Will I Always Be Alone?

0:00Welcome. Thank you so much. How are you? I'm shitting myself a little bit. Sometimes I think when you have so much to say, you forget how to speak. So I hope I will be able to say everything which I've had on my mind. Okay. Shall we listen to your voice message? Sure. hi Esther my question for you is where do I go from here how do I remember who I am when I feel like I've lost myself trying to find love the dating scene has really consumed me so much and I actually don't know what I want anymore I moved to a new country with a new language and and trying to make new connections in this new space and on a very clean slate.

0:59The language is a real difficulty. I feel like I'm not gay enough for the gay community, and I'm definitely not straight enough for the church. So, yeah, in trying to find relationships, friendships and a partner, I feel like I've sort of lost myself in, well, especially in dating, I've lost myself in the chaos of the whole dating scene. When I do meet someone who's nice, I'm quickly uninterested sexually. And it seems like I'm only attracted sexually to guys who are either very unavailable, like they are straight or they're not looking for anything serious. Is it possible that I've adjusted my desires to fit into the system whereby I'm fine with emotionless intimacy?

1:52I'm also just tired of being the one who is always caring and looking out for and looking after someone. I would like to find a relationship where that is a mutual thing.

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3:56I see you shake your head. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Say more. I think it's just been quite frustrating because I thought arriving in this new big city compared to what I was used to, the opportunities to date, but also the success of dating would be so much higher. And what I've found is it's actually so much more difficult to date in a big city. And it saddens me a little bit listening to that voice note because I think there's a sense of me which is just tired. Is tired of trying and is tired of the sort of like rejection of it and the addictiveness of it. and it feels like this sort of spiral that you don't want to step out of because you feel like that spiral is the only way to get where you want to be.

5:00But at the same time, you think maybe it's actually not the healthiest environment either. So you sort of don't know where to go from this. Should I jump off or should I keep running? But running this way isn't getting me anywhere either. can you tell me where you're running what you're doing how low you got well I'm from the UK grew up in the UK I moved to South Africa alone when I was like 18 and then I stayed there for 10 years and a year and a half ago I moved to France and I've been there since. So French, obviously not my first language. Really hard when it comes to dating, when it comes to any kind of connections.

5:50I found that a barrier to intimate connections. And Europe in general has been a real mind fuck for me because just the way of life is really different. Even though this is where I was born, this individualistic approach to life is really different to what I had back home as in back in South Africa and for some reason I've become just like that and like what like what I I cling I cling to my solidarity I don't want to go out I find like meeting people and spending time with people exhausting and I just want to be alone but when I'm back home or I spend a lot of time in West Africa community is my day-to-day but something shifts in me when I get back to Europe and I just don't want to be around people more than an hour even friends and I'm exhausted I have to go home and sleep and I don't know what it is that is so different there than what it was back home And you date, you socialize, or you avoid it?

7:10Or do you get obsessive about it? I think when it comes to dating, I get obsessive about it. The only way I date is dating apps, because I don't go to any places that are quote-unquote gay. I don't party. I don't, even friends I've made in the gym, they are all straight. And I don't really put myself in those environments in day-to-day life, not because for lack of trying, but because those are like environments, I just don't naturally go to them. Like I wouldn't spend my nights at a bar and I wouldn't go to gay clubs or anything. So I feel like the easiest option for me in terms of dating is apps and that's like the addictiveness to dating is perhaps more the addictiveness to the apps rather than dating itself where do you go all of them all of them and I will download them and delete them and download them and delete them some weeks I can go on a date maybe three times in that week but yeah it never seems to materialize materialize meaning that you never see the men again?

8:29Yeah. So if it's a date, like for instance, we go for a coffee or for a drink, I can think back to like a few weeks ago, some dates were okay, but the language was a problem. Other dates, the language was fine, but I just didn't have any connection to this person. It didn't feel great. And then if it's just a hookup, it's just a hookup and you see them once and you never see them again. And so, yeah, it feels like either the dating or the hookups doesn't seem to materialize in the way that I wish they would. And I think what saddens me is that I think I'm becoming more and more like the culture, which is just intimacy without responsibility.

9:20and I don't want that, but it just feels like that's sometimes the only thing that's on offer. Tell me about your life and your relationships in Africa and in South Africa. I think, firstly, there's smaller cities, so I can't walk 500 meters in Cape Town without seeing someone I know. My life was really outward focused. I just made friends very easily. I felt really comfortable with strangers and I had built a really good community because I arrived there. I didn't know anybody. I arrived on my own and everything I had, I had built and it really felt like home and family and it was everything I ever wanted.

10:13Similarly, when I've been going to West Africa, I've been really fortunate to just find community and to have people who are just around me and it feels easy, it feels natural and that's not something I have experienced in Europe. And you had boyfriends, you had relationships, you lived with men or women or whoever? I've only really had two relationships. One was quite short, six months. And then I had a long relationship, which was about two and a half years. We did long distance for a year. And then he moved to Cape Town for about eight months. And then that ended about two years ago. So that was, yeah, it's been about two years or a year and a half since my last relationship.

11:04and meeting was on your desire list in South Africa as well and you did it the same way dating apps or and how did you live your romantic lives and sex lives I kind of came to my sexuality a little bit late. So I didn't, by the time I had experienced sex, it was pretty soon after that, I met my first boyfriend. So I was alone for a long time in South Africa. I felt like I had everything I ever wanted. And only then did I realize I would like to share this with someone and started to question whether that was a guy or a girl and quickly realized it was a guy. And then I had a longer relationship.

11:58And we met, I think, on social media. It wasn't on a dating app. But yeah, when that ended, I felt like apps were the most simple way to meet. And in general, the type of guys I seem attracted to are perhaps the guys who you wouldn't necessarily be able to know whether they're gay or not. And I think that's why I find that I'm more likely to find them on an app than in real life. Explain. I think I'm, and I don't know if it's like a taboo subject or whatever, I just say anything, I guess. In general, I'm just more attracted to more masculine men, men who have similar interests to me. So they're sporty, they like to work out, they have a healthy lifestyle.

12:56They are more quote-unquote masculine or discreet or however you want to put it. And also, maybe I should mention, because it's something I'm really conscious about at the moment, I've only really dated black men and I'm so like aware of this and I'm really conscious of maybe I should force myself to just like meet different kinds of guys and why is why is this is it bad is there something like wrong with me for thinking this and I don't know what it is I mean, I feel like my world is mostly this. And so I feel like it's the life I chose when I moved to South Africa. And I feel like it just fits that world I had imagined so much more.

13:53I feel like, I don't know, I feel more understood. because I'll try and date like French guys and British guys and I just feel like they don't understand that part of my life. They have so many ideas about what it is and they don't get it. And I don't know whether I should be more open-minded or whether it's bad that I feel this way. I have a sense that many of the questions you're going to ask today are not necessarily questions that need an immediate answer. They are questions that need to be said out loud. It seems like you have held them in your head and sometimes you have spoken to yourself, but you've actually never heard yourself say these things to someone else.

14:54yeah definitely i think uh i don't think i really have that outlet if you have a question and it is followed by what the hell is wrong with me then you can't think a real question has a question mark at the end and it's a real interrogation it's an inquiry i noticed that I've been drawn only to black men. I would like to understand that. There's something I feel, a certain understanding. Maybe there's also an erotization. Since I say that straight after I talk about masculinity, a certain type of masculinity, I seem to see it more in black men. I mean, you can judge it, but it won't help you understand it first or even know what to do with it.

15:44So a lot of the things we're going to talk about, we're going to just first ask the questions, then we're going to unpack it, see what we can understand from it. We'll do the best we can in the hour we have. You may not say everything you have to say because a lot of these things are not things you've talked about. You know, you use the word dating, and you even use the word hookup, but a lot of this is more than just dating. and when you say I kind of become the same kind of sex-driven person than the people that I don't want to interact with, but I end up doing that. I say I want love, but I end up having high-intensity, low-emotion, hit-and-run sex.

16:30Yeah. Is there some connection between your being drawn to black men and the kind of interactions that you have? I think there's definitely that, And I think there's... There's definitely what? What piece of that? The fact that the type of sex or the type of interaction that I would have in a hookup versus what I had had in relationships. but I also think I'm just I'm tired of the I think there's this draw to intimacy where I don't have to be responsible for somebody else's emotions and it's like finally I don't have to be the one to be responsible and to look after and all of these things it's like Like finally I can just be selfish and just enjoy it for what it is and then it's done.

17:28I don't have to do all of the other parts which naturally come to me. And so when I'm in a relationship or if there's someone who's important in my life, I just naturally give those things. So it's like finally I can just be selfish with this.

17:53We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about. So stay with us.

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22:01Tell me if I hear you well. When I become intimate, the way that I experience closeness involves for me a heightened sense of responsibility for the feelings of the other person. And I forget myself. and the best way I have found so far to actually be what you call selfish or to be able to focus on me is an anonymous fuck. Yeah, when I love someone I become responsible for their happiness. And where did you learn that? I guess at home. In my family I was the one who everyone goes to with their problems. And I didn't so much have the place where I was free to have my problems. I was the one who always had their shit together, always doing fine.

23:07Who sucked up all the air? My sister. How? she needed so much more time and support and even from me when I was younger I became her sort of like everything her support in emotionally in every kind of way and only when I moved to South Africa did I start finding a way to distance myself build boundaries and then slowly work back in a healthy relationship. But it was really, really unhealthy when I look back now, the level of dependency that she had on me. And it's so much better now. But I think, yeah, like I find my natural tendency if I'm starting to like someone or starting to enter into a relationship, And I want to go back to that way of showing love, which is just to do everything and anything I can to make sure they are happy.

24:23Because I confuse love and care. If I can be needed, I will be loved. Because there was a tacit pact between me and one of my parents. laid out for me. You've thought about this a lot. I think because it gave me purpose and reason for being in a family dynamic where I didn't perhaps feel 100 % seen. 100 % or much at all?

25:03I think... You've been lonely for a long time. Yeah, I knew I was loved but lonely, yeah. You've been lonely for a long time. Mm. Mm. And there's a lot of sadness and a lot of grief. Yeah. It's okay, just take it in.

25:32When you said I left at 18 and you went far, couldn't go much further it wasn't just curiosity for a new place so I instantly asked myself what did he run away from so you spoke about your sister was there parents one parent, two parents, three yeah two parents we had a pretty normal family for a long time my parents only got divorced a few years ago so at the time it was pretty normal but like very classic British family I think like my dad is very emotionless but they were very supportive and very loving like I'm very close to my mom now again much much much closer so yeah I've definitely worked hard to rebuild those relationships again.

26:36Does anyone in the family know how lonely you felt? I don't think so. But you're very close but you know them and they don't know you. They know nothing about me. Right. Do they know you're gay? They know I'm gay. They did meet my ex but they know only what I share and I've never felt able to share anything. It's like I said at the beginning of the call, when you have words on your lips, but they don't come out, that would be about anything. They would ask how my day was. I couldn't bring myself to say the words. It's like, I've never been able to share anything. And I don't really know why. Since you were a little boy?

27:26Yeah. Yeah, I've been really secretive and only if emotions would get really, really, really high, then I would just break down and I would tell them something or part of it and then I would close back up the next day. And only if it gets really, really bad would I not be able to hold it in anymore. Do you think there may be a connection between the silence that you learn to keep, the words on your lips that don't get to be expressed, and the challenges that you have around dating?

28:19perhaps I try to when I'm getting to know someone to be as open and express myself as much as I can and I find it easier in a partner than I do in say my family but yeah it definitely doesn't come naturally do you express yourself physically more easily than verbally? Yeah, no, I do, yes. Because I'm just thinking of examples and I do, but like if I'm chatting to someone and getting to know someone, the first thing I want to do is say like, how can I make your day better? What do you need? What can I do? And I think like I'm really hoping and waiting for them to say, but what about you? Like, what do you need?

29:13What can I do for you? but yeah, it rarely comes. And then I find myself in the same situation, and then I'm like, this is exhausting, I'm tired of this, and let's just move on. So you meet someone, and when you like them, for a reason that isn't yet totally clear, you feel compelled to ask them, how can I take care of you? But in fact, what you're really yearning for is someone who says, how can I take care of you?

29:58Yeah, exactly. Which means you're kind of setting it up to not get the very thing you want. And you convince people, I mean, I imagine, like you convinced your family, I don't need anything. But then you feel invisible and unloved and then you feel hurt and then resentment and then you quit. It's exactly like that, yeah. But I don't know how to show love in another way. Ah, okay. Let's start with the beginning. I enjoy being with you. I like spending my time with you. I love the connection that we're building. It doesn't have to follow instantly with... I was going to say it's almost like a false premise.

30:57Not that you don't want to take care of them, but you actually want something else more. And you don't have to worry. You'll take care of people always in some way or that is inside of you. It's how you ask and make yourself and your presence matter.

31:20When you would explode at home, was there a reaction? I mean, how did this become so entrenched? There is no room for me. It's not just I have no room for my feelings. You say I didn't share a single thing. Not what I saw, not who I played with, nothing. And I became quite detached. And if you don't share anything of your life with anybody, then you become estranged from yourself. Because we need witnesses. And when you become estranged from yourself, it also becomes easier to have kind of anonymous sex non-stop because it's not just that they are not really what you think of as a subjective person but you don't feel that you are either.