“If I am who I am because I am who I am, and you are who you are because you are who you are, than I am who I am and you are who you are. But if I am who I am because you are who you are, and you are who you are because I am who I am, then I am not who I am, and you are not who you are.”
- Yasmina Reza, Art
For those of you who read Date Wrecks who are also male, I regret to inform you that you are not men, and I believe that as a man myself, you know exactly what I am talking about, and you needn’t deepen your situation by allowing a bunch of women to stick up for you. Let’s just keep that as we know – and not they, who do not know – it to be. This article, much like this blog, is not really for you, and I will now proceed to address the central audience of this piece.
Let’s be honest: Most of you love Date Wrecks because you are gross, fat internet ladies, probably single mothers, who are unhappy with your dating prospects. You go out with the worst of the worst – really, what choice do you have – and this blog is a place for the universal center of your lament; an exhaust for your frustration.
That being said, a problem with Date Wrecks is that it places in your mind an idea that the central variable in your despair is the insufficiency of the people available to you in the intimacy marketplace, rather than your own insufficiency to qualify for anyone desirable. Furthermore, I think the most wholly unconsidered possibility implicit in this blog is that which states that some of the men you are dating may not even be that bad: Rather, they are just not giving you a particularly good version of themselves to go on.
Because, of course, you are not worth it
Here’s just one example: You arrange a date over the Internet. The man in question is 15 minutes late. It is a bad date that offers little chemistry, but you suck him off anyways, because you have no self-esteem. You never communicate with this person again.
Later, you go on the Internet, and you comment on a similar Date Wrecks entry about what an asshole this guy was, because he was 15 minutes late. However, it is possible that he was 15 minutes late despite never being so, and he was only late to meet you for the first time because he was sitting in his car, looking at you through the restaurant window, and considering how much fatter you look without the benefit of a well-angled photograph. He was thinking, “Should I even go in? Can I force myself to be just well-behaved and interested-seeming enough that I’ll at least get some head, and all of this won’t have been a waste of time?”
He was late not because of who he is – he was late because of who you are.
That means that, for you, he is not who he is, and because you only despair to avoid confronting that, you are not who you are.
And you know this, but rather than try to save yourself, you would rather seek fellowship with a bunch of other idiots who are in the same predicament as you, and try to empower each other by convincing yourselves that if you can recruit enough of each other, you’ll be able to see your positions as having been inevitable, unavoidable, and most dangerously of all: Meant to be.
But other people will not save you and, if they could escape your miserable parallels, so oft-discussed in tearful chat room conversations, they would.
No different than you would for them.
So enjoy Date Wrecks, but don’t forget that it is mostly an exercise in blaming others when, really, you ought to blame yourself, and recognize that even if you do put yourself into a righteous self-torment over your terrible life choices, none of it is meaningful in the least unless it manifests itself in some sort of genuine personal reform.
Personally, I would suggest disconnecting your computers, televisions, and other consumer electronics, and throwing them out of your window. You probably require action this drastic, as you don’t yet have the self-discipline to ration such slothful luxuries to yourself.
I don’t know what to do after that, because I am just like you, but I do know that the thing you don’t do is waste your time with a bunch of rhetoric and bullshit about how you are finally ready to open your heart, or start a new blog that you promise you’ll only update in trendy cafes, or ever look over your shoulder or feel motivated to improve yourself only for the sake of vengeance on your past, or against people from your past, ever again.
Other people will not save you.
Abandon everyone you possibly can, and start over.
Will O’Neill is the Editor-in-Chief of The Albatross
