons brings me cupcakes and tailors our outings around the interests I list on my profile. It is sweet and awkward and overwhelming. There’s the lawyer who holds me hostage in a never-ending game of pool. The Minnesota transplant whose ability to avoid eye contact throughout our entire conversation at Powell’s is nothing short of incredible. The list goes on.
Each night, the same thought arrives: I could be home right now. I could be watching The Voice and eating veggie pot pie.
“Nobody goes on Facebook to announce he has herpes.” The author Jess Walter said this recently, while sitting on a panel at a literary conference in Portland. He was talking about the narrative of social media, the way we craft our Facebook stories to present only the best versions of ourselves. The men on this dating site are presenting their best versions, and I’m presenting my best, and I am bored. I’m growing wary of the narrative, especially the one I tell about myself.
I try to present myself the same in-person as I do on my profile: quirky and charming and a little aloof. As if this tells my whole story. As if comparing myself to a Zooey Deschanel character is all that’s needed to encapsulate who I am: cupcakes and dresses with boots and awkward asides. This is how I’m supposed to present myself. Telling the truth—about my insomnia and depression and inability to feel normal—would be ridiculous.
In spite of my own truth, I expect my online match to be as predictable as his profile. He’ll be from the Midwest, just like the last guy I dated. He’ll be a photographer, too. That’s where the similarities end. He’ll be a salesman, and a very good one. He’ll own a condo overlooking the soccer field. The groceries in his fridge will be organic. He’ll own a fancy coffee maker.
I’ll like him for reasons that have nothing and everything to do with him. I’ll like him for the tiny wooden spoon he uses to sprinkle sea salt on his eggs. I’ll like him for his clean bathroom and his Tom’s toothpaste and the neat rows of shoes in his closet.
My therapist encouraged me to join an online dating site after I spent too much time processing the breakup from the last Midwestern photographer, the writer I met in graduate school. He had a broken vacuum cleaner and no dishwasher. He had mold in his fridge. He had enough fiction on his shelves to fill a small bookstore. I loved him for years, until he decided he loved someone else.
“Wait. I’m not telling you the truth here.” A resident says this to me at the retirement center where I work. He tells me that his youngest daughter is dead, and then he backtracks. “She didn’t die,” he says. “I don’t know how to tell you this.” And then he tells me the real story: His daughter joined a cult and moved with a man and several other women to New York. This was over thirty years ago; he never heard from her again.
My truth unravels, too. I didn’t actually love the writer from grad school for years. I loved the man I thought he would become. This is the most dangerous type of love because it’s not real. It’s the equivalent of lusting after a celebrity or having a crush on someone from afar.
Sometimes the lies feel more like truths than the truths. For all intents and purposes, my resident’s daughter is dead. My Midwestern writer is dead, too. I’m not sad he’s gone. I’m sad that the man I thought he was is gone, and worse yet, that he never existed. I’m sad that the person he thought I was, endlessly nice and bubbly and pliable, never existed either.
I stand up my therapist one day. I decide I’m finished. It’s not that I don’t need him—I’m still processing the breakup and my grandmother’s death and the fact that I’m thirty and me—but I can’t be honest with him. I hear myself telling him the things I know he wants to hear. About moving on and feeling better and spending less time crying in my car. He buys the lies, and I realize I’m wasting my money.
When I don’t show up, he calls me three times. He sends a bill to my house with a handwritten note, asking me to call him back. I pay the bill, but I don’t call. I think blowing someone off is the worst thing I could do; I do it anyway.
“Wait, I’m not telling you the truth here,” I want to tell the guys on the dating site. I want to remove the picture my hairdresser took moments after my last haircut and replace it with one of me on a camping trip, unshowered and wearing a red hat. I want to talk about being unable to face my own therapist. I want to tell them I haven’t slept in my bed in weeks. I washed my sheets and started to put them back on, only to get exhausted halfway through and stop, laziness leading me to the couch instead.
Even that’s a lie. I don’t sleep on my couch because I’m lazy. I sleep on my couch because my big, empty bed makes me ache with loneliness and I’d rather use it as a receptacle for laundry than a place to rest my head.
I can wrap my story in a glossy package. I can make myself sound fun, but I’m no more or less fun than any Midwestern photographer who wears plaid and looks sincere but doesn’t really give a shit about anything I have to say. Fun is the story we tell the world when we post our vacation photos and describe the epic meals we consume, but fun is not my truth.
My grandpa doesn’t remember how to eat. When my dad and I bring him lunch at his skilled nursing unit, he picks up his fork and examines it curiously. He holds it up to his head, ready to rake it through what’s left of his wispy white hair. My grandfather is 93 years old, and lately he has morphed into Ariel from The Little Mermaid, not a trace of recognition registering on his face as he takes in the everyday items around him with childlike wonder. Look at this stuff. Isn’t it neat? He stacks the strawberries on his plate into a pyramid and howls like a rabid coyote when he hears a nearby phone ring. The napkin tucked into the collar of his shirt finds its way to his head, an impromptu hat for a man who’d rather play cards with his grilled cheese than eat his grilled cheese.
Loving someone with dementia is complicated, because it involves loving a person who is a different version of the person he once was.
Dating is complicated, too, because it involves liking a person who is a different version of the person he will be.
Just as I did with my therapist, the date he recommended I take blew me off. We went out for dinner once. We talked for four hours and split dessert. He texted me as I drove home and asked when he could see me again. I felt happy for the first time in months.
I met him for drinks with his friends. They went their separate ways and we walked to a new bar. We stayed until it shut down, and then walked to where he lived. His condo, with its grand windows lending a sweeping view of the Portland cityscape I rarely got to see, awakened me. I lived and worked in the suburbs. I lived in a state of This Will Do For Now.
His house sparkled. His life sparkled. I thought of him and his sparkling life while he visited a friend in Tokyo. For a moment I believed that things were exactly as they appeared to be.
My coworkers and I ate our lunch on the patio, soaking in the last sunny days before autumn took its turn. We swatted at bees and talked about men. Cautionary tales abounded: husbands leaving after years of marriage, friends whose infidelities tainted everything. I felt the weight of their optimism as they shifted their focus to me: the youngest of the group, the single one, the one most likely to meet someone who could potentially change everything.
“Actually, I did meet someone interesting,” I heard myself say aloud, and immediately wished I could retreat. These were not the type of women who take such a comment lightly. One started humming the wedding march.
Why did I mention him? I knew I’d never hear from him again. I knew he’d go to Tokyo, and return to Portland without a trace. I knew the texts would stop, and the emails, too. I knew I’d never see his ninth floor condo again.
While he was in Tokyo, I thought about his ironing board. It was the first thing I saw when we walked through his door, our bodies fueled by vodka and champagne, moments after being unable to stop ourselves from kissing on the elevator. My last boyfriend neither owned an ironing board nor understood how to use a trashcan. This man’s perfect ironing board and perfect house made me want to do wonderfully imperfect things to him. Everything about him turned me on: his smooth skin, the way he whispered words on my neck, his ability to slice a sweet potato into perfect cubes while making a breakfast scramble. These were the things I thought about while he was away.
On our last date before his departure, I exhibited Herculean restraint and kept my clothes on, though sex was so close I could nearly taste it. I was trying to be—what? Good? Proper? I was trying to be the type of person who was likely to be called back. I was trying to be more thoughtful. Less instinctual. My instincts often led me astray.
I knew nothing about him, but I mapped the various ways I might fit into his life. I made assumptions based on his books and the state of his kitchen. I could see us together forever, and I pretended this idea wasn’t absurd.
I never knew my ex, either. He spent most of our relationship voicing miserable discontent and I attempted to offer solutions instead of accepting the truth: he’d never be happy with me, and I’d never be happy with him. When my grandma was days from death, I was sick of hearing him tell me he was sorry, or telling me everything was going to be okay, or changing the subject, or trying to make me laugh.
“Just be here for me,” I said.
“Does that mean sitting here and listening to you cry?” he said.
That’s exactly what it meant. I wish he’d known me well enough not to have to ask.
I didn’t know the man I was with for years. And though I see the pictures of their gleaming engagement rings and smiling kids, lately I feel like I don’t know my friends. I only know the personas we’ve created.
I buy an extra toothbrush. I don’t know why. I’ve been single for almost a year. Sometimes I’ll sleep with my laundry on the bed. It makes the bed feel warmer, fuller. I’ll wake up with a pair of pants on my face, a shirt flung over my body.
In my solitude, I wonder about the reasons I am alone. Am I too fat? Too boring? Too weak? Maybe they think I’m too—what? The worst thing about a blank slate is everything we write onto it. We carry our best selves into public and our worst selves into solitude.
In my solitude, I wallow in my loneliness. I eat macaroni out of a box, as if I’m not worth the effort of real cooking. I set the smoke detector off and a scene from a charming sitcom does not unfold; instead, I stand cursing, groaning, irritated.
This is the most me I’ll ever be, and it’s the me I work carefully at concealing.
I’d like to meet someone who likes beer and coffee and rain and camping and brunch and smiling, but more than that, I want to know someone. I want someone to know me. I want someone to peel off my persona, see the madness behind my silliness, and like me anyway—not just in spite of my truth, but because of it.
***
Rumpus original art by Rob Kimmel.
42 responses
Love this.
Wow, that was some powerful writing!
“I knew nothing about him but I mapped the various ways I would fit into his life.” So good.
I am orignally from the midwest, a photographer who is a salesperson in real life. I have a fridge full of organic groceries and a new fancy coffee maker i dont know how to properly use. Sadly no condo across from a soccer field. Ahh, so close. The search for Mr. Right must continue.
a wonderful essay, again showing me that Rumpus publishes great young writers! I enjoyed and felt sad about this. I get so bored tired about innet dating, like you everyone is happy and wants to laugh. Everyone including me write how happy they are, how they love to have fun. I look forward to reading future stories by you. I think you are a very good writer.
Thank you Kristen, this is really beautiful. You said a lot of things that I feel but haven’t been able to put into words. I’m really glad to have found your work and will be following your blog from now on. THis essay touched my heart and made my day.
I found your essay via Cheryl Strayed on Facebook. Can’t even begin to tell you how much I loved it. I know you’ll think I’m crazy, but I know the man you should know who will know you. I know it. He lives in Mount Vernon, Washington (not too far from Portland) and is a writer as well. To show you I’m not crazy–I’m a former student of Cheryl’s, a writer not of your stature, but I’m trying. Also a former 34-year high school English teacher. (Perhaps that doesn’t show that I’m not crazy.) You really need to meet my friend!
I loved, loved, loved this essay–everything about it. It certainly hits close to home in a lot of ways. And the entire time I was thinking, “I wish I knew Kristen in real life.” Then, I read her bio and realized we both received our BFAs from Emerson. So close and yet so far.
Looking forward to reading more from you soon, Kristen. xo
Great article. Once again Rumpus cheers me up by posting something honest and relatable, with artwork to make me smirk. After years of self molding I still find it easier to say I like rain than be honest and say, “I like rain because it doesn’t mock me when I feel gloomy.”
Beautiful. What an evocative writer you are; able to communicate thoughts and feelings we’ve all had but haven’t necessarily been able to articulate. That’s actually the idea I’d like to offer you; we all are imperfect, would like to portray a more highly evolved version of ourselves, or a more glamorous one, but fact is we’re flawed, occasionally boring, sometimes witty, infrequently mesmerizing, and unbeknownst-to-us charming and lovely in our own way. In my own life, I have enjoyed/tolerated/lived through/reveled in a number of longish-term relationships, and have come to believe that we’re at our best and most happiest when we can enjoy what we’re in without planning for an endgame. My marriage was unhappy and I ended it quickly; being lonely, to me, is far preferable to being miserable with an ill-matched partner. Since then, I’ve experienced “Love” with other men with whom I laughed, cried, learned, and grown, and in each, I have found happiness. Please keep writing amd do so as soon as possible so we can absorb more of your straight-to-the-heart phraseology!
Wow, beautifully written by a beautiful girl. Unfortunately, from someone probably twice your age, it only gets worse as you get older.
This essay pleases me. I recently some kind of transformative experience that’s inspired me to stop trying to project an image and just accept things as they are and try to be happy with it and love who I love and just be me. Now if only I could get everyone else to come along with me.
This is the best thing I’ve read in a long, long time, and I find myself agreeing and relating to nearly every sentiment. You’re a badass, truly.
Well fucking done. Really liked this essay, Kristen.
And it doesn’t get any better once you’ve been through a marriage and reluctantly resume looking for “the true one”. Let’s face it – on-line dating sets people up for disappointment. Who in the world can compete with the fantasized version of themselves? The problem is, if you present yourself as you truly are (or mostly anyway), all the other folks have posted their pretty pictures/profiles that are so much more enticing. And…. we all want so badly to believe those beautiful people are truly out there waiting to make us feel we’re worthy and one of them (all the while knowing we’re ALL full of it!)
It’s interesting; I do so agree with what all of you excellent commentators are saying. At the same time, I have a confession to make: I did a very quick one month of online dating this summer, dated copiously over that four-week period, and …gulp…met someone special. Frankly, it’s someone who adheres to the oh-so-rare ‘what you see is what you get’ M.O., which, as Tim stated as well, is my M.O. now too (and was during that 1-month dating whirlwind). To be clear, my motivation for joining an online site was to date, not to get married. And yet I’ve found something/someone I didn’t even truly know I was seeking. Bottom line: please, stay hopeful, but also enjoy the every day as much as possible, trite as it sounds, because there IS magic in the details, whether ‘alone’ or coupled up.
Being single for almost a year is not really that long. Solitude can be good for you.
It sounds to me like your grandfather is having fun. I mean, I have often felt the same about my grilled cheese. No joke.
I’m a hermit. I do know what it’s like to want to be deliberate, specific to someone, hell, to myself. To know that the next person really wants the same, or that I can safely assume so. I don’t think my solution is the best for everyone, but it works for me.
This, what you wrote, is lovely. To me, this is steps, and steps are far more useful than conclusions, wouldn’t most folks agree?
This is an honest and beautiful essay. Thank you.
Breathtaking. A masterful presentation of an achingly painful topic. The reader can taste the disappointment, see the heartache and only hope for a positive outcome. Thank you for digging deep within yourself and sharing this emotional saga. I am betting your therapist would find this essay to be the ultimate form of self-help. You mention truth in this piece; I think your truth in sharing your message is simply spectacular. Thank you.
this really hit me in a good way.
Thanks for writing. So beautiful and touching, I feel like we just hung out for a little while.
You should check out the personal ads in the ‘London Review of Books’, which are famous in their refusal to stick to dating profile norms (and can be sample in two books: ‘They Call Me Naughty Lola’ and ‘Sexually, I’m More of a Switzerland’). Sample ad:
“Found love yet? Console yourself with our range of fabulous fitted wardrobes… Write for free catalogue to desperate salesman, 44, divorced, no access to the kids, sleeping in his mother’s Astra. Box no.xx”
Or: ‘List your ten favourite albums … I just want to know if there’s anything worth keeping when we finally break up. Practical, forward thinking man, 35.’
(And when I say ‘You should check out …’, I mean ‘you’ plural, Rumpus readers, and for laughs. I’m not presuming to offer dating advice to the author, just in case that wasn’t clear.)
What a fantastic piece of writing, Kristen. Thank you for being so brave and honest. You have so many beautiful, killer lines in here, including “We carry our best selves into public and our worst selves into solitude.” You are already beautiful, my dear, and we who love you and your writing know that. xoxo, Stephanie
I love this for its refreshing honesty, and for the image I won’t soon forget of waking up, alone, strewn with laundry. Beautifully done.
These are the sweetest, kindest, most thoughtful and generous comments. Thank you. I want to invite you all over for a big laundry-folding, veggie pot pie-eating party. It was scary to put such an intensely personal essay out into the world, but I love hearing that it’s resonating with people. Thank you for letting me know it’s resonating. Thank you for having such kind things to say. Have I mentioned thank you? It’s an honor to be part of The Rumpus community, and it’s an honor to read these incredible comments.
K, dear friend. Loved every word. You are so talented!!!!!
“I met him for drinks with his friends. They went their separate ways and we walked to a new bar. We stayed until it shut down, and then walked to where he lived. His condo, with its grand windows lending a sweeping view of the Portland cityscape I rarely got to see, awakened me. I lived and worked in the suburbs. I lived in a state of This Will Do For Now.”
I lost my grandmother three years ago next month. She was more of a mother to me than my actual, mentally ill, mom. A mere three weeks after my gram died, my live-in boyfriend of four years left me. I had never felt so alone and because of this your words truly resonated with me. Thank you.
Thanks for writing this; its both searing and refreshing. You’re more normal than you know.
A thoughtful, well-written piece, though I fear it may be as affected as it is affecting. A case of á¼Î²Î¿Ï…λήθην γÏάψαι τὸν λόγον ἙλÎνης μὲν á¼Î³ÎºÏŽÎ¼Î¹Î¿Î½, á¼Î¼á½¸Î½ δὲ παίγνιον, perhaps!
Thank you! I was so inspired by your piece that I just wrote my own essay on my blog : ) Check it out! Thank you SO much– I feel liberated, bare, and more honest. Merry Christmas!
http://ctprice.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/scared-of-the-truth-or-why-i-would-rather-weave-myself-into-a-comfy-web-of-bullsht-then-face-who-i-am-and-how-i-feel/
You need a cat. Or maybe a dog if you want to get out more, like to dog parks or Petsmart. Hugging my cat makes so many things better.
Wonderful.
Great piece. Powerful stuff. Thank you.
I love this piece, Kristen, and I love your honesty. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Lovely, lovely. Thank you.
Lovely.
“I loved the man I thought he would become.”
Particularly painful and lovely.
Powerful. I can taste your depression. Sweet child, go camping with the next guy, spend five days or ten days in the wilderness together — you will learn who you are and who he is. Sit in gritty hot springs, sleep under the stars, howl at the moon, roast marshmallows over a five and drink beer together. Be alive.
breathtaking. absolutely breathtaking. you’ve managed to sum up the past year of my life.
thank you for this. I gave up sleeping in my bed too and I use it for laundry too, which is kind of incredible. It’s useless to pretend we don’t need somebody to know us. and unfortunately honesty, like yours in this piece, doesn’t always pay back. in my case the alternative is not to make up another persona who would be more ‘likable’ or ‘appropriate’ but I just shut down and stop communicating at the point that I spend so much time with myself, that I don’t know who I am anymore, and all things ordinary like sleeping your bed just seem superfluous. for me, it’s an externalization derived from depression. I think.
and I also think your honesty is beautiful and you will find someone who will embrace it and adore YOU.
I loved this! Thank you! I can’t wait to read more from you Kristen Forbes!
As always, Kristen, your writing is powerful. This piece has an especially raw, yet refreshing aspect to it and I loved it!
I posted your essay 3 years ago today… It popped into my feed this morning after all this time. In that time I’ve made mistakes and faltered and slept more nights under a pile of laundry. And although I am no longer alone at night, no longer falling asleep on the couch watching tv because my bed seems too far away and too unwelcoming, your essay still resonates with me. Thank you for sharing it three years ago… But, mostly, thank you for your courage in sharing yourself with the world. I think there is nothing more powerful and more unifying than to hear someone’s truth and say “me too”. â¤ï¸
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