I’m now focused on building connections whose love, even though may not be physically present for a long time because people eventually leave, will cover me till eternity.
In January, I wrote about why I stopped believing in the concept of ‘the one’ and soulmates. Months have passed after I wrote that and I have been on a journey of deprioritizing romantic love in my life. This is a hard feat for someone like me who used to be a hopeless romantic. When I was deep into my hopeless romantic bag, I had people tell me they didn’t believe I was a hopeless romantic because I don’t look like the type of woman who’s fazed by love. I do find that flattering rather than offensive because I like to think it’s cool.
It’s hard to wake up one day and decide to stop defining your life based on romantic connections if you’ve been doing that all your life. My journey to deprioritizing romantic love has had me doing a lot of introspection. I could be in the middle of napping, and I’d unconsciously think about my love life. When this happens, I let myself sit with that feeling and discuss it. So far, deprioritizing romantic love has made me take a break from dating. Because I think dating after dating has taken so much from me emotionally, I need to be away from it for a while.
One of the things deprioritizing romantic love has done for me is having more time to think about myself. I think about who I am, what I want, the things I like; outside of the walls of romantic relationships. Because if there’s one thing I have noticed being hopelessly romantic does to me, it is how it shows up in everything I do.
I have also realised who I am when it comes to dating. Now, ‘realising’ doesn’t imply the final stage. Rather, it’s an ongoing journey, there’s no bus stop. I like to think as we grow, we’ll keep learning new things about ourselves. Like I was saying, I have realised that when it comes to dating, I can’t be in a long term relationship. When I used to really fantasise about romantic love and create fake scenarios in my head, I noticed that when I get to the part where I am married and have a family, I get bored. I’m always like, “what next?” And for someone who sits with boredom when it comes, I don’t like this particular kind of boredom. I don’t want it.
I have been looking for a word to describe me and the kind of woman that I am when it comes to romantic love, and although I was unable to come up with a word, I figured I can’t be a kept woman. Now ‘kept woman’ in this context, has nothing to do with patriarchy, I just think I have no interest in being in a romantic relationship for a long time. The highest I can do is a year or two. Anything longer than that? I don’t think I’ll be able to carry on.
I have decided when I go back to actively dating, I’ll be dating for fun. Because dating can be fun. Because for a reason, I’m now a likkle bit in love with kissing a soft full lip. Because I always want kisses — on my face, neck, thighs, literally just any part of my body. Because I think after food, cuddling a body so soft is one of the best things in life. And because romance is fun. But I’d also like to not experience all of these with just a person; I’d love to experience them with so many people.
One of my best romantic relationships was a polyamory relationship. I loved it and I liked him. It was fun because aside from the fact that my partner was fun to be with, it gave me the freedom to be with other people I liked. I can kiss my partner this minute and kiss someone else the next minute. I enjoyed every bit of it. Self reflection has made me realise that I can be both mono and poly in nature. My default state is mono but I don’t mind a poly relationship.
I have also figured that I can, in fact, live without romantic love. There’s never been a point where I put romantic love above other kinds of love but this time, it’s very different. There’s more nurturing, more kindness, more attentiveness and most importantly, more love. I’m now focused on building connections whose love, even though may not be physically present for a long time because people eventually leave, will cover me till eternity.
