Desire?

I have made a discovery recently. The discovery is that it's about ten times more fun to be with someone you are really into than someone who is just into you. Now, you might be like, duh. Or something more gentle. I dunno. But hear me out. With all the dating shenanigans of my last decade I've developed a "surprise me" attitude to attraction and desire. I would give many people a chance because I know that I don't always know who or what I will be into. I'm sure it's a common experience to suddenly find someone attractive. Out of the blue. I know this very well and it has lead to a general approach of being open to possibility. The only problem is that often for attraction to appear you have to know the person for a while, see them in a new light, or something else. It's not like it just randomly appears on a second date with someone. But here I am thinking it will happen, repeatedly. In general people are more attractive in person. And attraction can be mysterious. What's a picture on an app got to say about someone? Well actually, a lot. And nothing at the same time. One of life's great mysteries relates to why "men" are not great at dating profiles. And perhaps I'm over-egging it to say it's a mystery when it's probably for the reason that they are unused to seeing themselves as sexual objects. They've not had the intensive training I underwent, that many of us underwent. There are many other reasons people fail to curate a dating profile in a way that would make a person want to take a chance but I think that's the main one.

So in general, heterosexual cis-men, have photos that make them look like thumbs or potatoes or they actively give the finger to the viewer, or they're carrying a dead animal dripping blood. I've talked about the tongues before. Then there are pictures of feet or random selections of random things off their camera rolls or just black squares. I think this means when I hit a reasonably well put together photo or two my brain says yes. And it should still say no, 90% of the time, maybe 99% of the time. I know what I like enough to say: cocky dorks. People who have confidence, passion and silliness in pretty much equal parts. And looks wise I'm wide ranging but if I don't find your face attractive it's probably not going to work. This is absolutely enough information to go on. Somehow, somehow I do not go on that information. I have had so many dates with so many people I am not attracted to. The thing they all have in common is they are attracted to me. I was raised (by not just parents but culture) to think I simply had no attractive features. This is incorrect, not only do I have many attractive features one of them is a set of great tits and let me tell you, a lot of people are into good titties. You may be surprised to find this out. I was. I have had to build the idea of my own attractiveness painstakingly over years. Moment by moment. So now I'm prepared to tell you about my very good rack. Sorry if you didn't want to hear about it. But here we are. It's important you know I'm a subscriber to the idea that all titties are good titties. I'm never disappointed but also able to value them all for their individual beauties. That said, mine are good.

When I first started trying to see myself as desirable I really had to see it in other's eyes. I'm a person who often absorbs the feelings and emotions of others and as such to see myself as attractive I had to be with people who found me attractive. I drank it in like some kind of feelings vampire. I think it took me a good long while to get out of that habit: I may not have gotten rid of it entirely. I read Melissa Febos' latest book recently and her descriptions of the way she used her attractiveness got me thinking, deeply, about how I've behaved and what I've done in my life. I am different to her (and you'll have to read the book to find out more about her) but my reliance on others finding me attractive to achieve escape velocity on my own incorrect beliefs rang out like a bell. It's uncomfortable to think I am only able to find myself desirable when I see it in someone else. It feels uncomfortably reflexive. Like somehow I'm a pretzel not a human. Turning back in on myself to get a better view of myself. Just how I feel when I'm trying to take a selfie of my ass.

It's not always like that though. I went through a phase of finding the attraction of others a kind of heaviness, a pressure. I could be around them but only in a kind of NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN kind of way. Pretty sure the entire time I was broadcasting NO loud enough the moon heard me. Perhaps it was me attempting to move on from requiring desire from others before my own. Perhaps it was something else. I don't know. But soon I lapsed back into needing that desire to be present in others. I have tried to find my way out of it in various ways. Once, I had a boyfriend for about three years who refrained from finding me attractive. Is that what it was? Seems just utterly absurd right now but I feel like I was trying to teach myself something. Perhaps acrobatics? For three years!? I've not had sex in a few of my relationships, sometimes it's just not logistically possible, but that was one where there was no sex for reasons that became increasingly ridiculous to me. He was, supposedly, in love with me. But after a while I started to question whether that was really true. And in retrospect I perceive him as mostly enjoying being able to talk about me to other people. A sort of enjoyment of reflected glory, I guess. Sometimes in the pursuit of self knowledge I instead abandon myself. I think we all do this in small and large ways. I don't know anyone who hasn't contorted themselves for someone at some point. I would like to think I know better but there's a level of attraction that simply turns off my higher functions and leaves me to fend for myself with whatever scraps of brain left over. Good luck to me!

It was a useful experiment as they go. I learned things. Now me thinks: at what cost? But also I did that. I made those choices. I had some nice times and some dire times and I wrote some poems based on the feelings. I think desire when it's working is actually more like a conversation. When it is unbalanced it doesn't work. Only being able to feel it reflected from someone else is not the same as feeling it in myself and recognising it in someone else. It's the same problem when it only exists inside me and there's nothing on the other side. Sometimes you've got to do something to know how it feels and what the cost is of it being one sided in either direction. The best version is equal participation ebbing and flowing like a good conversation where you're listening and contributing and together. That is more rare. During an overly ridiculous break up one time one of the people involved told me love was rare and they were going to chase after the particular love they had identified. I remember this conversation often as my views go back and forth on what actually is rare in life and relationships. I don't think love is rare. Love is everywhere. I like the final paragraph (the whole thing is great, tho) in this piece:

"I am in love, and this love is defined not by its duration but by its intent. There is love wherever there is a shared goal to create it. Other things I learn: love should be planned and spontaneous. It is not possession. It is always temporary. I’ve also come to know that love is all around me. It’s in the person whose arm I grip on a turbulent flight. Or in the stranger who asks to borrow a pen before we end up sharing life stories. Or in anyone who sees me just at the moment when I need to be seen. All that is love, too."

Desire seems rare to me. I am attracted to many people, which is not the same as desire. Then there's another category of people I desire. And then an even smaller category where I desire them and they desire me. Love can be a part of this but it doesn't have to be. To me, love is part of everything. I would say that though wouldn't I. Lots of people get squirrelly if I talk about love as a part of casual hookups or short term flings. I get it. But also, it doesn't make sense to me to see love as finite and only the purview of the romantic dyad during monogamy. I'm fine to keep it to myself if it makes everyone more comfortable, mostly. Is desire some combination of attraction and compatibility and other things? I don't know if I care enough to disambiguate it. Sometimes mysteries are nice and things shouldn't be explained. Desire comes and goes sometimes hormonally, sometimes it just seems to end, sometimes it springs up like new growth after winter. I do think it's something you can work on.

These days I desire myself regularly. I put in the effort to notice my body and to enjoy it. I think it's important to be in tune with the sensations in your body. I enjoy walking because I can feel the power in my thighs. I like touching the soft parts of my body because of the contrast between those hard slabs of muscle and the tender, gentle parts of me. I am a person of contrasts, boths and neithers and I enjoy how that shows up physically and mentally. Sometimes when I'm deadlifting or squatting the feeling of strength makes my desire flicker and flourish. I have changed the shape of my body with lifting and sometimes just seeing that muscle growth makes me feel hot. The pump as my muscles swell with blood is as erotic as Arnold said (kind of NSFW). A lot of my desire is about strength in my body. My shoulders and arms look different than they used to and seeing the edge of my neck as it hits my traps is genuinely beautiful to me: a tattoo wends its way over my muscle and my skin is so soft. I get to appreciate the way it feels when I sweep my hair behind my ear, or behind my neck. Growing my hair out has changed how I feel about my gender, how I feel about desire, how I feel about it all combined. Hair is sexy when it's long. You can feel it brush across your naked back, someone can hold it in their hands like a promise. There's a lot to find attractive. How delightful that I've learned how to do it, finally.

Desire is also interesting in how it moves and changes and develops over its life. When I'm ovulating I will make interesting choices. When I'm in the tail end of the luteal phase even the most attractive person in the world may not move me to thought let alone action. And then there are all the days and times between that where nothing much makes sense at all. I've had relationships where I thought I would perhaps die if I couldn't fuck the person I was into and not long later we can barely touch, or talk. Lovers I've not been with for a decade or more might stir me from across a bar, or at a thought. A person might go from attractive to unattractive all because they read my poetry collection between date one and date two, or they mentioned they looked me up on social media. It's so changeable and there are so many factors I do not know whether I should take account of or not. I have written poem after poem trying to capture the essence of these feelings and how they occur and I feel like I'm no closer than when I started. In general, my approach to living in a post suicidal ideation world is appreciating small things. Noticing details. This morning as I walked to work I felt a feeling of such intense pleasure at the sound of rain on my umbrella combined with the rowdy birdsong and the lush smell of cold, wet streets. It was as intense as some types of low-ish level sexual or sensory pleasure, like a first kiss. And increasingly I think that's how desire is sustained and built. Tiny little acts of attention. Small words.

After giving up the apps I considered so much that went on, on the apps. I was off for about six months in total. Plenty of time to consider things. I especially considered the imperatives of a dating app. It's nice to match with someone. It's nice to feel that little pump of dopamine or whatever hormone it is. There is simply so much chaff to find the wheat. But also is there? I did an experiment where I decided to only swipe right on people I felt actually, verifiably attracted to. There had to be something. I had to name it. Was it a beautiful little chubby guy with big arms? Was it someone with a beatific smile? Was it someone who said something extremely interesting in their profile? Was it someone with a thick neck who liked poetry or who made a joke? Was it someone with a large amount of visible vascularity? I had to be able to articulate it. And since then things have changed for me. I have been on dates with people I am attracted to. We have gone on further dates. I have had nice times with people I know I'm attracted to. It's early days but it is lowering the number of matches. But it is also lowering the level of first date risk.

It sounds absurd that I would have to learn this lesson. But I don't know that I've talked to enough people about their own experiences of this stuff to know how common it is. Maybe it's actually pretty common. I was a fat kid and a fat adult and for all of that time people have deeply disassociated fatness and attractiveness EVEN THOUGH so many people are attracted to me. For years I was completely oblivious because I thought it couldn't possibly happen. When my partner asked me out I said: what do you mean? (Half of that was that I was a lesbian the other half was that I thought there was nothing to recommend me). One time, I was at a wedding of a friend and another friend came and slid his arms around my waist, brushing against my breasts, and leaned drunkenly into me to tell me I was the most attractive fat woman he'd even known. He didn't know I wasn't a woman and I couldn't have articulated it at that point. But his comments have lived on in my mind. Men, especially, are sometimes surprised to find me attractive. It makes some of them act in extremely strange ways. A man once kissed me and told me it was too good, we had to stop because it was too good. Who are these people and why are they kissing me? I know it's pretty normal for cisgender heterosexual men to be brutally socialised into finding certain things attractive. I'm not represented on that list of attractive qualities in so many ways: too fat, too queer, too weird, too genderqueer, too direct, too smart, too many other things. I get that it's risky to attempt to move attraction off that list of attributes. Additionally, I don't necessarily want to be a part of an awakening! It's not a great feeling. I do want to be appreciated but not like that. By the same token fetishists can really ruin a day. Does anyone want to just be perceived as a body? An object? I don't think so. I mean probably, but not me. It makes my blood immediately cold.

I want to leave the door open to unexplained attraction but perhaps that's something better served by in-person-first situations. The old meet-cute. I've dated coworkers and although my brain views rules as made to be broken I will likely never entangle myself with someone romantically or sexually at work again. Just better that way. Apparently, I must learn lessons the hard way. The very hard way. I'm also in leadership so it puts almost everyone off limits for reasons I can really get behind: power differentials making consent murky or impossible. That is a rule I don't want to break. I care very deeply about consent. I have been in many situations with leaders who did not show appropriate concern for power, consent or their responsibility for their people and I do not care to be like them. Maybe someone cute will approach me in a bar? Maybe I'll ask out someone in my neighbourhood. I don't know. Prior to apps I met people online and in person. My first girlfriend I met on a lesbian dating site called The Pink Pages in like the year 2000. Maybe 1999. I don't quite remember. The point being the internet has been my love mediary for a long time. I met my partner of 21 years by walking into a café with my BFF and her deciding we should strike up a conversation with a random group of men. I can do both. I contain multitudes.

I saw a TikTok (on Instagram, I am 45) of someone talking about the death of dating apps and how she thought it was exciting. She wanted us to rebuild our atrophied approaching-people-in-public skills. I don't know if I've ever had those. I did approach one person who became a boyfriend but someone else had already told both of us we'd get on. That doesn't count, surely. Otherwise, I feel like I've just dated people from apps or through friends, or friends of friends. My partner then, a total anomaly. Maybe I should be walking up to more random people in public and shooting my shot. That one time really worked out! It's not really who I think I am but who I am has changed enough in my lifetime that maybe it's worth finding out if it really is who I am.