I came back from China, in broken pieces scattered on a serpentine path and without the slightest idea of how and where to start reconstructing myself. I have been away for the past 10 years and I was always on a journey filled with struggles, derived from my attempts to find a purpose in life, a meaning to exist, a place to call home, a man to call my lover and a career that I would find exciting and rewarding.

Needless to say, I have not managed to find any of that and the troubles that ate at me daily, forced me to flee inumerable times from cities, countries, jobs, relationships.

The only constant in my life is that I often feel lost, lonely and without a sense of belonging. The tendency, so far, has been to fill the void with my insatiable desire to find love and a man that can love me so much it hurts. I never experienced intense love and at the same time, healthy and uplifting. The more I couldn’t have it, the more I longed for it and created a whole fantasy of love inside my head. The reason for that might be that I am an incurable romantic. Ever since I was a teenager I felt like part of my fulfillment and my happiness was a man, another human being to make me whole.

I idealized the notion of love to such an extent that I almost served myself on a silver platter to numerous men that only intended to use me. I was constantly dreaming about longing for someone, for anyone that could make me feel awe, immense admiration and absolute, fucking, intense love.

After my 5 years relationship, the loss of love, no matter how much of a routine or just a comfortable prison it had become towards the end, I returned to my beloved home country, Romania.

Instead of focusing on healing and self-development, I denied my pain, I externalized my thoughts of failing in every single domain of my life and unconsciously, I decided that I am not worth being loved and treated with respect by men.

So, guess what? During the pandemic, I went for the easiest and fastest way to meet guys or “to have a chance at love” and that happened to be Tinder.

Tinder was like looking for the needle in a haystack, looking for a decent guy that matches me,that can give me that unconditional love and care I was yearning for, and who could ,at the same time, enjoy the same things I do: reading, art, exploring off the beaten track places, mystery, deep emotions…And I was kind of aware that I would have to sort through so many people that don’t even come close to what I really wanted, but still, I kept going and I allowed myself to be disrespected, humilliated, dominated…as if I was punishing myself for being a failure, for not being good enough, for not deserving to be loved.

During the first few months of 2021, I was marked by a painful duality, the naive desire that I could find someone to treat me right and care about me on Tinder, and the burning tendency to swallow every bit of rubbish that came my way, to self-flagellate by allowing men to treat me worse than I deserved. It all happend because I was in transition and because my suffering was clogged deep inside and on the surface I was, and to be honest, I still am, numb and frozen. I am still at the self-discovery stage and how erroneous it was to think that fulfillment comes with a partner that supports you and helps you develop.

The only thing that I have learnt is that when you are deliberately and desperately searching for love, you won’t find it.

Inner peace and happiness do not depend on a romantic partner.

I am glad I got to the stage of saying no, of stopping my desperate searches and my exhausting, repetive dates.

I had all these ideas in my mind about what I want and I met guys who were just selfish and in it for their own pleasure. They were exactly the accumulation of all the things I despised. They weren’t capable of giving residues of care, respect and kindness or of even being grateful for receiving. I do not blame them because I was attracting exactly what I thought I deserved, men for whom I was never enough, because I wasn’t enough for myself.

How did the dating stories go?

I met a few guys that were decent, and kind of compatible in terms of personality and values, but I didn’t really feel physically attracted to them.

On the other side, I encountered a few handsome men, whose behaviours, arrogance, selfishness and past traumas warned of difficulties and screamed “Stay way”. Did I listen to my intuition? Did I protect myself and love myself enough to refuse everything I didn’t really need or want? No, I kept walking on the path of longing, of painful, superficial, empty and aggressive sex on floors covered in wine, cigarettes and bites.

There was “The Viking”. I went up to him in a teahouse and started a conversation. I was superficially attracted to his looks. However, once I realised he sweats too much in bed and I can’t handle that smell and that behind his image of a strong, muscular guy there is negligence and a soft belly I started liking him less. Those things together with the fact that he was younger than me and sexually inexperienced, completely annihilated my shallow emotions. I led him on, got him to be into me, just to realise that he can’t satisfy me in bed and that he is not sophisticated enough in his way of being and in his way of expressing himself. His jokes about vomit, shit and boogers disgusted me.

There was Mihai, the 45 years old guy, good looking, kind of spiritual, but too sexually-focused, and with a huge package from his past. He was the way I used to see myself, smart, curious, with adventure in his blood, sexually-open to new experiences and not too fond of monogamy. But the fact that he was way too similar to myself challenged me and made me ask myself how far I’d be willing to go. It felt like it’s all about sex and sensual pleasure with him, nothing about emotions, empathy and affection. The little, vulnerable girl inside of myself wanted to be showered with care and undivided attention.

There was Razvan, too short and not consistent enough when interacting with me and way too humorous for my taste. Nothing was a normal conversation about deep, philosophical subjects, and all was about trivial shit and bad jokes memorised from the internet. He was smart enough, but in order to make up for his height he pretended to be too self-confident and took evertything as a joke.

There was Siri, the bistro guy, a blonde hottie suffering from exhaustion, a gambling addiction and a severe depression wrapped up in wit and bursts of maniacal energy. Deep inside, he is an emotionally sensitive guy who has been burnt too many times and wants to present himself as a tough guy in order to protect himself. He made it clear from the beginning that we are too different and we won’t be more than fuck buddies. Due to the fact that it was kind of a challenge for me, I started for an instant to think and fantasize about wanting more from him, but he was absolutely right, a potential relationship would have been disastrous. It became a sort of routine to meet biweekly for sex, even though the sex wasn’t even great or satisfying. He started telling me stuff about his interactions with other women, and when I started doing the same, I felt he doesn’t want to hear that. Wtf?

There was Cristian, a kind of a smart guy, but too selfish and with out of this world expectations from a woman. He boasted he is great with his communication skills, but he was awful at seeing things from another’s perspective and everytime I’d say something that wasn’t going down well with his perspective, his blood would start to boil and he’d start shouting. He was selfish in sex and too cold when out in society together.

Meeting all these men and dealing with all their shit, with their past baggage and expectations, all their self-focus made me long for an idealized past.

And then I realized that I have to stop searching and that I have to focus on myself and end this downfall of disappointments, of being used and abused and of making compromises just to feel less lonely.

From now on, it’s all going to be about me, about self-love and improvement. If anything else comes up on this path, I will be open for it, but I will not make it my purpose in life any longer. It’s time to heal!