My journey

I swear this dating thing has changed my life. I can't tell if it's for the better or for the worse, but it is definitely changing. Sometime I wish I could go back to the days when everything was simple. Clean, and just dating. No sex, no dirty talk, and no complications. I like the feeling of being with someone, just because they like being with me and I like being with them. I like holding hands and cuddling, and just lying next to each other on a couch just because.

But it seem like modern dating is a little different. If you aren't religious, it seems like you are expected to shed your clothes, and do the nastiest of the nasty upon meeting, or you are considered a freak. It seems like you are not a sexual person because you don't want to have intercourse on the third date.

Yes, I think of myself as a sexual person. Yes, I do get turned on and sexually attracted to quite a variety of men. No, I don't want to do it with you right away. And no, that's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean I'm asexual and it doesn't mean I'm not attracted to you. There has to be someone out there that shares my feelings about this, right?

I recently went on a date (at least I think it was a date) with someone I met on a personals website. This man is a few years younger than me and has a physical disability. This is previously a category of men I considered off limits, and I started to see why. Over the course of our discussion over coffee, I began to realize that there was no physical or emotional chemistry there and it wasn't because of his disability. I realize now why I previously excluded the disabled community in my search for a life partner. If I tell this person that I don't have any feelings for him, I am afraid he will automatically qualify this and see it as a personal attack because of his disability.

But there are many reasons not to like someone, and a disability isn't one of them. I can not like someone because of their interests, lifestyle, or choice of clothing. And I can choose not to date them because I don't like these things, not because they have a physical disability. And I am not a bad person because of it. But I feel that this man would be offended if I chose not to see him any more because he would think it's because of a disability, when really, that has nothing at all to do with it.

But I just chose not to get involved with anything. And maybe it means I will have to do the fade away dance pretty soon so no one gets hurt. Haha. Dating is hard enough without a disability, and I get that he's been rejected so many times in the past by shitty people rejecting him for shitty reasons. While I don't want to be lumped in the group with shitty people, I don't wish to bring that kind of baggage into my life either. I want my life to be simple, which I guess is too much to ask. But I can search, right? I don't want his dating baggage to become mine, and I see that happening should I chose to spend more time with him. So there ya go.

So where do I go from here? I've been kind of depressed lately since realizing that  want to part of the non-religious dating scene without the sex. It puts me in a really odd category to date in, and makes the pool of available men even smaller than it previously was. I feel like I should have already done what I haven't and haven't done what I already have. I don't know where to go from here.

I really just want someone to know me. I want to be known. I know I stole that phrase from my last boyfriend, but it fits. He got me on many levels, but he didn't on so many more, and when it comes right down to it, he was really just horny and not willing to listen to my needs before he got his own met. A good friend, at most. Not a good life partner. So the search continues. The search for a compassionate, good, giving, and game partner for me to walk through life with continues. Follow me on my journey.