I’m dating again.
How I feel about it ebbs and flows, but probably not in the way you’d expect. At first, dating felt wildly life-giving. It felt like such a gift to have conversations with men I didn’t know. To be curious. To hear their stories. To feel seen and desired after being invisible in my marriage for so long. It felt amazing.
I wanted to date for the sake of it. To have sex again, yes, but mostly to feel fully alive to new experiences. If something about someone interested me — anything at all — I’d agree to a date. “Sure. Why not?” It felt like a fun experiment. I liked dating before marriage and I like it on this side too. I was not looking for a partner in any real way, which really broadens who is interesting.
I liked the idea of a harem. A small collection of devoted gentleman callers, each fulfilling a different part of my relational ecosystem. Being fulfilled in the many ways we hope for without relying on any one person for everything felt like a far better gamble than marriage. It’s so heavy to look to one partner for all we desire.
I wanted one man for deep emotional connect and complex conversation. One who is funny and easy. One who likes the same activities and makes a good date to things. One who could teach me something new. A handy one whose love language is fixing things at my house. And then, of course, Jason Momoa, with whom I would never need to speak at all because…other reasons.
I’d live at my house with my kids and accept visitors when I felt like it, gloriously free from wifely obligation. I would never be disappointed because whatever one wouldn’t happily provide, another would step in to. We would all just bring to the table what we sincerely wanted to give and it would be clean and simple, this harem life of mine.
It’s a lovely fantasy, right?
It was especially appealing to the very-recently-separated me. I had gradually become so dulled and weighed down in marriage that I had a visceral need for freedom, even though I still wanted a version of companionship.
Seeing where all my relationship-minded compromising landed me, I feel very uncompromising now. A harem is great for that.
