Expat Dating Mom

recent posts

about

“I think you have the spirit of husband-repelling. You are too hard, ma, you will not find a husband. But my pastor can destroy that spirit.” Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  • Men on the apps are not getting any

    This writer who I went out with first right after my marriage ended, he mentioned his dream of being in a shop and he was seeing various beautiful, shiny products on the shelves. And the shop assistant showed him a beautiful, shiny, and round luminescent ball and asked him, “What do you want: pleasure or closeness?” And he did not know what to choose, which he shared with me.
    Amazing. We spent lots of time recording messages on WhatsApp, listening to each other’s voices, describing our lives as single parents, and when we finally met each other in person – THIS was what was on his mind. I would say the apps are not for the first. Maybe some apps, but not when you write, “I search for a long-term relationship” on a very vanilla dating app.

    The problem is that men on the apps are not getting any. It is much easier to find sex if you are a woman. A friend of mine says that it is better to have sex when you can and enjoy it, so that when the right man comes, you’re not starved and ruin it by that. But what if the right man is starved? What if he comes to the table with that scarcity mindset? “There are places where you can go and they will fix it for you,” I want to say to some men on the dates. “Maybe then come back and let’s go for a walk.” But my theory is that there are plenty of men who would feel deeply dirty if they pay for sex. They have been somehow harmed by the culture, the guilt of desire, maybe some religious tint of doom’s day looming on those who sinned. And this too is what they bring in.

    One of my male friends once described a “horrible dating experience” via an app, which was due to the girl “did not know how to do anything” in bed. Well, why should she know how to do things in bed, I asked. Do you think they train them in some fancy, lewd yoga postures before they are released to the world of swipes?

    “Do you want me to come in? I am just back to the dating world and can’t tell” said a man after a third date. Well, no I don’t want you to come up to my flat. I would have invited. Why should we assume this is implied? But if you become a bit more slow, then the dating candidates do loose interest. One of them decided we should take the sex was completely of the table then. He swiftly moved to children topics and the complicated logistics and activity reviews. The Maddona-Whore dichotomy catching up with me as another tight corset of roles and expectations… Why can’t we be just friends first? I asked sheepishly… “I have friends” – ended the conversation.

  • Fashion

    This guy I was seeing, let’s call him Joost, was very interesting and promising, but I noticed we were not a match when he asked me to help him choose between two khaki chinos and two green Bugatti polos… I said, “Whichever you like.” Because this is what I believe, dude. I am not dating you for chinos or the brand. You can be extravagant, if you like, wear yourself like a fancy clochard, I do not mind. I can help you check if there is bird poop on the back of your arm or zip you up at the back, but no, I will not become the custodian of your daily outfit. I do have a day job. I will not choose your clothes, will not wash and iron them, will not hang them out for you; simply put, I am not good at that. Never have I thought of myself as being good at that. Do I look like I am good at that? Oh, thank you, that’s because I like to dress myself and groom myself the way I like, not the way you like. So it works the other way too: you will not be choosing my clothes. I once went out with a guy who got so comfortable that all of a sudden he started measuring me up as if I was a horse, or more as an add-on to his visage—like a background photo wallpaper: “No, if you wear high heels you will be taller than me.” Dude! You lied with your height in your Bumble profile! Then he followed with, “Maybe you want to try my glasses.” “Why?” I asked. “Well, yours are nerdy.” Ehh… hmm, what? Did I ever say I was NOT a nerd? Did you buy some other product in the shop and you got something else? You wrote to the ZOO to send you a pet, but it was a cow, instead of a fancy exotic snake, so not what was expected. Dude, you went to the app to meet a real person. No, I will not kiss you, sorry. Why? I did not order a narcissist or a control freak; you cannot tell me how to dress. I am happily not looking at your balding head when I wear high heels.

    I thought that guy was bad, but then came the Brit, who introduced a whole new level of judgment. He never spoke to me again after I asked him, “Do you really think I swipe right because of how you look?” He described the situation of his ex-wife regularly putting on weight by eating more. Frankly, I have seen the gorgeous woman with a real job. This guy, jobless, not in his prime anymore, I swiped right because he looked like a real human, with kids. He asks me, “Well, would you like it when your partner gets fat?” Well, I for once want an option to get fat. What if you get sick? What if you work a lot and have no time to run? What if I get old and fat, like we all do? Finally, what if I am a human?

  • Don’t go down that alley

    “Sanne asked me who you are dating,” Marieke said.

    “Are you sure? The one that never says hi to me at school? The one from the ‘Alley Ladies’ group you meet?”

    The Alley Ladies is the ultra exclusive school moms WA group of WAGs. The exclusivity is based on that you have to live in one of the multimillion worth mansions and the name of the street it it on is not “street” but “alley”…

    One crazy thing in this country is that I actually have a cross over with those other mom’s at school. The public schools being still perceived of better quality and the remainder’s of a frugal, egalitarian upbringing get’s the Sannes of this country to make the hard decision and send them to that school. Well, it is still based on a post code lottery whether you get in or not. Nevertheless, it causes me to have a graceful a wall flower in school conversations and introductions.

    Marieke is my friend as she is strong and brave and likes what she likes, but most of the local moms she introduces me to look through me as if I was an efemeric transluscent presence, and swap immediately to local language so fast, that I can’t decide whether they perceived the brief intro in english or not.

    “Yes, Sanne. She mentioned you are such a nice lady that you’re probably attractive to many nice men. I told her—’Sanne, there are no nice men…’ Anyway, I explained you were dating ‘the Tony Blair,’ the lawyer from our kindergarten she maybe met a few times 10 years ago, and she knew exactly who I was talking about.”

    The lawyer I was dating indeed for three months—a relationship that only firmed my view of Brits as patriarchal and binary in their gender role views: women are supposed to be pretty and hot… having an opinion is optional. A nauseating, claustrophobic feeling overtook me. This place is too small to be dating aspirational socialite-expats just to throw some meat to those gossip-craving tongues.

  • Oriental

    He’s sitting on his new sofa in the apartment he just bought, not too far from mine. We met late last year, just before I left town for Christmas. I said, “Let’s see each other again,” and that was a green light he didn’t expect. He came to the meeting full of skepticism. When I turned out to be a real person, he immediately saw all the possibilities, but still… he thought we didn’t match at all looking at my profile. Me: kids, 40+, uff, a tough thing, heavy lifting. Probably an ex-dad as luggage, with all the drama of divorce and kid custody. She’s probably living off his money, he might have thought. She’s either in search of a one-night stand or a sponsor. What else? I can’t possibly be in search of romance, love, cinema, and coupledom. I don’t fit the modern dating app rom-com stereotype… Though, who does?

    When I was breaking up with him because he couldn’t commit (45, three years of hair left, on the way to be addicted to Asian porn, EDD), he said he didn’t expect to get so close to me. He also said he felt he was making the biggest mistake of his life.

    So now I’m sitting on his sofa. He wants to be friends and is missing the closeness. His friend told him he should never contact me again. I was told the same by a friend. I said, “We can be friends, but not friends with benefits.” His heart crushed. He described a few bad dates he’d had. He ran away from one when he saw the Asian girl in the cafe had similar features as the one on a dating profile, but really was someone else… in search of that amazing experience from the Only Fans promise.