This past Sunday, I was both thoroughly enjoying myself and also mildly disgusted by myself as I was chatting up four different guys in my texts.
The world knows no coincidences as the song ‘LMK’ by the truly underrated artist Kelela came on one of my mixes, a song about a one-night stand and the confident freedom of having no strings attached that comes with it. The world was telling me to be a man whore, right?
Conversely, the night before, I was out with good friends grabbing food and drinks where, at one point, I was opining about how I found myself feeling particularly dejected after someone I seemed to have palpable chemistry with completely ghosted me.
While we all win and lose in the game of romance and sex, this particular situation struck a chord deep inside that I wasn’t expecting. Small winds of disappointment and exasperation come for us all with the dating game, especially in our era of apps, where a majority of interactions are fleeting.
But this one hurt the insecure 15-year-old that lives somewhere in my psyche. The one who wasn’t fully confident in himself yet and feared rejection on most levels, the tale of most adolescents.
More than anything, those moments can sting, lightly or intensely, and be baffling because you want basic closure. A simple, ‘Hey, you’re great, but I’m just not interested’ is all a person needs.
But alas, therein lies the duality of human nature.
I have the ability to feel something on a deeper level one day, relaying to my friends about how I want something consistent and not to be alone forever, and then not giving a damn the next as I’m saying some wildly X-rated things to another suitor.
Also displaying the yin and the yang of it all is how, after being single for 2+ years now, there is a beautiful luxury of flying solo, but also that sporadic loneliness with its desire for something steady creeps in too.
Case in point: I am an AMC Stubs member (something I’ve advertised to many friends over the last few years and should really investigate getting paid for) and frequently go to the movies to see everything from Dune: Part 2 to Poor Things to Kung Fu Panda 4; it’s a coat of many colors.
I go by myself generally and welcome it as I am going to become immersed in a movie for two hours, not hang out with people. Recently though, I felt that pit in my stomach as the Nicole Kidman ad flashed across the screen. I thought, ‘It would be nice to do this with a significant other’.
I’ve rarely been a person who has thought about how a majority of the people around me are in long-term relationships or married etc., but of course, with all these collective recent moments, I couldn’t help but think about how single I felt.
To some degree, that particular thought for any of us at any time when it does creep in is irrelevant as any of these couples could break up at any given that life is unpredictable, but in the here and now, the thought takes a different avenue.
I joked with my friend about the Sex and the City episode where Miranda almost chokes on her Chinese food alone in her apartment. Side note, I have loved hopping back in with its recent Netflix release, even though it’s been available on HBO for years. There’s something that turns the light bulb on and makes it feel novel on another streaming service – we’re simple creatures. But I digress.
Miranda then cries to Carrie that she feels like she’s going to die alone and while I don’t feel that desperate about things, the heightened emotions will make you ponder such things.
But then again, I oscillate back to the other end of the spectrum where I love the ability to do me whenever, wherever and without attachment.
Very much in one of those cliché spaces of life where I have been focused on myself, the slow burn that is building a career and the even slower burn that is being mentally content on a daily basis, romance as a general concept has felt like less of a priority.
Casual sex, on the other hand, is not as who among us doesn’t need some intimacy in the form of lust?
This is another branch of the puzzle that I’ve long had mixed feelings on.
After laughing at myself on Sunday about what I perceived to be ‘hoe behavior’ in chatting up four guys at once, I was thinking about the psychology of it all.
In this era of sex positivity and freedom of self-expression that is seemingly ever evolving on the daily, who cares if I was chatting about 10 guys at once? However, to quote Emma Stone in Easy A, in regard to her alleged physical dalliances, “sounds like a lot of work”.
I read about Karamo Brown of Netflix’s Queer Eye fandom going on 40 dates in 40 days or some rapid fire rate like that. Whew, I do not have the time, money or patience for all of that. That is not a science experiment I’m willing to roll the hypothetical dice on.
Variety is the spice of life (that was not a Dune reference as mentioned, drum roll please!). I am a young-ish, handsome (modesty) guy who is enjoying the freedom of single life and having a great second wave of figuring out what I do and don’t want in a person, whether for a couple of weeks or a couple of years.
As far as dating apps, it’s understood that this is not something that should be taken too seriously given the fickle nature of most on them.
People have busy lives. People are flaky. And in the sea of thousands of other profiles to skim through, it seems people often think the grass is greener elsewhere, grass that contains EVERY SINGLE THING they’re looking for. Best of luck with those standards – did that sound bitter or realistic?
In my early 20s when I first dabbled in dating apps, I approached it with a young enthusiasm and felt down a handful of times when weeks’ long interactions that were seemingly going well abruptly dissipated.
Now in my 30s? Please. (Rare moments like the above aside)
Sometimes maybe you just want to hang out with a good looking, charming date with the possibility of some penetration on a Saturday night. At the very least, someone should be catching some tongue, yaknowwhatImean?!
I saw a meme a few weeks ago that claims the average person only has sex with 5 people in their lives. Word to the wise to take information via social media with the heaviest grain of salt. Cue the mind blown emoji at that possible theory though because, if true, myself and almost everyone I know is a loose slut.
I’m personally not talking dozens of suitors in and out my bedroom, but 5?! I’m sorry to reference it twice, but Samantha from Sex and the City would like a word. Now there was a busy woman, both business and pleasure.
In the last two months, I’ve been on dates with four different guys from four different walks of life. I generally have a few in the texts rotating around at all times, as indicated. It keeps my options open and keeps the adrenaline, testosterone and creativity flowing.
After having this constant internal debate with myself and never leaving home without my unhinged sense of humor, I pondered the psychology of why I’ve often been more hesitant to partake in casual dating.
Why was I being judgmental to myself about allowing the freedom and exploration of it all?
Pretty much everywhere worldwide, there are the easily pinpointed standards of society that set up the generic framework of finding ‘the one’ or having a soulmate or at the very least being linked to one person at a time or forever.
Most people are more open-minded in 2024 and have a ‘be safe, have fun’ mentality about it all.
However, there is still an underlying notion and judgment that being a little looser in your romantic escapades denotes a person of questionable morals and overall character. But that’s not the end all framework or guidelines many should or do live by.
As experience, the experience of others, pop culture and anything in our orbit teaches us, while casual sex may be fun and adrenaline-inducing, in addition to a good workout, it also will eventually leave you wondering what else there is.
Life cannot forever be just random encounters, but you have to experience them and the loneliness or passion that comes from one or the other to know the difference.
If this all feels like a very tangled web of confusion, neuroses, possibilities and raw sexuality, it’s because it absolutely is.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to me as someone with raging OCD; however, this is a quandary that we all go through as we figure out what we want. We’re also ever-changing individuals and the goal posts or checkpoints we set for ourselves are hilariously shaky at best as they can’t always be met.
What my recent moral dilemma and exploration of motives reiterated to me was there is no right or wrong (outside of blatantly ludicrous behavior) and there is no one size fits all. It’s something I know to be true in every aspect of life, but it takes on new meaning with time and circumstance.
So, if I want to be the equivalent of a monk in solitude for 6 months, working on my inner peace and discovering self-fulfillment, during one era of life and finding myself in the bedroom of a dozen suitors during the next 6 months, I guess I’ll call that balance? Or maybe this is proof that we’re giving the term ‘delulu’ all the mileage we can.
mark.angiello 
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