Would I be in a relationship if I were more "normal"?

Alert: diva down.

A lover ended our relationship yesterday morning. The copy of that text is interspersed throughout this writing.

“i apologize boobah — that’s completely on me. i’m behind on all my texts, but that’s no excuse for important people in my life like you.”

I often grieve normalcy. For what my life would look like if I adhered to society’s ideals.

Yesterday morning, I was rejected / dumped for the third time in the last month.

Each of these uncouplings were slightly different, but they all boiled down to my partner desiring something more traditional — in the heteronormative sense, I am not a “normal” girl with whom you would escalate a “normal” relationship with.

that said, i’m worried this might ladder up into something larger: my life is only getting crazier 😔

i ended up taking that manager role at work, i started studying for my GRE, and i’m starting to take my (marriage) dating life more seriously.

This could mean a lot of different things. I am non-monogamous. I am a leftist. I am bisexual. I am an openly sexual and kinky being. I live nomadically and don’t crave location stability. I strive for body neutrality in a body that society shuns as fat. I get on god’s good internet and talk about BDSM. I don’t really find myself desiring nor pursuing traditional markers of “progress,” like marriage or children. I regularly deviate from what society expects of a 33-year-old woman.

90% of the time, I am so damn grateful for the privilege of living authentically. I am in awe of the person I am becoming, someone who has such a clear sense of self and purpose. I feel power being in such deep alignment with my values.

the respectful and considerate thing i can do is to ask us to be friends 🫶 you deserve someone who is more present than i am now. i know this is casual, but i look up to you in more ways than you realize Kim.

And the other 10% of the time, like this week, I feel like roadkill. An exile from love. (I borrowed this phrase from Shon Faye, whose phenomenal book continues to haunt me.)

I grow tired of being a canon event – someone to be experienced and transformed by, but never stuck with. A portal to step through on the road of enlightenment. A shooting star that burns bright and fast, leaving a faint shimmering trail in its wake.

you have one of the most interesting lives/perspectives in the city, you’re as cute as a button (i mean it), and, most importantly, you always make me feel safe when i’m with you. i can’t tell you how good it feels to let my guard down around you.

But there is a sharp kind of heartbreak when the best parts of you — the non-normative parts you fought to examine, accept, and love on — are seemingly the very reasons you cannot find long-term partnership.

Of course, there are so many more layers to this.

I feel guilty for even craving romance. Have I fallen victim to the highly capitalistic and political ideals I work so hard to divest from?

Is this all actually a self-love deficit to unpack and overcome?

Am I so painfully self-indulgent, yearning for romantic love when I actually have such an abundance of familial and platonic love? (I cringe at the banality of even writing this. Oh look, another single woman in her 30s writing about a failed relationship!)

Is it bonkers to even dwell on this as America barrels towards self-destruction??

😩

As I move through the grief, I don’t harbour anger nor resentment towards any of my former lovers. They are entitled to whatever path they desire, and I trust them enough to advocate for their own truths.

No one is wrong, and yet, I still struggle to see all of it clearly.

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I do, however, keep returning to the friction we endure by living outside of “normal.”

This friction burns us twice: once as we do the labour of intentional self-actualising outside of society’s norms, and once again in bearing the burden of being “other.”

The heteronormative “path” has zero friction. It slopes downhill, and is slick with grease. Everyone else is sliding down it, can’t you see!

Yet I keep choosing to hack my way through thorn and bramble, palms torn and bleeding, towards some end destination I cannot even put into words.

Would the frictionless path, the “normal” one, be easier – to find friends, to find love, to find meaning?

hopefully not a goodbye, but a see you soon 🫶

Thanks for reading,