I’m 29 & I’ve Never Been In A Relationship

Me on December 31.

Relationships can teach you about the other side of yourself. They really are mirrors but mirrors can also distort your reflection. I’ve always wondered what people used to reflect before the modern creation of the looking glass—I imagine it was people. If they couldn’t see themselves how would they know. We know now from history that the first mirrors were pools of still water and shiny stones that reflected light waves through cones in our eyes. To be a mirror, it requires a certain level of flatness, reflectivity and space. Mirrors allowed us to see what’s behind us, even things that existed in the distance. You would be fascinated to find out that the image in the mirror doesn’t exist and the things in the mirror are seen inverted. Everytime I look in the mirror I see a different person. Everytime I’m with a different person I experience a different me. I think there’s a great value in looking in a mirror and if you look for a long-time you can study the image that appears on the surface of the mirror.

As the title reads: I am twenty-nine years old and I’ve never been in a long-term relationship. I was recently watching a podcast episode from Apple Music hosted by Ciara. One of the questions she asked her guest Tyga was “Is it a red flag if someone has never been in a serious relationship?” Tyga answered that yes it was a red flag because everyone has been in a long-term relationship—at least once. I wanted to talk about this. The question that comes to mind: What does it mean for a woman who has never been in a long-term relationship? Is she lacking in intimacy? Does she not have the necessary skills? Is she bat-shit crazy? Is she a red flag? None of these questions scare me, or the answers to them, because at this stage in life I don’t deal in performance—I deal in truth.

The erotic is the nurturer or nursemaid of all our deepest knowledge.

—Audre Lorde

Most of my early dating experiences were during the rise of the hookup culture, which I think was a very 2010s thing. I had no idea who I was or what I wanted from those experiences. That kind of chaos is often celebrated in dating. I don’t shame anyone for dating or being a serial monogamist but that just wasn’t my journey. I didn’t date as a teenager or the first few years of being an adult. Growing up overweight, with hormonal issues that made me insecure and in an abusive household made me turn inward for self-protection. Closing me off to connections that may have been healing but protecting from ones that could have been damaging. I also suffered from visible invisibility. Something only a fat, black woman can tell you exists. I was noticed but not in the fun way. So, I went through high school a virgin. The trend continued on until I was about nineteen and I found online dating—coupled with being in a religious cult—life was very weird. I ended up on online platforms and dating sites but never really met up with anyone. I threw myself instead into my creative projects, working and learning to dance which I thought would be my way out. Until I met a man I really liked on a dating site at twenty years old and I went on my first date. That night I also had my first kiss. Nothing would come out of that date, not a second or a third. I was just young, unexperienced and didn’t know what to do with all this attention after being told I was fat most of my life and having body dysmorphia.

People at that age and even younger projected all kinds of fantasies onto me. As a black girl I was a villain because people adultified me—assuming I was more experienced and advanced than I ever was. I look back on my early twenties and think there is no way we are the same person. Twenty year old me and twenty-nine year old me look at each other in the mirror like strangers. I’m more experienced, sexy and comfortable with intimacy than I was at that age. So, when I think of never being in a long-term relationship it’s almost surprising. It’s never something that crosses my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be in a long-term relationship. At age of maturity though it’s more than just being with someone because I want to match over shared vision, character, values and intimacy. The time for immature relationships was I don’t know almost a decade ago. I would never entertain certain things I did at that age because as I love to say I’m a grown ass woman. Grownassness requires a certain level of I’m not putting up with certain things.

¹Search by Rumi

But the body’s desires, in another way, are like
an unpredictable associate, whom you must be
patient with. And that companion is helpful,
because patience expands your capacity
to love and feel peace.
The patience of a rose close to a thorn
keeps it fragrant.

The first thing that came up for me was that I never grew up seeing people in relationships. Even though that never influenced me to not want one. Quite the opposite, never seeing my mom date, had a profound affect on me. I was desperate to be in a relationship because I felt like I didn’t want to be my mom. Not because she chose to be single but because she was afraid of her true desires. I saw all the women in my family were afraid of being. Ironically, I only learned her fear. I had many opportunites to be in a relationship. Proposals, propositions and offerings but I didn’t accept them. Not because I was so stuck up but because I was closed-off. I mirrored my mom and I even told her as I got older that I wanted to see her go on date or be treated like a lady. That model would have helped me feel more comfortable. She said that dating as a single mother was scary for her and she didn’t want any old random nigga being our stepdaddy. I get that I do but neglect was modeled. I didn’t see self-love modeled and I didn’t see romantic love. I didn’t even learn to properly date. I need to write a whole essay on this but black girls/young black women are not taught how to date in healthy ways. Where white women are taught from a young age to pursue hypergamy and femininity, we simply aren't. We also didn’t have the pleasure of resting as girls because we are busy being prepared to fight with the world for our dignity and humanity. We are even sometimes discouraged from it if we grew up in sheltered religious homes, putting us at a disadvantage. We are setting our young girls up for failure and to be easily impressed which is even more dangerous. So, I would often get all attached to people who would just ghost me the next day or unsavory ass characters. I started thinking well two can play that game, so I started ghosting people.

It wasn’t until twenty-five, twenty-six that I learned how to actually date. I learned to enjoy myself without any expectation of a relationship, ask for what I wanted and get to know other people instead of projecting. I learned to speak up for what I needed sexually. How to have an orgasm. Let them know my standards, get roses sent to my house and have doors opened for me—learning to receive love. I honestly I still think I’m learning how to date. Dating is fun to me and can be enjoyable. I think dating should still be practiced when you are married as well. Why stop dating your wife or husband? Thats why so many marriages lack eroticism, passion and pleasure but what do I know lol. I just found the question on the podcast interesting. Do people discount people who have never been in a serious relationship? The first thing I can think of is how some men don’t want to marry a virgin. How sexual inexperience is looked down on in both women and men. I also think about how people perceive women who are in long term relationships as better or more agreeable/cooperative. These are not my opinions nor do I agree with them. I don’t know if any of these things are true or valid. In my opinion, a LTR is not a marker of someone’s worth or personality traits really. I could also be bias because I’ve never been in a serious relationship.

I do think I’ll get married one day. I’m not going to live my life contingent on one thing happening though but I will do what it takes to have it. It’s a desire, it’s something I will try to fulfill but I’m not going to feel empty without it. I’m also not going the other route, I’m not going to fill my days with avoiding love or dating. I think we are tricked into believing that singleness is what we desire when we desire a relationship. I’m not talking about the ones that are choosing singleness. Living is not trying to convince other people you are perfectly fine when you truly desire companionship or to be fucked into someone’s mattress. It’s okay to be single and just live and go out on dates, ambition doesn’t have to replace a relationship. It’s okay to be single and not date at all too. It’s okay to have ambition and romance. You see how beautiful nuance is, it leaves room for everyone to be happy, in whatever path they decide. Some people are simply happier single. Others have a glow when they are in love. I like who I am when I’m well-keep. I like who I am with shared intimacy and in fantasy. I’ve seen glimpses of it and one day I will experience it in a serious relationship. Until then I’m going to experience people, dating and do the things I want to do before God tells me to gon’ head and clock out. My ambition is separate from my desires. But make no mistake, my name is Deziré for a reason.

With Love,

Deziré.

Trying to get to my goal weight so I can be flung across someone’s shoulder lol.

1. https://www.poetryverse.com/rumi-poems/search