I just read my entry from three years ago, which I never published. It's interesting, some things I still think about today. Maybe most of them.
Three years have passed, and a lot has changed. I bought this apartment, which I was already about to by then. My contract with the EC won't be renewed again, so I'm already en route to complete the six years. I was engaged, broke up, and last year I was with many girls. Some with whom I'm still today, in different cities/countries, from different continents, in one way or another.
We can start by dating. It's difficult to come to terms with dating not being easy because society wants you to think that it's your fault. We all, perhaps especially men, shame each other for being "alone". Like having a partner is a trophy you show to others, to signal that your worth is bigger. I no longer consciously think that way, which is amazing compared to 10-15 years ago. And last year, I think I finally acknowledged to myself that yes, I'm an interesting guy, I can see when a girl is into me and when she isn't. But all of this still affects me, because the commodification of dating makes us all, app-users or not, follow it. Just this week, I read this extremely interesting Instagram post about how emotionally available people are being punished, and that's super true. I know that, on one hand, some emotionally available girls are or have been into me, and I am/was not. But I never punished them, nevertheless. On the other hand, my dating style is very engaging, and it seems like it needs to be more typically nonchalant to work. Which means that I have to perform, and that's precisely what I avoided doing last year - and what made me have so much success, not because I dated a big number of girls but because I was exactly myself. But non-chalancy went, in my head, from "it's a Portuguese thing because we're more into gender roles" to "it's how modern dating works because everyone is afraid of each other".
Because once again, meeting girls in the EU bubble feels like it's all just an illusion. We talk a lot during the parties, engage, kind of flirt, I think. And then it doesn't deliver anything. Here I am, once again checking if these girls have already replied to me. And they can just not be into me, which is fine. I may also be underrating their previous experiences in not wanting to openly tell me they ain't. With some of them, I read between the lines, and now we're good friend-colleagues. Most of them will be like that. But this ambiguity is really not fun. And even beyond that, I'd really like to date a (relatively distant) colleague and share the stuff in common that we have. And normalize hitting on girls I meet in person, not just girls that are behind a dating app. For some reason, I tend to think that they are all judging me for doing it. It kinda happened last year between two, saying I texted one "only" two months after the other. And in Portugal, this was my understanding of how people thought, too. But why, once again, the performance? I like you, it doesn't work, no prob. I like other people too. We're not that special.
That, and/or a Portuguese. It's been almost a decade since I've been with a Portuguese girl. Even lusophone. And I do kinda miss it. I'm not really sure what I should do to do it, because in Portuguese events there doesn't seem to be much interest from them in me (or at least not reciprocated, but I can only think of one case anyway). But I'd really like it. It'll happen if it will.
Maybe this will all change next week, though. First, via this climate activists speed dating thing. It's people who are going there for that purpose precisely, so I can be even more open about this intention. And second, the neurodivergent crew, for our next gathering here at mine on relationships and stuff. Maybe it's really there that I'll find the person I can have an intellectual bond with.
We'll see. Tough world for dating, but I'm still among the privileged. I don't need apps; I am attractive, and I'm in a good place with my own confidence in myself about this. The rest of the world makes me have moments where I doubt it, but as Michael says, it's the pain of the process. Last year, I focused on what I didn't want; this year, I'm focusing on what I want. Not everyone will be aligned with me on this; most probably won't. But as long as I trust that I'm doing it right, and don't get myself scared away or affected by thinking how my reputation is being affected - for example, are my colleagues commenting that I'm engaging with a lot of them? - I'll be on the right path.
