Why do guys always ask me if I’m going to write about them on my Substack?

Who am I, Taylor Swift?

No one cares about who I’m dating and no one is interesting enough.

I get a lot of stereotypical responses on dates to my life and history. You went to art school? Yeah, I’m really into Bauhaus. You work in fashion, what do you think of my outfit? You have a Substack? Are you going to write about me? About this? If I had a nickel…

I’m sure that I could in theory come up with some great stories to share, leading in exponential success on this platform. Unfortunately for my psyche but fortunately for my creativity, I’ve had a lot of bad luck in the love department. I like to keep that part of my life private and away from the internet—I’m not afraid of scaring off Mr. Right, because the true Mr. Right wouldn’t care—but I am careful to not fuel any male egos. I also have no authority on this part of life and don’t think anyone should listen to me on anything that I’ve said or done as something they should take into consideration. Today however, I decided to open up.

I haven’t had a boyfriend since high school, and in terms of years, we’re edging on a decade. I’ve been in multiple long-term situations (not adding the last 4 letters there out of respect for myself) exceeding months and sometimes years, but never an adult, committed relationship. This is an insecurity of mine. I don’t know how to split holidays, rent, or compromise on things like where we’re eating dinner. While great for my independent lifestyle, this makes eventually getting into a relationship a lot bigger and scarier.

Everyone I’ve ever “dated” (meaning gone on multiple dates with for a time extending two weeks) has called me intense. This has also been an insecurity of mine, just because no one really wants an intense girlfriend or wife. Being intense has gotten me very far in a lot of other things, such as Substack and my career. But it often makes the guys I date feel small and intimidated in a not-so exciting sense. After a lot of therapy, I’ve learned this is a them problem, but it’s still always in the back of my mind when I’m getting to know someone new, waiting for them to inevitably call it out. I’d rather live an intense life than a passive one.

Therapy has also taught me this theory of the “common denominator”. If you’re continuously finding yourself in the same conflicts with different people in work, friends, family, or love, you should look inward because you are the common denominator. I have a big fear of being that, because every recent dating experience of mine has ended the same; 1-2 months of everything being really fun, until one week where something shifts, then I spiral about it, and ultimately end up being right about sensing something was off and getting a weird anti-ghost text that probably should’ve been a phone call with how much time we were spending together, typically within 12 hours of me last seeing them.

People who are in relationships tell me they respect how often I put myself out there, going on first dates and trying again when it doesn’t work out. This is obviously very nice to hear, but sometimes it feels like when someone tells you that you’ve “made such good use of the space” when your house is small, or that your “outfit is so interesting”. I call myself and my fellow friends in the New York City dating trenches “Hinge Warriors”, but people are out here doing much harder things, like fighting illness and injustices. The NYC dating discourse is tired and it doesn’t make me feel better to hear about how everyone is going through it. Like, okay, cool. I’m still upset.

I often feel like I’m exhausting my group chat by being upset every time one of these short-lasting rendezvous ends up failing. How many times can they wake up on a Saturday to another “break up” and express how sorry they are for me? And the reality is that these endings do hurt me, and often leave me in a funk for the foreseeable future. They also make me feel stupid—what is it that I’m missing? Am I really that oblivious? It’s hard when you think something is going so well, but you don’t know how the other half of the relationship is feeling. My experience has been that we’re reading different books. But what else am I supposed to think when first dates go until 1 in the morning, followed by texts making reservations at my favorite restaurants, being introduced to friends, celebrating birthdays?

Going on dates with successful men who work in finance is great because they pay for everything. They look attractive, and they’ll take you to nice places. You can engage in good banter with them since they’re aware about what’s going on in the world. I have dated unmotivated or even broke men as well (a mover I hired, freelancers, etc.) and would probably prefer the former, although the latter tend to be sweeter and more romantic, nonetheless a hot mess emotionally. The downside of successful men is that for some reason, they take movies like American Psycho or The Wolf of Wall Street as #inspo, many of them hitting you with a cold, finite ending as if they’re ending a relationship with my nonexistent fund and not me, a woman.

Our modern society allows people to pretend to be one thing and then turn into another without any foresight. This is scary and you have to trust your gut, which is hard to do. How they aren’t consumed by guilt after acting like this, jury’s still out. One minute you’re getting morning coffee with Jekyll, the next, you get a text from Hyde. They turn unrecognizable, that person who was telling you how great you make them feel when you’re together suddenly vanishing into thin air.

I don’t feel bad generalizing and putting guys into boxes because I’ve been on the end of it many times over—girl who works in fashion, girl from Connecticut, girl who wants to be a writer, etc. I’ve conducted enough research to know my above statements are true at the cost of my dignity and time. If you ever find yourself in a situation such as me, down in the dumps about receiving another gaslighting session revolving around how nothing was ever that serious, I recommend watching Industry on HBO because it could always be a lot worse. Maybe I’ll meet them where they are moving forward and go method as well, acting more Yasmin Kara-Hanani than Carrie Bradshaw.