Uncomfortable with "normal" relationships
The Monogamaybe? intro
There it is again.
That feeling that this can’t be it. That there’s so much out there I’m missing. I want to know those young men in suits walking around everywhere a little better. I wonder what they’re like at work. Doing deals. Being adults. In those suits…
I also want to know what they’re like outside work. Not just, Hello, what do you do for a living? No, I want to really know, know them. Look into their eyes. Feel a hand on my thigh. Hear a secret.
But being with Scott means I can’t do those things.
I sit with my friend Shiv from college on the steps in Union Square. It’s October, but it still feels like summer. There are fewer suits today, on the weekend, but still I can’t help but think about them. “I feel like I’m missing out,” I say before taking a bite out of the caprese sandwich I just scored at the deli down the street. I look around the square, feeling the energy, the possibility all around me as the bread and mozzarella dissolve in my mouth. “I want to be able to date guys here, ya know? But I also love Scott. I don’t know what to do.”
Before we moved to New York a few months back, Shiv and I went to college in Philadelphia, and that’s where Scott and I met. He was older, had a real job and a real apartment of his own right in Old City.
Dating him in my senior year, I felt so lucky (and cool) to be able to bounce back and forth between University City fraternity parties and young adult life downtown. I got to have my typical college fun as well as hang with Scott and all of his friends, getting a taste of what life out in the “real world” was like and might be like for me after I graduated.
Now that I’m living in New York, however, while Scott is still back in Philly, dating him is starting to feel more and more like a drag. I love Scott, and I loved being his girlfriend, but now that I’m here in the most exciting city in the world, I want to be where I am.
Shiv considers my dilemma for a moment, and I stop chewing to take in her full reaction. After a moment, she answers matter-of-factly. “If that’s how you feel, I think you have your answer.”
I stare at the basil poking out of the bite I just took as her rightness hits me in the face with a fury of disappointment and relief.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right…” I say. My heart sinks at the idea of breaking up with Scott, but I’m also grateful for the clarity in her statement. I have my answer.
If dating others is what’s on my mind, it has to mean I’m not really in love with Scott. I have to move on.
It all seems so simple and obvious now. At this moment, I don’t consider the possibility that I could have both. That I could ethically be with more than one person at once.
But that’s not the only reality that’s hitting me. Sitting on the concrete, watching the hipsters, tourists, and a band of faded pink-clad Hare Krishnas walk by, something else is bubbling to the surface. Something that comes from much deeper within.
It’s the reality that this isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way. This stirring. This desire for more. This restlessness.
Even though I’m only 21, I know this problem is not just a matter of circumstance. It’s not just a matter of being young and moving to a new city and finally being able to legally enter any bar I want. I know somewhere deep down that I will feel this way again. And again. And again.
There is never going to be some magic special someone who indefinitely makes me feel satisfied, so satisfied that I’m not curious about others.
Because if I’m not curious about the men in suits, then I’ll be curious about the barista at the cafe in Brooklyn where I eventually move.
Or the British hippie in Thailand, who will inspire me to become a vegetarian.
Or that tattooed Indian guy in Delhi with the singing voice that will make me melt.
I know deep down I will never be simply happy to cut myself off from all the other men in the world with all they have to offer, with all they inspire in me. With all their mystery and their ego and their power and their pain and their height and their accents and their modesty and their greed and their spontaneity and their humor and their lies and their fleshy humanness.
How could I ever, for anyone—boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse—say, I will never experience another human so intimately ever again?
At the same time, I wish to God that one day someone will change my mind, or I will simply become someone who can just be happy to be with one person. I pray a switch will flip in me one day. It just has to, right? Because this is what being in a relationship requires. This is what normal is.
This is how I will avoid being alone.
The above was the intro to my book Monogamaybe?.
If you want to read the rest, you can pre-order it below.
Thank you!
Love,
Sarah
