Editor’s note: In early 2015, finding myself and other women generally fed up with the hit or miss numbers game that is online dating, an idea sprung forth- What if we used technology to fix us up the old fashion way, via our friends? Or in this case our Facebook friends. So a few of us, myself included, reached out to our Friend’s list and inquired if they knew someone in their circle of friends who might be right for us. One participant got zero responses, I got a lot of vague and noncommittal direct messages directly from dudes (who didn’t get the point I guess). But our resident weed and movie grrrl Chelsea Robinson struck red hot, real love, straight out of an R&B Jam.
So be brave, put yourself out there and ask the (virtual) universe for what you want.
You never know, you just might get it. -MD
Being single sucks. But it also totally doesn’t. I’ve been single for roughly 99.2% of my life and it has actually been pretty great. I’m glad I didn’t have relationships when I was young, even though it was something I desperately wanted. I’ve felt extremely fortunate to know myself like I do and to like myself a great deal. I contribute much of my personal growth to being alone most of the time. I’ve rarely felt like I wasn’t a whole person or like I didn’t deserve to be loved in a healthy and tender way. But I have been lonely. Real fuckin’ lonely. And despite all evidence to the contrary, I have believed that true love is real and that eventually, it would be something I would experience.
I’ve never been a person one could consider to be lucky in love. To the point that I was wondering if perhaps the women in my family had been cursed somewhere along the line. We’re all just not very good at this. I’m blessed AF in many ways, I have excellent hair, a wonderful family, and the most awesome friends ever, and I’m probably at least the sixth funniest person you’ll meet at a weed shop. However, my love life has always been a hot mess. I’ve had so many false starts that I’m basically a human Yugo.
I also hate online dating with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns. I’m a person who has feelings so it’s really not the platform for me to find love. It’s definitely the platform for anyone and everyone to fluff their collection of dick pics (which I HIGHLY encourage), though.
In 2016 and in my little pocket neighborhood where I basically see the same twenty or so dudes who I know and love and totally don’t want to fuck this makes finding love awfully difficult.
So STACKEDD (specifically Ma’Chell) decided to try a little journalistic experiment. Do people still fix up their friends? Being that we’re living in the modern internet age, we conducted this experiment through Facebook. I posted a status update letting everyone know what I was doing (and of course, that it would eventually be written about) and what type of fellow I generally go for (beard, chub, nerd). I didn’t exactly expect the fix-ups to come pouring in but I got a message from my homegirl Liz pretty quickly. She had a friend in mind! So I sent him a message, eagerly awaiting his reply. Crickets. Then another friend sent me a message! She had a guy, too! I sent him a message and we chatted a little. He seemed nice but the conversation tapered off after a few days. So far, fairly typical of my dating life. I’m ready for fireworks. I get duds.
At the time, I was dating someone. What prompted me to participate in this experiment was that he didn’t want to be my guy. We were great friends and we were having a cool time fooling around but it was truly breaking my heart to love someone who didn’t love me back (also a pattern in my very sad dating history). So, with negative nothing to lose, I sent a message to another guy that Liz sent my way. I was already skeptical about a dude named Chunk (seriously?!?!?) but he was really cute and he responded enthusiastically. After a few messages, we made a date for dinner at Lil’ Woody’s in Ballard. I was late (as per usual) and he was really nice about it. And he was even cuter in person, with his patched up jacket and tattoos and glasses.
The conversation flowed and my nervousness dissipated as the date went on. I gave him a pot cookie from the dispensary I worked at (FINALLY! A dude who smokes weed! After dating someone who abstains for 9 months this was a magical treasure!) and we laughed a lot. He told me some crazy stories from his upbringing in Alaska. I liked this guy. After a nice dinner, we parted ways. He told me he was going out of town but he definitely wanted to hang out when he got back. With my dating history and my self-esteem in the condition it was in, I was like, “Cool. He seems great. Probably never gonna hear from him again. Another one for the “Island of Lost Potential Boyfriends.”
To my surprise, I heard from him a week later. He texted saying he had a cool time and wanted to see me again. Our second date was literally him coming over and making out with me in my bedroom. It was great!
Our third date I already knew I liked him and I like to bone so I was prepped for some sexy times. He stood me up. At the time, he was working overnight shifts and he basically slept two days a week. So he slept through our sex date- Which was a huge bummer. I was giving up hope fast. He sent me a long apology at like 1am saying he really liked me, he was super sorry, and hopefully, he didn’t fuck it up. After crying and feeling rejected all night I was reluctant to give him a second chance. But good dudes are pretty fucking rare. Like, unicorn rare, so I decided to give him another shot.
Chunk and I have been together for over a year now and we’re sickeningly in love. I didn’t actually think this kind of love existed outside of rom-coms and here we are, being gross as hell. We just got our first fur baby, a baby bunny named Flapjacks, furthering our grossness. I have a true partner and someone I can be myself through and through with and he loves and accepts me for all I am (ditto me for him, which was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be). It’s the love I have been waiting for. It’s the love that made all the false starts worth it. I’m happy as fuck. And it’s all because I asked my friends to hook me up. So, yeah, love is still real in 2016. This story is meant to instill hope in those of you who have given up hope. If a human Yugo can find the guy who can keep her running you can, too. You just gotta know how to ask for it. And get lucky as hell. And spend most of your life alone so you get to develop a deep self-love and self-respect that prepares you for this kind of love. So, you know, no big deal.
It wasn’t just the fix-up that was an experiment for me. Falling in love was an experiment for me, as well. To see if I could do it, to see if someone could do it with me. I’m 33 years old. I’ve been doing this whole taking care of myself, doing everything on my own thing for a hot minute. By far, the hardest part of this has been letting the love in and allowing someone else to take care of me every once in awhile and trusting that help. Giving love has never been my problem, but believing someone wants that love has been tough. I mean, I didn’t even know people who look like me could fall in love until Sookie married Jackson on Gilmore Girls. There have always been deeper issues involved with me finding love. It’s weird to be “other” (I’m fat) because we’re watching the same rom-coms as everyone else, we’re listening to the same songs, but none of them are about us. None of them show us falling in love. None of them show someone adoring us. It’s hard to believe in something you can’t see so falling in love and keeping that love seemed impossible to me for most of my life. It’s amazing what having a supportive and kind partner and starting from a place of self-love can do for one’s media de-programming.
With time, I got a little better at being someone’s love. And I got better about letting someone be mine. Every day I have to remind myself it’s something that I can have in my life. It took me a long time to learn how to love myself and learning to love someone else and be loved by someone else is a process that I will be working on for a long time still. But what else do you do? Love is work. And to quote the saint RuPaul, “If you can’t love yourself how in the HELL are you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen?” A-F#@ck-MEN!
The post Love in a Hopeless Place: Facebook Fixed Me Up appeared first on STACKEDD Magazine.