“Never seek love, affection, or attention. ~i don’t know
We met Skiball and Slushy Margarita at the bar and had our first date.
she was gorgeous. She noticed as soon as she entered. But she still didn’t know if she had anything to say. The messages we exchanged were minimal.
Turns out we did.
Conversations flowed from one topic to the next. From her passion for biology in college, to how I tried to master mountain boarding at summer camp as a kid, and how the two of us got to write sentences and put words on the page. I meandered to the point where I was passionate about doing things.
I found her articulate, funny, sociable, and down-to-earth. her wit. It’s like her seriousness and appetite for unconventional topics like the environmental benefits of eating insects and sexism in the taxidermy industry.
she came to my house I cooked dinner for us. The conversation deepened. She shared the impact her father’s depression had on her during her childhood. How she personalized his quiet mood, sharing some of the instability she experienced as a child.
The evening ended with a hookup. There’s nothing like a good trauma outflow of an aphrodisiac.
A few weeks later we had another date. Afterwards, I was similarly elated.But doubts began to ariserFace in front of our third. She was acting mean and irresponsible.
But seeing her filled me with joyful joy, so I spoke to them. Our interaction kept me going throughout the week with a buoyancy my morning coffee had never provided before.
So we continued dating.
She brought them flowers. Lift me up in the air when we kissed that we loved Tell me I was “a really good thing in her life.”
The last day we met her, we cycled around the local breweries.
The sun was shining in our faces as we sipped each other’s beers on our backyard patio. It felt like a raw conversation about intimate patterns and fear. She was working on her own, she said. I gave some of myself in return.
She asked if I wanted to take a picture with her. After taking a selfie of her, she played rock-paper-scissors to decide which brewery to go to next.
I remember how when we unlocked the bike she asked if she could kiss me (for the 4th time that day) I wanted It made me feel
I carried that golden effervescence into the next day. It was still with me when I opened the text from her, but shattered into sharp shards of glass when I read it.
That she couldn’t keep seeing me. She wasn’t in the right place emotionally.
It’s me, not you.
We all know enthusiasm.
**
This wasn’t the first time a woman and I had dropped our minds from the trauma tower that was precariously connected.
This woman was just one of several in a pattern. You can call it the trauma bond. Hot and cold relationship. Anxiety avoidance dance. These push-pull dynamics that played out throughout my 20s had all these elements.
One day the person will open up.We’ll connect and I’ll feel like I really do saw They, and they saw me.
The next day they withdrew (even though there appeared to be no overt confrontation). The contrast hurt. The shift felt jarring.
According to Healthline, “Recognizing emotional unavailability can be difficult. Many emotionally unavailable people have a knack for making you feel great about yourself and hopeful for the future of your relationship.
Every time these situationships fall apart, it really breaks me. Emotions that should have been buried for so long come back to life, and in it I suspect someone will look at me and choose to fully accept me. I was.
Still, I found the ‘connection’ very difficult to untangle once formed. From my point of view, women and I often had strong chemistry. Words came out easily. We talked about being vulnerable, but we also got to laugh and enjoy the lighter side of life. I was compelled to stay because of the perceived strength of our connection.
**
It took me a while to realize that each of these kinds of relationships I was left with spoke to the unhealed part of me.
Part of the healing I’ve done in the last few years has included seeing the role I played in them. It included realizing that by continuing to give chances to unwanted people, I was also contributing to this cycle.
I stayed and contributed in the hope that things would change. That the clouds that have been blocking their full attention and investment will magically lift. For them to depart for the long-awaited sun to appear.
I contributed by not establishing boundaries. For example, in one situation I felt like I was a female therapist. To validate her following recognition of rejection by a stranger. To indulge her ego when she feels unattractive in the eyes of the male barista who has just served us coffee.
I could set limits on how much she could confide in me or depend on me.. If we were friends who only benefited from time to time, I could tell her that I had limited bandwidth.
Also, we could have left at any time. But despite the signs, I decided to stay with these circumstances. Perhaps I thought those signs were vague enough to be negotiable.Or, I was giving the benefit of the doubt.
In addition, I decided to see who women want to be, who they are. can somewhere in the future and who they are sometimes instead of seeing who they are completely generally and at the moment.
W.When we witness the potential of others, we pay the price, no matter how innocent or well-meaning it may be to deliberately obscure our current reality.
**
Inconsistency and unavailability become less attractive the older you get, healing from past trauma. Playing games is starting to repel me in a different way than it used to.
Conversely, qualities such as consistency, decisiveness, and seriousness are now becoming increasingly attractive. These qualities make me feel energized, but ambivalence and mixed emotions drain my energy.
By my thirties, the emotional ups and downs of the anxiety-avoidance dynamic no longer seemed sustainable. I want something more calm. A relationship where my everything is accepted and valued.
We want a connection that takes the load off rather than adding more stress to a world that already carries so much. Given that we are willing to do some work too, I think this is something we all deserve.
In general, having a picky mentality means you’re more likely to be single than you might think. Because it is true that the dating pool is with people whose traumas and defenses are at odds with ours. Maybe it’s always been that way.
Still, it’s an approach that feels right when you imagine that you’ve spared yourself all the pain in your heart. into the Another cycle of fleeting hope and optimism punctured by shards of blind disappointment unnerves me more than the thought of staying separated from my partner indefinitely.
Not only that, it makes me sad too. The grief I feel goes out to everyone caught in the same emotional cyclone. I can’t help but think it’s a tremendous energy drain. Instead, energy that we can use to energize both the larger world and our own lives.
**
I no longer follow the path of Hansel and Gretel to reach other people’s hearts when I’ve strayed far from my own integrity.
And for those of you who have been through a similar experience, I encourage you to stay hopeful that one day someone worthy of your love will step into your life and step into your path. Until then, remember you have yours. Value yourself, value yourself, and realize that you deserve more than chasing. You deserve to put your feet up and have someone chase you – or, even better, meet you on the way.
About Eleni Stefanides
A freelance writer and Spanish interpreter, Eleni was born and raised and currently lives in the Bay Area, California. Her work has been published in Them, LGBTQ Nation Tiny Buddha, The Mighty, Elephant Journal, The Gay and Lesbian Review, Introvert, Dear and many more. She is currently serializing her monthly column “Queer Girl Q&A” in Out Front Magazine. You can follow her on IG @eleni_steph_writer and Moderate.
