I'm back on the market

For the first time in months, I'm back on The Apps. Apparently, my Saturn Return is supposed to be about untangling my self worth from my value as a commodity - as a writer with big career ambitions, as a trans girl on the spectrum of passing, as a single person looking for romantic love and falling short. It feels embarrassing to admit that I want something serious and committed, a girlfriend/boyfriend-shaped person to build a life with. I should admit, as this desire suggests, that I believe in love and that it's possible for two people in a long-term monogamous relationship to exist mostly happily forever until one of them dies, and then maybe even after that into the great unknown and for the echos of their love to be felt for generations to come. But when I think about that in relation to myself and my politics, it sounds like a rather childish daydream I need to learn to let go of. In the context of family abolition, of interdependent community care, in the context of some kind of radical queer writer life I see myself living - why am I so fixated on the idea of this kind of traditional relationship?

And anyway, I do like my life as a single person. I love my apartment that I have all to myself, where I'm free to leave messes and clean them up on my own timeline, have anyone over whenever I want, where I'm free to live on the border between a chic eclectic minimalism and r/MaleLivingSpace without someone else's objects and tastes clogging my shit up. And even in my fantasy of this kind of classic romantic love, I don't imagine a heteronormative, monogamous marriage. I don't want kids. I travel frequently for work. My friends take precedence over everything in my life. Combine all of these traits with my queerness and my gender presentation (which lately, I've been describing as either a "gay guy trapped in a girl's body" or "nonbinary in an AFAB she/they non-transitioning way") and I feel like I don't really have a lot of value in the Dating Market.

I spent a lot of last winter idly imagining a life with this Nice Guy I was dating that aspired to run for local office. I envisioned my role as the Politician's Wife to this sexy nerdy guy who I had decent-enough chemistry with (mind you, he expressed more than once that he did not want a serious relationship with me, and I also didn't really want a serious relationship with him - but the politician's wife fantasy was kind of irresistible to live in). This fantasy ultimately broke down because it doesn't really make sense for a regular guy with a career in public office to be enmeshed with some art tranny. There's a reason all those politicians on the hill are DL!

Winter was spent living in that fantasy, and this summer has been spent reflecting on all the choices thus far. I've been wondering if the fabulous transsexual life I'm building for means I've closed myself off to the kind of love I've spent most of my life yearning for. Over our daily phone calls this last summer, I've all but begged my best friend Ben to help me let go of this childish desire. A desire which feels only childish for myself to believe in, even though I've seen so many of my friends and family find deep and meaningful romantic love, and even though I believe all of my friends who are looking for that kind of love will eventually find it. I really just don't see it for me. I hoped Ben would use all of the wisdom he's earned in the extra 20 years of living he has on me to heal me, so I can finally settle into this queer bohemian, non-monogamous, free agent of love, girl boss life. But mostly, as I talked in circles about the people I've been dating, the friends and strangers I've developed crushes on, his only takeaway was to point out that I clearly want something I don't currently have. That I'm looking for someone to come be with me.

At my second-ever appointment, I let all of this out onto my therapist. I worried that I was clinging onto this idea of a romantic partner making my life even better, that I know it's an unfair, unhealthy, unrealistic expectation of someone else – that I can't expect someone to magically make my life better. I paid $30 for my therapist to say the same thing Ben told me a week prior: that I clearly want a partner even if I'm reticent to admit it. And that I've clearly spent so much time building a community and working on myself, that maybe I'm not expecting some magical amount of life changing energy from romantic partner. I'm just expecting, like, someone special to be there for me and to fuck and be in love with. (Okay, but does that last sentence also lowkey sound unrealistic to anyone else, or is it just me?)

And anyway, I'm pretty happy with the life I'm living - surrounded by a tight-knit community of friends who love and rely on each other deeply; a long-distance, low-commitment lover or two; all of us trying our best to make the world a better place. Maybe in a couple years I can pool together resources with my found family and we can share property together. That doesn't sound so bad at all. I've run all of this through my head so many times, trying to let go of this desire of a romantic partner, but no matter how many times I want to rationalize myself out of it, I can't help but feel a longing for someone. Or someone(s)! I'm so down to throuple up – but finding somebody who fucks with me that heavy – let alone two somebodies --has already proven rather difficult, so...

When I abandoned Grindr, Tinder, Hinge, and Feeld in spring, I did it because I did not like what it was doing to my psyche. I swiped through it mindlessly, without any intention. I kind of wanted to fuck but the idea of cheap sex with a stranger had really lost its sparkle. I kind of wanted to go on a date, but that also seemed like a drag. I had real friends I already knew that I could hang out with, which sounded way more fun than having drinks with some nervous stranger. I was open to whatever and nothing specific, kind of hoping to figure out what I wanted by accident.

So really, I had no intentions of actually meeting these people, or at least a very low motivation to do so. It was less like online dating and more like checking in on my own market value. The more people who liked me, obviously the better I was. If someone I was really into didn't like me, obviously I could be doing something different, or better, I could take better pictures or write better copy or work out or do my makeup differently. Somehow, the absence of a match was proof that I was unworthy - proof that I was really doing something wrong. And the more people I didn't match with, the more easily I could believe that I should let go of my desire to find a romantic partner. I could prove that that kind of love wasn't in the cards for me.

The apps watered, cultivated, and cared for the seeds of self-consciousness that had already been sown a long time ago. My height, my hair, my weight, my desire for non-monogamy. I wondered if I would have fallen in love by now if I was shorter, or if I had a pussy or bigger tits maybe someone could get past the barrier of being in love with a trans person, since our bodies seems to be such a hurdle for so many people (I watched Baby Reindeer! Seems like loving us really fucks with your head for some reason). Maybe if I even tried to be kind of normal, I'd be more desirable. I thought cruel, critical thoughts about myself and my body that I never think about anyone else.

The summer without The Apps was a nice re-calibration. No more cheap dopamine hits, no more pointless conversations with people I was not actually interested in, no more comparison. Very annoying to say that reading books, going dancing with friends, and occasionally working out did wonders for my self-esteem and sense of reality. Any extra horny/flirty energy was redirected towards writing and harmlessly flirting with baristas.

My heart feels a little more protected now as I swipe on the apps, bolstered by my summer-built confidence and by a specificity in my search. I'm looking for someone who wants to combine their big beautiful life with my big beautiful life, someone sexy and interesting, someone who wants to be unashamedly in love.

I do find it excruciating to have my desire for partnership so plainly on display without the ability to hide behind the label "seeking long term relationship, open to short" on my profile. I'm not open to short! I mean, I'll always be open to whatever devastating experiences this world has to offer me, but I'm really not looking for a series of first, second and third dates with people who are ultimately not looking for a mutually, permanently life-altering relationship.

It's been, like, 5 days back though, and already I want to annihilate Hinge from my phone and float down a river unburdened by my place in the relationship algorithm, but I'm gonna try to stick it out for a couple more weeks. I'm thinking of it as a kind of endurance-based performance art.

But, honestly, if I don't find the loml by September, I'm definitely giving up (again).

Related Encounters:

1. Lucky to consider Riley a friend (I hope! Hi Riley!) and while I was drafting this blog post, she published something that feels very aligned with what I'm going through. There's a bit in here about working through one's relationship to being a commodity which deeply resonated with me. I love reading about her life and her heart, and maybe you'll find it interesting too: https://substack.com/inbox/post/171200272
2. I helped my friend Thomas compete in Chicago's Performative Male Competition and he wrote this funny and vulnerable piece about it. It turns out boys can be nervous about their gender presentation, too!
3. I recently read Love in Exile - Shon Faye which digs into a collective contemporary fixation on romantic love, particularly informed by Shon's position as a trans woman, but I think the few of you not lucky enough to be born under the transsexual star will get a lot of it too.
   1. Also, working through a second read of my heavily marked up copy of Monogamous Mind, Polyamorous Terror - Brigitte Vasallo which I think is so dense with interesting ideas about how our society is built to reinforce monogamy and therefore capital and therefore white supremacy. It's also honestly really fun to read. I'm hoping to write more about it at some point soon.
4. If it doesn't feel like SWEET SPOT (ft. Sexxy Red) - Justin Bieber, I don't want it.

Image credit: Nihonbashi Fish Market Prosperity (Edo period). Ukiyo-e by Utagawa Kuniyasu (1794-1832).