One song into my “Summer Rewind” playlist, one glass of red wine, and one text from a recently-heartbroken friend added up to one long rant on Twitter on Sunday evening. I’ll go ahead and say that the resulting sentiments have ruined my week thus far.

It didn’t take much to incite my Twitter shitshow. It was sort of a foregone conclusion when I entered the “anger” stage in my grief. Seeing how intensely my dear friend was hurting dislodged something deep and violent within me. Previous embers of my own hurt, faded since their initial flames and softly burning just under the surface ever since, erupted in the most magnificent display of righteous indignation. I was on fire and I was ready to set my corner of the internet aflame. I got it out of my system but nearly three days later, I’m still receiving messages from my friends. Some agree, some think it was a little uncalled for. (Fair.) One is asking me to “just get over it and fuck someone new already!” (First of all, it’s a pandemic. Second of all, as if I haven’t done that already.)

I knew that, from my own point of view, my hurt and anger was not necessarily confined to my friend’s recent breakup. It wasn’t even confined to my own experiences. It was, in fact, so much more. It’s more the realization that I—and so many others will agree when it comes to themselves—have a chronic attraction to men far less developed than myself. I have a career. I have hobbies. I’m active and work on myself, both physically and mentally. I cook so well. I can break a full-grown man’s wrist when provoked. I have two homes. I’m writing a book. I have a side hustle as a model for crying out loud. I’m a catch and I’ve always been afraid that by stating so would come across as conceited, but I’m realizing that it’s not. I should have high standards. But myself and the equally successful, beautiful, talented, fascinating, intelligent women in my corner all have the same issue: we’re constantly getting our hearts broken by men who weren’t fit to handle them in the first place. Yes. Dunked on by men children.

The Problem

From a young age, women are taught to be everything to everyone. My generation has, largely, been taught to not just survive but to also thrive without needing a male partner. Not to say we don’t want one: on the contrary, actually. I speak for myself here but becoming adept at autonomy has made me desire a relationship even more, especially knowing that I’m going into it with the communication and problem-solving skills only refined by knowing thyself. I’ve done the work. So… why aren’t men lining up to ask for my hand? Save for a couple dozen reply guys across my social channels, there aren’t many suitors. And if you take the entire cohort of men in my life and subtract those married, along with the gay ones, there’s still a pretty solid dating pool. Or at least you’d think. Once I factor in my non-negotiables, there are maybe about a dozen left. Once I factor in chemistry and lifestyle, there’s a grand total of zero. This isn’t to say that there’s absolutely no one out there for me. But based on the overwhelmingly massive swath of eligible bachelors and realizing that not one is up to the impossibly high standards I’ve set—then realizing that very few are even a few rungs below, I can’t help but wonder if not becoming a tradwife when I had a chance was a mistake. (At the ripe old age of 28 and quickly approaching 29, I may officially be too old for this option.)

I’d been racking my brain for something to make it make sense since my mini-rant. It was more or less circular arguments until another friend sent me a TikTok this morning with the accompanying text, “being attracted to men is a curse!!!” Feel free to watch the video but I’ll distill it here for you:

OP is 35, never married, never had children. She’d like them someday. She’s acquainted with a plethora of women in a similar situation. Never married. Never had children but would love them.

She brought this up to a psychologist friend who, in return, conjured the phrase, “social widow.” (Intriguing, yeah?) What this refers to is someone who was raised being told she’s strong, independent, powerful, and can do whatever she wants is in the unfortunate quandary of finding a mate in a sea of men who were raised believing, “mummy will take care of you, and when she’s done, your girlfriend will take care of you.”

We’ve grown into women expecting men to be on the same level but they are, my goodness, not even close. (OP calls this, “traditional values,” but I’m going to take it a step further and say that the way that many boys are raised causes them, as men to be one-dimensional, dull, and kind of useless compared to the multi-faceted delights of the modern woman.)

Though I’m not completely sold on the “social widow” term, I do find this to be useful discourse. So let’s talk about it. We know this is a massive issue, but what do we do next?

Figuring It Out

Last summer, some of my closest friends accompanied me on a trek to South Philly to meet (and tacitly approve of) my then-boyfriend en masse while his band was in the city on tour. It was a lovely evening filled with wine, tapas, a leisurely stroll, good music, and lots of affirmation. I was never one to have a ton of girlfriends until more recently, so moments like this are powerful to me. These women (and more) are the same ones I leaned on for support and love several months later when it ended seemingly abruptly. I didn’t have to say a word. They understood the unique and exquisite pain of helplessness. The idea of being so much—perhaps even too much—and yet never enough.

These people are the best. Represented in this tipsy gif alone are women in the medical field, the beverage industry, creative mavens, freelance vanguards, eCommerce gurus (not speaking about myself with that last one), on top of being gorgeous, fun, and ready to share a whole lotta love. Out of the six of us, one is married. The rest? Single, single, single, single, single. Often broken up over a tragic misalignment, cheated on with someone who wasn’t very pretty, or otherwise doomed to life without finding a worthy object of affection. And not for lack of trying. Whether recently or not, we’ve all had our hearts broken in really terrible ways, all by a man who was the best option we had with information we had at the time. Look at how perfect these women are! It doesn’t make sense!

I don’t blame the men who have hurt me in this way. I can be angry at times but ultimately, I am aware that there’s a reason for the skewed standards, the unrequited compatibility, the sacrosanctity of breakup lore, and why it’s so difficult for many men to just cut the damn cord either dragging us down to their level or forcing us to do their dirty work. Ultimately, I am thankful that in many cases, before I got too entangled or even after, it ended before I lost too much of myself. Not to say that I haven’t lost anything at all. I’ve spent a lot of time lovingly mocking my friends for becoming “boyfriend chameleons” but I’ve been known to take it a step further: the friend who got really into Manchester City for a cute British guy can take off the jersey and turn off the TV at any time. It’ll take continuous therapy to unlearn the bad habits—mostly rooted in fear of abandonment and trust issues that were affirmed—gained from relationships of yore. (Note to self: my next boyfriend should have a penchant for perfectly androgynous oversized clothing so that I can at least take some ex-boyfriend shirts into our inevitable post-breakup existence.)

I don’t blame myself either, though. I’m truly living my best. I know my similarly disillusioned friends can say the same. We’re not going to let our desire for companionship, innate want to know and be known deeper, and carnal need for consistent sex get in the way of continuing to do the work to be better. We want to have a life outside of our partner, and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s what makes a partnership so alluring: the in-between moments.

Part of this is thanks to the horror stories so common about men who are the primary breadwinner in a relationship bailing and leaving the woman penniless and alone. (No thank you.) But other reasons are not as doom-and-gloom, still quite valid, and very practical: very few people can successfully be in one of those “does everything together” couples. Time apart and spent with other friends, with other hobbies, or just in solitude can do wonders. One thing I miss most about my ex was hearing about his day. Before him, I was with someone who was so constantly up my ass that it didn’t even make sense to ask because I already knew. (Which would then turn into a fight.) There’s something special about hearing someone’s mini soliloquy in that voice you know is reserved just for you. I know my boyfriend would probably think I was so weird, beaming at him as he recounted the most mundane details of an unremarkable day while I thought to myself, “he could not be more ****** if he tried, and I love that.”

So what happens when these ideals are mismatched? When an immoveable object meets an unstoppable force? Breakups. Unrequited love. Vulnerability too freely given and not often enough returned. It happens too often. There’s this fundamental misalignment that goes so much deeper and tears us apart from the one we love the most.

What happens when we commit to someone who isn’t ready for commitment because he never needed to truly commit to anything? Or rather, was never taught to fight for anything the way that women are taught to fight? What do we do when we’re too deeply embedded in a system that advocates for simply bailing when things get hard? What are we to do when we realize that “mutual love and respect” looks different from the other side?

So What Do We Do?

I’ve waxed eloquently for several paragraphs hoping an answer would come to me. I’m a little more poised and understanding than I was in my original rant which concluded with an exasperated, “idk what else to say! i’m mad as hell!” The truth is, I just don’t know. I can’t challenge men to “do more,” because part of me doesn’t think it’s possible and I also know that there are no men who read this blog so I can’t exactly charge them all with some kind of viral ultimatum . (They used to read here but my analytics show me that search keywords such as “big boobs” and “nudes” haven’t appeared since I switched from a body-positive fashion blog to a more lifestyle-focused one—the joke is on the men who thought I’d be casually posting nudes on my blog, for free? In this economy? For shame.)

I do know that we can practice being happy alone, enjoying our own company, and protecting our hearts until a rare “good one” comes along. I know that advice such as, “take stock of what you want” and “take it slow when it does happen” seems like a cop out after a relatively dramatic setup but the truth is, I’m trying to figure this out for myself and these are the steps I’m personally taking. Will “the one” come along? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m slowly coming to terms with this and some days are more difficult than others. I miss my ex. I’m in a much better place but I’m still not quite prepared to receive the love I know that I deserve. I’m also scared of being vulnerable enough to truly love and be loved. I often say that I gave him the last little bit of my vulnerability, but the truth is, I’m still healing. My eagerness to be vulnerable will undoubtedly return, albeit more tentatively. I also tend to shame myself for it taking “too long” to be okay, until I consider the underlying issues with myself that made that breakup such a monumental occasion. (And, though I don’t want to admit it, a necessary one.)

Until then, I’ll relish in my independence and make notes of which parts of it I cherish most, so that I can find a love that dovetails with the most special parts of myself, rather than working against them. It’s a journey. I’m not up to the challenge quite yet but I’m getting closer.

xo, e.m.