These are a series of reflections on my relationship with relationships, as I document my journey of romance, personal growth and healing.
Edit: To be completely honest with you, I wrote this within a vulnerable headspace. I am in the midst of processing a relationship I had just ended, as an almost thirty year old woman. Feeling fragile, I hopped online to search for stories of other women in my position. Instead of comfort and validation, I found cruel and bitter comments stemming from Red Pill beliefs, which genuinely affected my morale for a bit. I wrote this in attempt to process, understand, and come away with a more balanced perspective.
Welcome to the red pill
If you google ‘single, woman, thirty’ — you get a multitude of results, all of which hint at the idea that being single as a woman over a certain age is controversial. Apart from a handful of positive examples, it doesn’t take long to spot articles or videos that seem to be depressingly damning. You have titles like “Female Freedom has an Expiration date.” China has an actual term for unmarried women over 25, Sheng nu, or “Leftover Women.” Youtube is a particularly toxic and unkind place for a topic like this, with strangely vitriolic, Red Pill-esque comments popping up on every video where a woman has the audacity to be single in her thirties. Even in wholesome examples, like a video with a woman sharing her experience of meeting her husband in her mid thirties; had comments insulting her husband instead, calling him a ‘beta male,’ which is a derogatory term for men with passive or subservient tendencies.
I won’t lie — for a moment, I sat at facing my laptop, tearing up, while my anxiety levels spiked.
The common narrative seems to generalise that these women are the ones who “never dated the nice guy and only wanted bad boys, but now that she’s way past her prime and her market-value is dropping, she needs to settle for the “simps” or “beta males.” Women who dared to pursue their careers and ambitions were equally criticised for “missing the boat and not realising that they needed men sooner.” Perhaps, from their perspective, they view it as akin to a starving person throwing away food that was offered to them. This comes from the idea that dating is highly skewed in the favour of women, so it feels like the playing field was never level.
To an extent, I understand how these statements originate. The Red Pill community is filled with the voices of men who feel frustrated, confused, angry, and invalidated. Within the realm of dating, men have a lot of pressure to be the pursuers, and by extension, they also open themselves up to more rejection. A culture of toxic masculinity means that men are expected to be physically strong, have a good career, be six feet tall with abs and a chiseled jaw, like SPORTS and MEAT, and punch a wall instead of, God forbid — exhibit a teaspoon of emotional vulnerability. Ultimately, a man is valued for his resourcefulness and his ability to provide. A woman, in contrast, is valued for her beauty and femininity foremost, before other personal achievements. A successful career woman does not always equate to success in dating, while a man’s career success has considerable influence on his dating success. In some cases, this is exploited by women who know that their beauty holds bargaining power, which lends to stereotypes of the classic ‘gold digger,’ or women who learnt to rely on their looks so much that they come across as selfish, manipulative, and entitled. I suspect that this is the profile of the woman that most of the negativity is geared towards, and there is a certain schadenfreude in seeing this particular subset of women fall from grace (though really, entitlement is should be frowned upon, regardless of gender).
Unfortunately, this generalisation and judgment might apply to women like myself, too, who fits the biological profile of a woman who is ‘past her prime,’ at the ripe “old” age of 29, going on 30 (I half kid). With my age, comes assumptions about my potential dating history, how promiscuous I’ve been, if I’ve been a psycho bitch,
A statistical outlier of love
I consider myself a late bloomer, in many areas of life that have arbitrary timelines imposed on them (I have a cocktail of low self esteem, body dymorphia, anxiety, and depression to thank for that, but more of this in another storytime).
I started university at 22. I started my formal career in tech as a UX Designer at 28, shy of 29. And I started dating at 25. Prior to that, I had zero experience with men. I would hide behinds pillars in high school when I noticed a guy walking towards me, because I was so freaked out by them. From a feminine perspective… I wasn’t. Puberty meant that I would put on weight in all the wrong places. I was chubby, greasy, and socially awkward, and didn’t know how to wear things that flattered my figure. I didn’t know how to wear makeup. I wore predominantly baggy trousers and had my hair in a boyish cut. In other words, if beauty and youth were supposed to be a woman’s greatest arsenal — mine were alarmingly blunt. I had no conception of what it would mean to have “pretty privilege,” terms so casually assumed to be part of every 20-something woman’s experience. It would take at least 4 more years before I would finally begin to set into a healthy body image, and embrace my femininity for what it is.
Fast forward to 27. I recall a statement from an ex back when I expressed doubt in our relationship. He said, “You are 27 and still want to shop around?” At that time, it made me feel like I was asking for too much, considering I was nearing this arbitrary expiry date for women.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m being too greedy. He’s loves me and will take care of me, so I should just be happy with this. What more do I want?
I am however, annoyingly governed by an internal ‘feels’ compass and a gut feeling that this wasn’t my person. When he asked me to move in with him and commit to another year together, I knew I wasn’t ready. Instead of excitement, I felt guilt, fear, and suffocation. Against all my fear of judgment, the fear of deep loneliness (I had no stable social support network when this happened), of feeling like it was too late, of feeling like I was selfish and stupid and throwing a good thing away — I left. I left because ultimately I felt it wasn’t right to continue a relationship where I wasn’t in love. I knew I couldn’t offer him the love he needed and deserved, and the pain of being in a loveless relationship hurt more than the fear of loneliness. So, I left.
A year later, I repeated the same mistake, disillusioned by a heartbreak, and experiences with men who I felt potential with, but ended up in hurt, and even borderline traumatic experiences. I convinced myself that I must have been looking for ‘bad men’, or that I was asking for too much if I wanted a man I was attracted to, but who also had values and traits that were important to me. So when my recent ex came into my life, although my gut feeling said ‘no,’ I went along with it. To be fair, it was an effortless, genuine connection. We had similar values, a similar sense of humor, and incredible mental and emotional compatibility. He was intelligent, capable, and mature. Our time together was always filled with laughter. He was a good man. He represented security, stability, and warmth. We were each other’s best friends, companions, and partners. He expanded my world as I expanded his. I grew to care deeply for him, and yet — I wasn’t in love because I struggled with my attraction for him, through no fault of his own. I knew this when thinking of our future together scared me more than it excited me. I was constantly battling guilt, doubt, and sadness behind the bright smiles, affection, and warmth that I gave him, because in a twisted irony, I didn’t want to disappoint or hurt him. Deep down, I wasn’t at peace.
Similar toxic thoughts haunted me. I was ruthless to myself.
You’re too greedy. Your idea of love is too idealistic. Everyone else is getting married and you’re still left behind. You don’t have the luxury of time. You’re not going to find anyone else this amazing and kind and good. You think you’re that good? Why can’t you just be happy? What more do you want?!
and even…
Don’t you want to stay in Australia? Don’t you want the PR?
I couldn’t… do it.
After multiple difficult conversations where we discussed this problem, and pledges to keep trying, we ended the relationship after just over a year. It was a decision made with love, and it was by far, one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. This time, the fear of loneliness, the fear that it was too late, the fear that I would be missing out on a life of convenience and security, and even possibly, a real chance at actually staying on in Australia… all that was outweighed by the fear of hurting him further in a relationship where I was being inauthentic. Because he damn well is worth more than being someone a scared girl settled for.
It hasn’t been easy. I miss my best friend. Hurting him was incredibly painful for me. I think about him often, and I hope that he is doing well. I know he’ll eventually be ok (because he’s amazing like that), but there are days where I am still consumed by a deep remorse and sadness. Despite that, I am at peace. I understand now, what it means when they say that love does not always look kind. I wish him well, and I hope that one day he will find an amazing girl who will cherish and appreciate him with the love he wants and deserves. Similarly, I hope the same for myself, now that I’ve freed myself to opportunities that I know are authentic and meaningful to me.
Back to the present. I am single, turning thirty in a couple months, and… actually coming to terms with things. I’ve taken the opportunity to genuinely reflect on myself, to confront all my thorny, ugly bits, and to take accountability for where I’ve gone wrong, and where I can change. I realised that the problem wasn’t so much that I was looking for something ‘unrealistic,’ but rather that I had associated negative experiences with dating as confirmation of toxic beliefs that I already had about myself — the deeply rooted beliefs that I was worthless, ugly, and incapable of attracting the kind of love I truly wanted. When I was uncertain of my own direction in life, I sought for stability in partners. I tried, in the name of being ‘open’ and ‘less shallow’, to compromise on things that were important to me. In doing so, I never truly gave myself the opportunity to attract and find a love I genuinely wanted. I was my own worst Red Pill.
The problem with theories such as the ‘Red Pill’, when taken to the extreme, is that it generalises the human experience. This makes topics as complex and nebulous as love, emotions, and dating psychology — digestible and formulaic. In some instances, it does a good job of caricaturing dating/female/male archetypes; but at the end of the day, it is that — a caricature. People are nuanced and diverse, and everyone comes with a story. Put simply, life happens. Partners are lost tragically. People get divorced. Some battle mental and physical complications and literally have years taken off their youth. Some might have been out voyaging the Seven Seas, got a little busy battling sea monsters and found dating slightly inconvenient. Or some simply have not found their person.
Not everyone single past a certain age is an entitled gold digger who spent her (or his) years sleeping around and having fun (although if that’s your journey and it makes you happy, power to you).
In short, I find life is too vast, colourful, strange, and unpredictable to be neatly explained and contained within a theory. I am statistically an outlier when it comes to love and relationships, but when it comes to finding love, statistics don’t matter — because all it takes is one lucky (or unlucky? :P) fool… unless you are into polyamory, which again, power to you.
You know, maybe all this is misplaced bravado, and I haven’t got it all figured out. Despite this long-winded spiel I’ve been on, I suspect I’ll still have days where I am afraid of judgment if I put myself back on the dating scene (also pretty nervous about what it might be like to date as a 30 year old woman). However, I know I am healing, and I am at peace. I want to be open to love again, without it coming from a place of fear and desperation, regardless of what age I’m at.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bottle of red pills I need to trash.
girl atlas 