Expat Dating Mom

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.