mid-week musings #1

to quote the classic broadway musical "ragtime": we can never go back to befoooooore

wellness check

i sent my ~almost-soulmate~ (see my first post for reference) a sort of final “i hope you’re okay and care about you and cherished our time together and the door is always open” type of text last night that i’ve been mulling over since last wednesday. then i deleted our entire text thread. my initial reaction was a little bit of adrenaline, but then the essence of being at peace with it all settled in. it’s been two days since my first post, and if i thought i was doing well then (which i was!), i am doing EVEN better now! here are some snippets of my unprovoked, imessage mini-novels i sent to my best friend olivia yesterday- before i sent the text (olivia and i talk every day on the phone—imagine being her and being hit with a barrage of my buddhist reflections)

don’t worry, she responded and affirmed my newfound buddhism and shared that it (love? almost love?) is like a drug and distraction, and that’s why we must find equanimity in all things. 

i’ll fast forward to later this morning. i woke up at 5:30 sans alarm from possibly a bad dream, but needless to say i was quite anxious. anxious that ~almost-soulmate~ could have blocked me, and what if he didn’t get my message?! what if i emailed/instagram dm’ed him/linkedin messaged him? blah blah. i then began to google t-mobile support articles about how you know if someone blocked you (iphone vs. android), and that required a self-awareness of peak psychopath behavior (next to the fact that i considered sending a linkedin message…please). there’s no evidence that this man blocked me, so i went back to sleep briefly, woke up with the confidence in knowing he received my message and i may or may not ever hear from him again! that is a sad yet true reality that gave me a little more peace, and a lot more space in my head to focus on other things, like texting the guy i went on a date with on sunday night! the last thing i did before starting my day this morning was delete the playlists we had made for each other. also sad, also necessary. 

naturally when olivia asked how i was doing today, i recounted all of the above via text and her response was as follows:

it’s worth acknowledging that before she set very clear & realistic expectations for how many days i can be ridiculous, that first message she sent me is a screenshot of google’s definition of “psychopathy”. i told her giving me until thursday was totally fair. 

it’s so valuable to get real & vulnerable with my closest friends-but especially with someone like olivia who has known me since we were 6 or 7. she knows me well enough to strike the perfect balance between complete validation and tethering me back to reality multiple times a day. full transparency: i am currently without therapist because catherine, who i saw for almost three years before moving to nyc, is only licensed in california. i have been actively avoiding researching new therapists because i find that process stressful, but i know it would be a great time (like, yesterday) to get back into therapy. i imagine my opener would go something like “hi! i left my life behind in california and moved to nyc with my cats last year, and i also just got blindsided by the man i thought was my soulmate! there’s also a lot that’s happened between those two events!” 

i think that therapy and deep, introspective cup-filling conversations are not meant to “fix” me or diminish the severity or dramatics of my feelings or experiences—but i do know that they make processing them head-on much more enjoyable. it allows me to practice healthy detachment, maintain equilibrium, laugh a lot, and honestly, not be consumed by men or dating. i suppose i am kind of consumed if i made an entire substack dedicated to the very topic, though. 

really curious to see where we’re at next week-but in the meantime:

first-date update and second-date planning anxiety/etiquette! 

yes, i went on a first-date on sunday! yes, we are texting! he’s cute and weird in an endearing way where i want to know more and he’s 39! i wish i had more juicy details to share, but right now the scenario is best-case. we got oysters (lol, this is a theme in both my dating + non-dating life) and drinks, and had great conversation. and yes we kissed! and i feel like i was maybe the one that went in for the kill, but he was obviously also into it! he’s an artistic type so there’s great synergy there. we both want to hang out again! 

according to my interpretation of olivia’s “8 day threat” above, i have until thursday to keep talking about  ~almost soulmate~. so time for a lil comparison game! for context, ~almost soulmate~ man was outside the norm in that he was an earth sign like me, so he had planned all of our next dates (down to the day, time, activity) before the last one was over. i loved this, but also fully recognize most people make plans via text for the next date after the fact. so with this new guy, he referenced going on a second date over oysters, and i had texted him when i got home saying “had a great time! let’s do it again” he said “agreed!” and sent a fun emoji PLUS additional texts referencing some of the things we talked about that night. cool, cool, green flags so far.

so now that we’ve established the stark difference between ~almost soulmate~ and quite literally everyone else, this begs the question: who is supposed to propose the plan for date #2? is it me? is it him? are there rules about this if someone initiated the first date, the other person has to initiate the next one? in this case, it would be me. does any of this truly matter? spoiler: i don’t think it does. i’ve become a much less anxious person over the years, so i don’t spiral about this specific topic nearly as much as i used to, it’s more so just genuine curiosity and really trying to clock myself if i notice that i veer into the territory of performing as a cool, mysterious girl on the outside, but a nightmare anxiety case on the inside. 

today, i really decided to work the room by hinting that one of the stories he reminded me about was best told in person. that was received positively on his end, so folks, i think i do have to be the second date initiator in this instance. sometimes straight men need a lil push! i’ll keep you all up-to-date on what’s next, and i am in fact still perusing hinge. trying to find the line between intentional dating and not keeping my eggs in one basket! now preparing mentally for the slew of texts from my friends-who are also subscribers-inevitably demanding more information from me. ta-ta for now!