On Arrangements in Blue and Embracing Spinsterhood

I deactivated all of my dating app profiles this week. I did this because I feel an increasing disinterest in communicating with strangers for the eventual purpose of finding someone to share my life with, and my continued insistence on trying feels unfair to myself as well as to the people I interact with. I've only been on a single date from any of these apps in the past five years, and while it was a wonderful date with someone I enjoyed talking to, someone who wanted to keep talking and watching movies together and sending me packages of handmade crafts, I eventually cut things off because I just didn't feel like I had the energy for it. I told myself that was a sign that we weren't compatible and it would have been worse to force it, and there was truth in that, but more significantly, I think I don't know how to fit romance into my life. I want it very much, but I can't make it feel possible. I can't make it feel healthy or sustainable.

The thing is that I only feel capable of romance with friends. I need to live in the relationship long enough to feel safe, certain that it has staying power, that I'm valued for more than the short term benefits I can provide someone. I have too often devoted myself to people who only want the short term benefits, the easy, surface things, the uncomplicated things that bring pleasure and nothing else. There's nothing wrong with that if both people are on the same wavelength, but it's not a wavelength I can exist on for long. I always feel devalued eventually, less than, and there's nothing wrong with that either. It's inconvenient to move so slowly and require so much platonic buildup before I develop romantic or sexual feelings, but it is what it is. And what it is is a way of being that doesn't lend itself to dating apps. I don't want to be romanced by someone who doesn't know me and hasn't earned the right to speak to me intimately. I don't want to try to feel things more quickly than I feel them. I want stability and security and comfort, paired with passion, yes, but unfolding slowly and sweetly over time so that I know it's real.