On dates with myself
It’s been three years now since my marriage came to an end. Three years of recalibration, reorientation, and relational graft. Three years also of learning about the difficulties of dating with kids, including one who lives full time with me. I’ve learnt that I have the most incredible radar for finding people who are in no way ready to share their lives despite appearances to the contrary. I’ve also learnt that dating apps are horrible places of being constantly assessed (and usually found lacking). I came into this summer feeling tired, unattractive and demoralised, as well as sick of having to apologise for the existence of my three beautiful kids — and still single.
I’ve thought about this a lot. What am I really chasing? I’ve been confronting the painful reality that I would prefer to journey through life with someone else, and that reality feels a long way away right now; and also that the absence of it has got in the way of me really seeing the beauty and intimacy of the friendships I am lucky enough to have. I’ve found myself wondering — rather than pouring my energy into other people, what would it mean to grow in myself? What if I stop pushing and searching so hard for a connection, and instead stand back and learn to listen better to myself. To stop pleasing others, to ensure that the date goes well, and instead to focus on interesting myself?
I have an overwhelming sense of needing to cut out the noise and distraction that the dating apps engender, and instead stand in the thick silence of aloneness. To revel in my own rich inner life, and take steps to nourish and tend to that instead. I find myself reaching for metaphors of water flowing to reach its destination: less pushing and effort, more allowing, yielding, opening up to possibilities.
And in that spirit, I’ve decided to stop the dating game. At least, to stop the dating game with other people. Instead, I’m going to put my energy into dates with myself. It’s been inspired by re-reading Julia Cameron’s wonderful book The Artists Way. One of the foundational practices she advocates for is a weekly ‘artists date’:
An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against interlopers. You do not take anyone on this artist date but you and your inner artist, a.k.a. your creative child. — Julia Cameron, The Artists Way
Last week’s date was with me, Sharon Van Etten and Angie McMahon, and a few hundred other people on a Friday night in Leeds. I love going to gigs alone (see also: cinemas), and have been doing so since arriving in York four years ago. There’s something magical about being able to get completely lost in the music, allowing the bass notes to vibrate through your body without being distracted by company. I love watching other people watching an artist they love, feeling like I’m part of something bigger than me, and yet being acutely aware that everyone is having their own experience at the same time. And, of course, it’s much easier to wiggle your way to the front as a solo person, especially when you’re short.
I didn’t utter a word to anyone all evening, unless you count the singing along to Letting Go — ‘it’s ok to make mistakes, it’s ok to make mistakes’ — as Angie encouraged us all to shout it back to her in a cathartic celebration of failure and errors of judgement. The music of these two women speaks of the ache that comes with love that is half-given, and half-withheld, of desire that is fleeting or conditional. I found myself moved to tears during No One’s Easy To Love, considering my own contradictory pulls towards intimacy and self-protection. And let’s face it, who other than Angie McMahon could possibly turn a song about pasta into a story of loss and disconnection. I loved it all.
I came home to a quiet house of sleeping kids, and a babysitter putting on makeup to head out clubbing. I ate some toast in the silent kitchen, and quietly celebrated a highly successful first date. I hope to see me again soon. Thankfully, no need for endless texting in the meantime.