Chase self actualization, not male validation!
On celibacy, capitalism, and choosing the self.
Navigating the dating world as a twenty six year old can be dizzying. I am part of a generation where people seem to be situating themselves in two stark camps: one group completely swears off getting married and having children, citing concerns of the climate, morality, and financial stability; while the other jumps headfirst into engagements and baby showers at such an uncertain and unrelenting time, choosing to prioritize their own goals and respect the balance society expects from them. No matter which camp they may belong to, I’ve noticed a pattern when I speak to my friends about love, validation, and rejection. Everyone seems to feel the same way: being rejected in any way–even just by someone you might not care about or respect–is a big enough fear for some to opt out of looking for real, genuine love at all. Instead, people may, even subconsciously, opt for a steady flow of shallow, carnal experiences. Or simply choose to settle for a partnership that can be deemed beneficial in some way, yet lacks passion, in order to be seen as successful in a society that favors those who strive to achieve the stereotypical heterosexual nuclear family structure.
In my eyes, this is all wrong. Nothing about any of this is interesting or worth chasing. None of these pointless pursuits are for actual love, as some may perceive them to be, but actually just meaningless chases for validation in a patriarchal and capitalist society. Don’t be fooled: validation is very easy to give and get, and doesn’t really mean anything in the long term. One serving of validation isn’t going to quench you, no, you will constantly continue on your search for the next source of it. It even has a cute little name these days: a situationship. This might look like someone bread-crumbing you with little pieces of validation, often in the form of negging or sexual attention, so that you will get on your knees and crawl, licking the ground, desperately looking for the next crumb. They will never give you the full loaf, once they have you down on the floor like that, you know that right? Validation is just like wealth: the more you get, the more you think you need, and the more you will seek it out and allow it to cloud any other goal you might have had in life. So, please go ahead and stand the fuck up. Looking for love is not the same as craving validation, and these two things must be made completely separate. They can, and often do live in different realms.
I’ve thought a lot about what love really is, and I find myself making amendments to what I think I know about it every few years. The most fascinating thing about communication is that it cannot fully encapsulate and define the little differences in how we each perceive things differently. This is, of course, true for things we sense and smell. But how can we define things we feel, things that are intangible and subjective? How can we define what these things mean, other than by sharing our own human experiences with them with one another?
In the search for love, I realized that it comes in many forms: as an action that we actively practice on ourselves and loved ones; as an irrational electric shock feeling that leaves you spellbound, confused, and unable to think of much else; and as a dangerous risk, one that will could leave you battered and bruised, but could also change you completely and fundamentally. No matter which form of love it is that you seek or that finds you, I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a strong foundation of love and respect for yourself, so that you can make choices that align with your most genuine self. I’d like to quote Bell Hooks’ Communion here–this is a great book to read if my piece today sparks something in you. On page 104, Hooks writes:
“The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourself. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin. We begin this journey to love by examining the ideas and beliefs we have held about the nature of intimacy and true love. Rather than embracing faulty thinking that encourages us to believe that females are inherently loving, we make the choice to become loving. Choosing love, we affirm our agency, our commitment to personal growth, our emotional openness.” (Hooks, 104)
Okay, so you think you love yourself. Great. What now? In the search for love (or even if you simply want to ‘become loving’), vulnerability and openness is paramount. Putting yourself out there fully, with all the cringe and icks on proud display, is the only way you will allow someone (a community, or even yourself) to truly see you, affirm you in a way that is not shallow, and love who you really are, not the facade you created so that people will think you’re cool and mysterious. The inability to distinguish seeking validation for shallow characteristics between the search for deep and real love for your soul is what makes a relationship, or even just a real connection, so difficult to find and establish today. What if we, once and for all, stopped mistaking superficial attention for true intimacy? What if we choose to live lovingly, no matter the consequence, knowing the reward we can reap is far greater?
I’ll tell you a little tidbit about my own personal dating life, if that's okay. I’ve chosen to remain celibate for the past six years after a complicated history with men and some early dating experiences that had left me traumatized. Despite, ironically, being called every version of a slut and whore in my comments and direct messages–so much so that I seldom read them anymore–all throughout this period of my life, I was always very open about my celibacy online. My reply guys really struggle with the concept that someone who’s comfortable posting their body online–a body so easy and electronic to them–can also be celibate. I do not, however, believe that the existence or presentation of the human body is inherently sexual, and we also should not normalize the treatment of it as such. My choice to present my body in any way is not consent for your sexual harrassment, period. You’ve never seen arms and legs before? You don’t have nipples that sometimes poke through your shirt? Why are they sexual on me, but not on you? Can my body simply exist without sexual ideas being imposed onto it?
Long before I willingly posted myself online, back in the early 2000s, I modelled for popular tween brand Claires. I was about twelve years old when I did this particular campaign. A popular YouTuber at the time, Shane Dawson, had uploaded a video titled “Silly Bands Are Racist” (or something along those lines—these videos were all deleted from his channel after his online cancellation and subsequent channel purge a few years back.) This video started out by him recording the poster of someone else and I, whilst he did a voiceover which was supposed to be our conversation. The conversation was, as you might have been expecting, of a very sexually explicit manner. I remember my agency being upset with it, but there was nothing we could do. My friends at school even reassured me that it was “cool,” though I personally found it mortifying. I only went on this tangent to make you aware of just how early girls are socialised to forcibly accept sexualization, though it started much earlier than this for me. But it was constant, unrelenting, and came at me from all angles: even those I could have never even expected.
Even men I date in person, those of all ages and walks in life, have lots of trouble grappling with the idea of chosen celibacy, even after hearing about my experiences. How could I not want any sort of male romantic or sexual validation in over half a decade–the first years of my twenties especially? There must be something wrong with me, is what everyone thinks. Well, it’s quite the contrary. Actually, I think everything is really right with me. I’ve felt so much peace these past few years. You fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, right? But women, especially, are socialized to receive hurt gracefully and pick yourself back up immediately, or else you might lose out on “the one” and end up childless and alone–gasp! We’re also taught to regurgitate this bullshit ideology to each other, to make sure no one is on the fringe and therefore, focused too much on themselves.
I honestly never really liked playing the dating game. Even in high school, while many were crushing on boys, I much preferred keeping to my own interests, which made me an outcast. However, these interests also gave me a sense of purpose, in their own way, in a time when my home life was tumultuous and uncertain. I found a love for South Korean culture, language, and food which led me on an incredible journey in which I moved to Seoul for three years. But because I was not specifically chasing boys actively, many would question my reasons as to why. See, if you don’t make this shift into prioritizing the chase of companionship once you hit puberty, you will be seen as an outsider, and people will try to put you into different categories to make sense of you, or make your choices look undesirable so others will not try the same. But these cringey interests–the things that bring you true fervor–are what you will return to in your adulthood, as you seek to reclaim your own identity after years of overextending yourself for others. As Hooks points out:
“As girls we felt we had power. We were strong and fierce and sure of ourselves. Somehow, as we made our entrance into the realm of young womanhood, we began to lose power. Fascinating research on girlhood is happening these days. It confirms that young girls often feel strong, courageous, highly creative, and powerful until they begin to receive undermining sexist messages that encourage them to conform to conventional notions of femininity. To conform they have to give up power. Giving up power has been what aging has traditionally felt like for most women. And with the loss of those feelings of power came the fear that we would be forever abandoned, unloved. Now midlife and thereafter has become not only a time to reclaim power but also a time to know real love at last.” (Hooks, 7)
While Hooks states that women come to this conclusion in their middle ages, I think many of us can and do come to this conclusion earlier. I think we owe this largely to the phones and the current manosphere. Thankfully, due to experience, I learned early in life that I am the loyal-to-a-fault sort of person that puts all my eggs in one basket, and cannot hide my feelings. Once I have them for you, I want you to know, so we can share them and build on them together. Why wouldn’t I? I feel deeply. I am honest and straightforward about my intentions and desires. I communicate my traumas and fears openly. Being myself, so unabashedly, has culminated in many years spent alone. I was not always lonely, because thankfully, I like myself, and I am not afraid to do things on my own. In fact, I often prefer it. But, this can bother other people, and the older I get, the more often I am reminded of my perceived “solitude” by others. As Hooks states of her own journey in her twenties:
“While I had chosen to adopt the persona of the rebellious girl, the crazy one–and it seemed like a small price to pay for being able to be in touch with my longing to create, to know myself and the world—I was not prepared to face that world alone. I simply did not have the necessary survival skills. Despite eating problems (I often ended up at student health), sleepless nights, and bouts of intense depression, I doggedly pursued my own way. I wanted to be self-actualized.” (Hooks, 27)
I, too, long for self actualization above all else. To know, at the end, that I lived my life for myself completely, without giving into others’ doubts. Is that not what life is for? To be fair, it isn’t really much of a choice for me. I always had to choose myself, and provide for myself. I learned very early on that no one was coming to save me, but myself. So, I never knew how to be anyone but myself, no matter how that may have come across to others. It was a hard pill for me to swallow that being so unafraid to be who you are would be considered an unpopular opinion, but most become so afraid to be perceived of as “chalant” that they will completely suppress any interest that may be seen as quirky, instead sucking on a tube chugging a constant flow of mysterious nonchalant boy/girl pretty doe eyed angel archetype pig-slop trends that convince us all to idealize a sanitized, submissive, and most importantly, white cis-het male-gaze oriented standard.
Despite how open I was to loving and devoting myself to the pursuit of love, I noticed how little the beings–all completely different types of men–I showed interest in seemed to care about my wellbeing, and how easy it was for them to dispose of me when a new shiny object came into their view. I saw how they let fear take control when they found out that I cared deeply. I could see it: carrying the responsibility to not hurt another person was too heavy a burden to bear for some, even if it meant passing up the chance of real love.
I became quite used to being seen as a trophy–an object to claim and then put on a shelf to get dusty and brag about for the rest of your life–and noticed that no matter how hard I tried to connect emotionally with the other person, or even appeal to their humanity, they would always likely hurt me in the same exact way. I believe men make more conscious choices than given credit for. They are not simply aloof and dumb–it is weaponized incompetence. He is not listening simply because he does not strive to please you. Rather, men have been proven, through research, to be largely homosocial. In a qualitative study conducted by Michael Flood in 2008, a group of young men aged 18-26 were observed and interviewed in order to study male-male social bonds. The study’s findings pointed to the fact that:
“Masculinity studies argues for powerful links between homosociality and masculinity: men’s lives are said to be highly organized by relations between men. Men’s practice of gender has been theorized as a homosocial enactment, in which the performance of manhood is in front of, and granted by, other men. Males seek the approval of other males, both identifying with and competing against them. They attempt to improve their position in masculine social hierarchies, using such “markers of manhood” as occupational achievement, wealth, power and status, physical prowess, and sexual achievement.” (Flood, 341)
Thus, through my own research by experience, I learned that most men do not have much respect or empathy for me, and this is not necessarily a personal thing or a unique experience. I, and many other women, are vessels to be used in the dance that men perform for their bros–even when they are not even physically present. The patriarchal male gaze is omnipresent, thus this performance is one that men are expected to impose on themselves, lest ye be deemed a homosexual. When I finally understood that men have a self-imposed inner panopticon of patriarchy, I also learned not to be so naive or trusting and not to give myself away too much or too quickly. Make no mistake: men do have a choice in enforcing this on themselves and others–participation is not mandatory. They can benefit immensely from relying on women to take on all the emotional labor and the burdens of parental responsibilities, so why would they not choose to rely on and even weaponize their incompetence as much as possible? I’m not saying everyone is like this, or that everyone who does this is a man. But in my experience, I learned that people, men, will very consciously tell you anything they think you want to hear to get what they want from you.
I learned that–separately from putting in an actual, concerted effort into someone, of course–you won’t have to go on a one-sided marathon chase for a person who truly wants you, and games likely mean he’s just not that into you. I learned that it is safer to assume that all heterosexual men are–despite my desires and efforts to prove that it wouldn’t be so–guilty by association until proven innocent. This does not mean that they literally are, of course, but just that it is wise to conduct oneself as such. It would have been just plain stupid to not fortify myself after being mentally (and in turn, physically) destroyed by heartbreak every one to three years. So, I started to prioritize my life first and foremost, exactly as men do. Those that stuck around are those that are truly about me, and those people are… drumroll please: my friends and family!
Make a man wait a few dates for any sort of physical validation and you’ll see how they throw a tantrum. Shocking: men that only want me for my body don’t have the interest in spending time getting to know me as a person?! They don’t really care about my lore? No way, you don’t say? While this could be hard to put into practice, it’s really the little things that can be life changing and life saving. Despite how it may feel, there is really no rush, or time limit to find love. I will continue to opt out until I find someone who makes me feel the sort of transreverberation that Teresa of Avila spoke about, in The Ecstasy of St. Teresa. As I’m not religious, I chose to replace every mention of “god” with “the universe,” but regardless I think the feelings captured in this story still resonate. Here it is:
“...Beside me, on the left hand, appeared an angel in bodily form, such as I am not in the habit of seeing except very rarely. Though I often have visions of angels, I do not see them....But it was our [universe’s] will that I should see this angel in the following way. He was not tall but short, and very beautiful; and his face was so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest rank of angels, who seem to be all on fire. They must be of the kind called cherubim, but they do not tell me their names. I know very well that there is a great difference between some angels and others, and between these and others still, but I could not possibly explain it. In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he pulled it out, I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of [the universe]. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one's soul then content with anything but [the universe]. This is not a physical, but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it--even a considerable share. So gentle is this wooing which takes place between [the universe] and the soul that if anyone thinks I am lying, I pray [the universe] in [its’] goodness, to grant him some experience of it.”
Love doesn’t always feel like divine intervention: it can also just be found in the feeling of being known. I am a yearner. I adore writing love letters, carrying my lovers’ picture in my locket, and reading about their horoscope/personality type/Chinese zodiac. I am the sort of person who falls into maddening, sickening love with someone once every few years and wants to know everything about you, and this love often fundamentally changes me, in turn. When I read The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, I felt as though she was describing this same very feeling I know all too well. It can absolutely be toxic to believe that there must be pain in the dedication of the self to another being, but I believe one must expect the pain should come not from the other person, but that it could come from putting yourself, vulnerably, at the foot of another, and asking to be loved. There is always the risk of terrible, awful pain that rips out your insides and leaves your reality permanently altered when you bare your soul to another. But for some people, those that seem truly worth it and make me want to better myself, it is a sacrifice well worth making to experience this feeling, even if it is impermanent. The last sentence (“I pray the universe to grant him some experience of it…”) especially resonates with me, as many of my friends critique the way I allow myself to fall. But I would not trade it for anything, to live a life devoid of this feeling is just simply not worth it to me.
Connecting through intellectual pursuits and displays of emotional intelligence is the new physical intimacy. The mind tends to outlast the appearance, after all. I have never felt more attracted to anyone than when they show care, empathy, and ambition. I have never felt less interested in anyone than when they display ambivalence, apathy, and disinterest. It is in men’s best interest to learn, sooner rather than later, that adopting these characteristics, just because you’re scared to be laughed at or made a mockery of at your most vulnerable, might supply you with an endless flow of meaningless sex, but it is holding you back from cultivating deep connections and finding a community that loves you and cares for you.
There is no such thing as the male loneliness epidemic. The problem is not the women who are becoming too woke. It is your inaction: your fear has rendered you useless. And so you will be cursed to a life of not caring at all, watching your life play out in front of you, never being a full active participant. Or if you do participate, you are living out someone else’s fantasy, the life you think you are supposed to be living, while the life you want haunts you in your dreams. But fear not! It is still well within reach. You are capable and equipped to get it. Will you jump across the cavern of fear, even if it means possibly falling into the abyss for a while, if everything you dreamed of was on the other side? Absolutely nothing lasts forever. So there’s no time to wait: choose to live passionately and stop being afraid. You’re letting the cavern get bigger–so big that you might never make the jump. All you can do is stare, as your dreams get further and further from your reach. If you dream of love–not mere validation–you must take the leap.
Rather than choosing to participate in this vicious cycle that patriarchy and capitalism benefit from me believing is my divine purpose in life, I realized instead that I was already whole, and there was no search necessary for “the one” to complete me, because that isn’t even a real thing. We are not incomplete without romantic companionship. Paris Mwendwa writes in her substack piece titled “True love is sexist propaganda”:
“When you’ve found the one, being kept within the home is not a prison sentence, it’s true love. Believing in “the one” makes it so that no matter what you’re doing in life, you’re ready to drop it to be with a man. You’re not seeing it as you disrupting your life to serve a man, you see it as you choosing your true love. “The one” reinforces the idea that women are made for men.”
There was never anything to search for out there. In fact, everything that I yearned for already existed within and around me. Years spent alone dedicated to learning, cultivating trust in myself, and trying out new things did not make me a failure–in fact, that time was crucial in finding a path to my own self actualization. I was able to try my hand at a great deal of things that I wanted to do in life–and at a very young age–due to my ability to prioritize myself in this manner.
I’ve already spoken in my previous substack pieces about how little I crave validation–seeking a career in entertainment means enduring a constant gauntlet of validation and rejection. I became quite good at receiving either without making it about my own self worth. Being rejected was less about how good or bad I was, but more about the production teams’ desired outcome. Not everyone is able to navigate space in this way, and I’m really glad I was given this tool early on in life. It’s one of my defining personality traits, and is the reason I am able to be the person I want to be, without fear. I’ve had naysayers try to convince me that every decision I wanted to make in my life was a bad idea–but while those people might be still stuck on their first idea, I’ve already been through ten.
When I stopped seeking validation, dating felt forced, and I opted for choosing myself. Many of my friends say they understand my shift to self prioritization, yet will still say things like: “oh, you know I wouldn’t want you to settle for something that’s going to make you unhappy, but I just would like to see you happy in that way.” I can understand, and even appreciate, my friends wanting me to be loved by someone, but to make that a me problem is extremely vexing. I resent the fact that my happiness doesn’t seem worthy of deeming existent, let alone celebrating, as long as it is generated from and for myself, and not in service of a man.
Or even if I do generate happiness from a man, someone who I might be a fan of or admire from afar, it is not a man who has a direct, interpersonal connection to me, and thus it’s still perceived as being generated by me. So it’s never enough. The only way to chase down and prioritize your own happiness in this life and not be a problem you’re reminded of by everyone–even those who support you–is to be a man. In a patriarchal, capitalist society, when even my most “woke” friends are being socialized to desire the trad wife lifestyle, my “rash” thinking process and the way I act quickly to fulfill my own desires is a liability. It is a direct attack on their future plans, the soft life they willingly choose to stomp out their fire and passion for.
This past November, I had a falling out with a friend who I was very close with, and was always empathetic to my dating plight, as she, too, had experienced similar things. Our friendship also connected me to a few other young women, and this became a safe space where we would come together, to commune about even the most vulnerable topics. I felt that I was being seen and heard by those who held similar world views and opinions to my own. Though I may have been the only one in the group who swore off dating completely, I did not attempt to stop them. I watched as every one of them struggled with the dating world in their own way. I respected their plight and supported them, as long as they respected my choice. Often, I was even asked for advice. It became a natural flow, in which we came to rely on each other for this type of support. That was, until my friend found a man that changed everything for her, I suppose. Plans I was invited to would become changed without a mention from anyone in the group and he would be in attendance in my place. When I inquired about this, noticing a huge change in the way they were treating me out of, seemingly, nowhere, I was told that I expected too much out of the friendship. Despite the allegation, my expectations, in fact, had not ever changed. But in lieu of putting in energy into a friendship while also chasing a man, my friend chose to cut me off and completely throw herself into this new relationship.
Seeing a grown woman, one I had once perceived as independent and strong-willed—allow her mind to become so dominated, so much so that she looked dead behind the eyes when I spoke of my hurt at her treatment of me, I was insanely disappointed. It was just another reminder:
“The relationship between male bonding and gendered power is exemplified in early feminist definitions of patriarchy in terms of relations between men, which have a material base, and which, though hierarchical, establish or create interdependence and solidarity among men that enable them to dominate women.” (Hooks, 341)
But, men are not the only ones upholding these hierarchies to protect patriarchy. So are women who wanted to be a part of the picked, enough to cast aside the friends they once loved, and who loved them fiercely enough to tell them the truth. I encourage everyone to lose themselves in love if they feel the need to. But be warned: cutting off those that speak sense into you only is not only a disservice to you but is also contributing to a larger cycle that perpetuates violent treatment of women in general.
As explained by Flood, men often operate in bonds of other groups of men which rely on the exclusion of women, often by emphasizing their perceived differences or superiority to them. Women’s submission to and encouragement of male homosociality (see the rising “womanosphere” for example) allows for the interpersonal violence that maintains the hierarchies of power between genders to be constantly enforced, even from within. Hooks echoes the same sentiment here:
“If younger women simply see romantic friendships as a substitute for the "real" relationships they hope to find along the way, these bonds will be fraught with emotional risk and the ongoing likelihood of betrayal. Most women in patriarchal culture have experienced the heartache of losing closeness with a female buddy when she finds her man. Since female allegiance to males upholds heterosexism, most men demand of their partners that they be the sole primary bond she holds dear. Ideally, when females and males have feminist consciousness that enables them to break with patriarchal thinking about romance and the notion that there should be a dominant party and a submissive party, then they can honor the bonds of love that they hold with one another and with anyone else.” (Hooks, 215)
The idea of “the one” encourages women (and men, though more often than the onus falls on women) to seek out a sole primary bond in their partner, rather than finding love and care through community, keeping us isolated from one another. The coldness of isolation does not just deny you the ability to form connections, but it is denying you of your own human nature. So why do we continue to echo these ideas to each other? When I speak to my friends about this, I can tell that some think I am too difficult for refusing to normalize carrying out all the labor necessary to maintain a relationship with a man and should not only continue my search, but maybe even lower my expectations. When I remind them that it’s probably better for me this way—to not get my emotions entwined with something that will make me regret giving out my trust and instead pour that love into my own cup—they reluctantly agree, but they continue to press, time and time again.
While they agree momentarily for my sake, to quell and satiate what they think I want to hear, others brashly call me mentally ill or simply a closeted lesbian, since a sane, heterosexual woman could never possibly operate out of her own volition and refuse to become a doormat for a man for… what exactly? Having real, enforced standards and refusing to be used does not define my sanity or sexuality, nor does it change the fact that I am just a little depressed and anxious and, unfortunately, still attracted to men despite it all. I understand that it is easier to write me off as overly difficult. But I am only expecting the basic level of care, passion, and love that I know exists, as I am capable of giving it—not just in my romantic relationships, but also in my platonic ones. It can even be more fulfilling to perform emotional labor in platonic relationships, as there is something to be received back; a give and take. With heterosexual relationships, I gave a lot, but never got much. When I asked for something in return, the man would often scoff and say, “you expect too much.” Should women always give unconditionally, even when they know they will get burned from it?
“Celibacy is often a liberating self-loving choice among women for whom the search for sexual pleasure has consistently led them down a self-sabotaging path. Writing about the reasons many contemporary heterosexual women choose celibacy in The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Matthew Fox explains, "As women increasingly develop their awareness and consciousness and to the extent that a sociological situation will prevail where many women will in fact not be able to find men of their calibre and consciousness with whom to share their lives. ... Many women are finding celibacy a better alternative than being victimized in abusive relationships." Joyless sexuality is not life-affirming. Within patriarchal intimacy, many women have sex against their will and desire. Their partners may or may not be coercive.” (Hooks, 226)
While I do believe love and care can and should be given without stipulations, I believe that if you care abundantly about someone, nurture should come naturally and be mutual. However, when the scales continue to tip unevenly to one-side, and rather than stop, you keep pouring onto your side, instead of asking the other to balance the scales, you are enforcing these ideas onto yourself and perpetuating patriarchy. I wish heterosexual women acted as takers more often, rather than defeatedly accepting their role as givers. When did it become cool again to romanticize becoming someone’s mother, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen all day? I get that it seems like it could just be easier that way: you can simply opt to turn your brain off, and let someone else make the big decisions and bring home the bacon. I think many underestimate how soul crushing the reality of this experience will prove to be for them. So what if choosing oneself wasn’t seen as giving up, but respected for what it really was–finally showing up for myself?
Opting out was something I started doing naturally when I became confident in my worth and stopped prioritizing validation over self respect. Society says that girls mature quicker and thus should know better than to trust men, but then when we do know better and choose ourselves, we are frivolous emotional girls or crazed cat ladies? When they want us, we grow up quick enough, but when we seek to reclaim our agency, we are irrational?
Opting out does not mean I’ve completely given up hope in the potential for partnership in my life, or closed myself off to this. I’ve opted out of the dating game, yes. But if love hits me in the face suddenly while I’m out and about, who am I to refuse it? The point is, I know now that love is not just about my participation in dating. Love is in the very way I choose to live, always allowing myself the freedom to be me.
“I looked for love, but I found freedom. And the freedom I found changed my way of thinking about the place of love in a woman's life. I began to see that the proper place for love in a woman's life was not relational love as the source but love generated in the quest for self-realization. By claiming that quest as essential, as the journey that would determine my fate, I realized that the proper place for love was as the solid foundation on which I would invent myself and create a life. Uniting the search for love with the quest to be free was the crucial step. Searching for love, I found the path to freedom. Learning how to be free was the first step in learning to know love.” (Hooks, 32)
Opting out doesn’t mean rejecting the possibility of love, or experiencing a life completely devoid of it. In fact, my life is full of love. The love I pour into my relationship with myself and my community is just as, if not more, important than the love I pour into romantic relationships.
“While a romantic partner and/or soulmate may bring us joy, we add that joy to love already shared with all those who are truly primary in our lives—the circle of people to whom we turn, who turn to us—knowing that they will find us eternally there. No matter how sweet the love between two people, we ask too much if we demand that this relationship and this one other person be "everything." The truth we hold close is that "love is everything." And because love has this power, it is always there within us, within those we love. It offers to us the possibility of ongoing communion.” (Hooks, 243)
Thus, I have given myself the infinite freedom to opt out of sacrificing myself to a cycle that does not reward me, nor try to understand or even include me in its ebbs and flows. I opt out of a cycle that sells the mere illusion of the freedom of choice, while silently forcing me to conform to someone else's expectations. Instead, I opt into the understanding that love is all around us. Love is something we choose to do. Choosing to relate to the world and our own selves in this loving frequency is what allows us to connect with others, and what makes life worth living. In a time where empathy is heavily devalued, refusing to be apathetic and instead caring about everything a great deal is the most radical stance you can take. I choose the freedom to love, and to love as loudly as possible. Will you take the leap too, no matter the outcome?
Flood, Michael. “Men, Sex, and Homosociality: How Bonds between Men Shape Their Sexual Relations with Women.” Men and Masculinities, vol. 10, no. 3, 2007, pp. 339–359. SAGE Journals, https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X06287761. (Original work published 2008)
Harris, Beth, and Steven Zucker. “Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.” Smarthistory, 19 July 2015, https://smarthistory.org/bernini-ecstasy-of-st-teresa/. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025.
hooks, bell. Communion: The Female Search for Love. Perennial, 2002.