I Wanna Be Enchanted

Knock knock.

It’s the middle of the night. You answer the door. A man in a balaclava grabs you by the arms and stuffs you into the boot of a car.

He drives to the border and throws you across the line.

Okay. I guess I live here now.

This is metaphor for when The One says, sorry, actually, she doesn’t want to marry you.

Long term love is a warm cocoon. You sink and recede and lay out everything you’ve squirrelled away like trinkets at Aladdin’s bizarre. Everything is permitted.

And then you’re sitting across from a stranger every month. Dating is a series of startling encounters (with yourself).

Of all romance’s promises, maybe the most seductive is that another person can save you from yourself.

Don’t get me wrong. Other people are fickle and often quite boring but they are also the business. All mystery and eyelashes and invite. I want to slip in and curl up and walk around inside them.

A great first date is a crack in the space-time continuum. It hovers in the air like a question mark.

But whether you’re waking up alone or with someone else, you still have to wake up. You, in a room, with yourself. Forever.

Can you learn to live with this jerkoff?

The great revelation of dating is how unspecial all your shit is.

You can serve up almost any mild emotional horror with a shrug and a laugh and the other person will be thoroughly unbothered.

You listen to these women telling you about their weird relationships with parents, or depressive histories and awful dates they went on with dudes who watch right-wing Youtubers to “hear both sides” and they’ll hint at trauma or assault and they’re a little afraid of your reaction but you’re just thinking, wow, this nice human person could sure use a bit more compassion and adoration in their life— and the thing is, and this is the swerve — why wouldn’t they think the same about you?

22 year-old me would go blind at the things I say to, and do with, women I’ve known for single digit hours, but maybe the most astonishing is the idea that ten minutes into a first date you can go to the toilet to close your eyes and calm your breathe and tell them “I’m sorry, I get anxious sometimes” and they’ll say “don’t worry, it’s fine” and they’ll still like you and sleep with you.

Don’t worry? It’s fine???

Live long enough in the cocoon and you begin to believe its cute little stories about compatibility and destiny. Who else would want this needy over-thinker who claps his hands and barks when he hears a good punchline?

Maybe all the other needy over-thinkers out there?

We are, it turns out, everywhere.

Setting aside the Red Pillers, for whom all romantic adventures are soul-shrivelling games of domination, most online dating advice for men is logistical, practical and goal-orientated. Open, close, escalate, Final Boss. GameFAQs for the horny.

The mechanics of dating aren’t complicated. When should you kiss them (when you feel like it), how do you know if they want to make out (you ask), when should you invite them back (when you feel like it).

The real work is inside: invisible, difficult, daily.

Getting good at dating is like getting good at most things: get out of your head and learn to let go.

Every person is a new set of tests. Can I not get huffy when I don’t get exactly what I want, immediately? Can I not spiral when they seem bored? Can I be patient and light and treat dating like the lark it is while still walking around with all this fucking hunger?

Can I — just for a few hours — stop?

Can I fancy someone without immediately throwing myself down on the altar of the read receipt?

(Work in progress.)

Can I learn to tell the difference between what I think I want, what I think is reasonable to want and what I actually want?

We’re told to communicate clearly what we want and need. And that’s better than leaving people guessing. But this only works if you can actually access that information in the first place.

Desire is not linear. It gets all knotted up like last year’s Christmas lights.

Not at least trying to untangle will cause problems. Eventually you have to skip the scripts and hoist the words up from somewhere truer and more embarrassing.

“So, what do you want from all this?”

Oh mate,

I wanna be enchanted.