Everything That's Purposeful Requires Connection

As I wrap up my class project, I’m sitting here, letting my mind wander. YouTube is playing in the background but I’m distracted. This week has been really draining and it’s not over yet. My stress levels have been on 10. Today wasn’t so terrible but that’s only because I had outlets to distract me when I needed to take a beat. I’m trying to prepare mentally for tomorrow. How I start and end the week will be integral to how the weekend pans out. I quickly peeked at my work email to make sure I didn’t have anything pressing waiting for me first thing in the morning. I don’t see anything urgent awaiting me so I can workout early in peace before I start work tomorrow. Thank goodness.

In my last post, I wrote about starting to prep to try dating again. I quickly got off the dating app as I was updating it the last time because my mind and heart weren’t in it. Today, I found myself back on it, more-so to finish updating my bio. I still need to add more photos but the hardest part is at least done. I wanted to be mindful about the energy I was giving off in it. These past couple of days I’ve been giving it some more serious thought. Anytime I’ve been disappointed or gotten hurt, I’d chuck up the deuces and bow out from dating for years at a time. I’m always getting back into it after a long hiatus, which probably isn’t the right way to navigate through life. Sometimes I wish I could be more like men. You break up today and by Wednesday they’re already back out there, wreaking havoc on another unsuspecting soul. I don’t ever want to turn anyone into my collateral damage, so I stay away to heal, reassess and recalibrate. As I thought about it today, I realized I may have been doing myself a disservice by “logging off” for so long.

These days, there’s all this talk about dating with intention. I jumped on that bandwagon a while back but for the past several years, I’ve added that I’m dating with purpose. It’s not just about a destination (i.e., marriage), it’s more about finding my person who will continue to grow and build with me, especially as it pertains to our relationship with God and having him be the foundation of our union. Sadly, I’ve been afraid to lead with that for fear that it would turn men away. It seems like this crop of men today considers themselves either “spiritual”, agnostic or atheist. The hardest group to connect with and date has been men who say they are Christian like me. I mention this because I was raised a certain way. Culture and religion was at the forefront of how I was reared. The adults barely talked about what dating was supposed to look like. We were just supposed to know how to carry ourselves once we hit adulthood. Many of us had to learn the hard way, especially being out in the world. It’s one of the reasons why I went on my own spiritual trek at 19. I needed to learn for myself and create my own path. Even at my big ol’ age today, I’m still learning.

As I got older and closer to God, I thought it would be easier to date, especially since I assumed that when men would say they were also Christian, they’d understand where I was coming from. If anything, it made it harder. Whether men were Christian or not, I wasn’t meeting many who were dating with intention, with marriage being the end goal. Even the ones that said they were, really weren’t about that life. I would meet men who weren’t taking dating too seriously (so I would bow out gracefully) or the ones that said they were, had all of these rules and long laundry lists of what they “weren’t going to do” or accept. They were starting out on a negative footing and it wasn’t fun. Imagine sitting on the sidelines for seasons at a time, only to come off the bench to be told you need to jump through hoops of fire to be with someone for bare minimum effort on their part. Being asked to compromise yourself with no guarantees? Who would seriously want that? I’ve been dating shells of men; unhealed men who’ve been hurt so much that by the time they get to me, I’m only left with scraps and remnants of all their relationships past. So this time around, I was ready to sit it out again but then it dawned on me. All of the times I sat out due to hurt and fear were years that I was losing out on finding my person. If I want to date with purpose, I need to be connected. I need to be out here in the arena.

This time will be different though. My boundaries will be on fleek. No rushing into anything without proper vetting. No walls up though, because there is a difference. I feel out of practice already, so I need to start honing my skills. The last person I dated told me that “the other guys will be glad” that I’m now available as if I had a stash of men in a corner somewhere waiting for me to be available so they could pounce. It confirmed that he either didn’t really know me or didn’t care to. Unlike him, I crawled back into the hole I have grown so accustomed to residing in. Not just to lick my wounds but to seriously reflect. I swore off men and threw myself into as many distractions as I could find to keep me busy. I knew his words came from a place of pain and insecurity, which put his sabotaging behavior into perspective. I couldn’t even be mad. By the time he met me, he was probably overrun by what seemed like endless disappointments. There’s no amount of love and care that can heal someone who is intent on leading with fear. I’ve been through worse defeats.

Even though this was probably one of the shortest relationships I’ve had, I probably learned the most lessons. Guarding your heart isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s about being selective and discerning about when you give it away and to who. It’s not enough to hope for the best and to take someone at their word. The actions have to match and be consistent. There is no room for ambiguity. Another lesson: making sure there is a mutual understanding about what dating actually is. Getting to know someone and talking should be a longer period. We both should be “collecting data”. Since faith is extremely important to me, that should be a major part of those discussions. We both should be asking God “is this your absolute best for me?” I keep joking with friends that the next man will have to come find me at home. I’ve peeked my head out and seen what these streets look like and it’s a little scary. Once I get over that, I remind myself that anything worth having takes time and effort to nurture and grow. That goes for friendships, that goes for working relationships, but most importantly, it applies to building real love. I need to be connected in order to have it.

**Edited 12/08/23 after I slept on it and woke up with more on my spirit.