So in this morning’s neighborhood Face-space group, which is often full of the usual messy racist, classist diatribes by “anonymous123456” users and occasionally punctuated with gloriously kind or wholesome posts, a man seemingly forgot it was not a dating app. His pic was clean cut and suited, his description was vague and well written and dapper enough for a middle-aged man looking for a companion. As expected, the comments were fun even without coffee.
A series of comments with links to a background checks. Turns out dude has a record. I didn’t look at said record, maybe it’s minor, maybe not. Bold of him to be so out there and up front. I applaud him for putting his actual deets out on the public forum and I applaud the commenters who looked him up, posted it, and included “gentle reminder that this check is free for everyone, be safe out there.” Community at work is the best.
A series of “are you lost” comments. Yes, all the variations of “sir, this is a Wendy’s” I’d been expecting were there.
A surprising number of “good for you” comments. While many of these are in the “way to shoot your shot, man” and “good luck” vibe, a few were cynically defensive on his behalf. “Why not look locally, since all the dating apps are owned by the Chinese” and “All the women on apps are bots or scammers anyway,” which explains why those commenters may not be getting any traction on apps, but as my UK counterparts at work would say, hey ho.
And the reason for this post, the reason for my own personal hot take about partnership/romance/love/marriage/all of it that makes me likely wildly unpopular and the oddest choice for a paranormal romance author: the “let him be, everyone deserves someone” comments. UGH.
OH LET US DISCUSS THAT INCORRECT AND DANGEROUS STATEMENT, SHALL WE?
What better way to encourage incel culture than tell boys everywhere that they DESERVE someone? They DESERVE a lover, a girlfriend, a sex partner, a wife, to get laid, a date, whatever version of that you mean? Deserve is such a dangerous word. Have you seen the dating-scape out there these days? It’s a shitshow.
The thing is, I do think everyone deserves to be loved by someone, I just don’t think that love is romantic. Everyone deserves to be loved by a parent/ grandparent/ sibling/ cousin/ aunt/ uncle/ friend/ caregiver/ teacher/ mentor. Everyone deserves to experience being loved by another human being just for existing at some point in their lives. Everyone. All children deserve all the love. Love is just so much more than “everyone deserves someone” in a romantic context.
In that context, absolutely not. Abusers do not deserve someone. People who treat their romantic partner like trash, like a sex object, like they are lesser, like they are property, do not deserve someone. And that is exactly how the romanticized idea that everyone deserves someone or there’s someone out there for everyone gets twisted by incels (dear WordPress: incel is a word and I did spell it correctly, stop trying to convince me otherwise) and people who don’t see others (in this case, often women) as full autonomous humans with lives, desires, goals, and dreams of their own. I know it seems like a harmless romantic concept, but in practice it’s a dark patriarchal seed that feeds into all sorts of ishy and unhealthy assumptions about interpersonal relationships, expectations about what women should look like, how they should behave, what they should want, etc. And ultimately, it twists people into these entitlement thoughts instead of empowerment and growth that could actually help them mature into functional adults with healthy relationships. And that sucks.
Women aren’t willing to be objectified as sex dolls, and the backlash (particularly for online dating) is so horrific the dating apps are dying off and younger generations are going back to “old fashioned” ways to meet people, or just not meeting people at all.
Real love and partnership requires effort. Kindness, respect, consent, and equal partnership is the bar. And seriously, that isn’t a high bar: it’s the minimum expectation that all parties participate as respectful adults in the relationship and actually love each other with kindness and respect. Kindness and sharing is taught to everyone in Kindergarten (yes, it still is, I checked).
The unpopular truth is that even when you meet the basic requirements, love isn’t guaranteed, because there’s an element of magic involved. Timing, kismet, fate, chemistry, whatever you want to call it, love is never a guarantee, and actual love can never forced on the unwilling or unaccepting. That’s why it’s so fucking precious when you find it, and why it’s both a feeling and a verb when you do find it. I love Love. I love the feeling of it, the action word effort of it, the intricacies and complexities of it. I love the different iterations and flavors of it, because there are so, so many: parental, sibling, relatives, friends, pets, mentors, teachers, first crush, first boyfriend or girlfriend, BFFs, team brotherhoods or sisterhoods, intense bonding like war or military, and yes, spousal/partnership love.
Love is one of the driving forces in the universe. I just don’t think it’s always romantic sexual love. Sure, that’s a big one for the whole species survival thing, but there have always been some folk in the world who opt out of sexual relationships for various reasons. It’s not for everyone, therefore there isn’t “someone out there for everyone” by default, right? One of the most beautiful mysteries of humanity is the diverse tapestry of our experiences, after all. As Mercedes Lackey says, “There is no one, true way.” (citation: any Valdemar book you choose. Mine was Arrows of the Queen, Mercedes Lackey, 1987)
Perhaps the saying should be “anyone who accepts my love deserves all the effort I can give them.” See? Consent built in. I applaud the dude in the neighborhood group post this morning: he put himself out there. He was vulnerable and bold online knowing he’d likely be smacked down and ridiculed for it: that’s brave as hell. He put his real deets out there knowing someone would look him up and post his past for all to see. He did it anyway, because he’s giving this his best shot. Good for him. For his sake, I hope he has the substance to back up the impression that he’s sincere and giving things an honest try. But I don’t think he deserves someone. I think he deserves to discover whether there’s a person out there whose bar he meets, and who meets his, and maybe take things from there, if they decide to do that together. Good luck, dude.
No Pithy Phrase 