The Fwibbing Point
“OMG whose is that?”
“I had a date on Friday night…” I confessed sheepishly.
“Did you have sex with her? Did you use protection?”
“No. She didn’t want to.”
Why did I add that detail? Did it matter? Does it matter? Have I even done anything wrong?
“I don’t mind if you’re seeing other people but you need to be safe.”
“I know. But we didn’t have sex.”
“Ok. I need to go.”
She got up and collected her bag.
I collected the scene of the crime and hurled it into the bin.
But perhaps I should have saved it.
Send it to Zagreb, for display at the Museum of Broken Relationships.
Where Europeans could learn how a failure to clean up left a collection of flesh-and-electricity stranded on the island-of-what-could-have-been.
I had fucked up here.
Or had I?
These are the blurred lines of a situationship turned friends-with-benefits.
I walked her to the door, as if it would help.
“Have a good day.”
“Thanks. You too.”
I closed the door and rubbed my face.
Alas, we had reached The Fwibbing Point.
The moment where future emotional pain outweighs present pleasure, and the soft contract of friends-with-benefits, tips.
Why does this hurt so much?
I thought we had schtipped?
It wasn’t going to work out, therefore we could keep emotion out of it, right?
But look at the way we danced last night.
The fun we had on the way home.
The fun at home.
The agreement became a prolonging of what-if, masquerading as only-if.
Avoidance rebranded as hope.
This one stung when I thought it wouldn’t.
I had to find out why.
Or did I?
Why not pick up a four-legged-emotional-band-aid on the way home?
Tempting.
But the overwhelming question was…
How did a DM slide become an airport drop-off and end as an alternate universe?
I guess I better sit forward and put myself under the microscope.
After all, this is strictly in the name of science.
Time to dig back through a decade of notes on love and relationships and ask…
‘How did I get here?’
**Once in a Lifetime plays**
The Dream Girl Matrix
Friends at 16, lovers at 21.
Such was the dating pool of a local bakery.
But I didn’t want the complexities of a workplace romance.
So I waited until I got fired.
Chivalry was not dead.
“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
“Maybe”
“Maybe” lasted for 4 years.
But she was my best friend, and I adored her.
That was until my prefrontal cortex kicked in.
You see as a young male it was my societal duty to ACHIEVE.
For what was I?
My worth?
If not my bread-winning ability?
I needed a vehicle that would reflect my output.
And once I found one, with ambition pulled over my eyes, it seemed I had but two options:
Stay in a relationship and never fulfil my potential
Leave the relationship in pursuit of said potential
A tradeoff of emotional support and Sunday night Suits, in exchange for an extra 3 hours burning the midnight oil.
Surely, that was my unlock.
And so off we went, on a quest, to see what one could become.
But fuck, this is lonely.
I don’t think I’m cut out for it anymore.
Can you come back?
After a brief moment of solitude, I was being little-spooned again.
But history always has a way of repeating itself.
And when belonging re-settled, search for self-worth resurfaced.
Once again, I only had two choices right?
It was either the girl or the goal.
And off we went.
Going alone to go fast.
THIS would be the time I fulfil my potential…
Nup.
It felt too good to have someone around.
Perhaps the next romance would last.
Or the next.
Nup.
3-0 to the goal.
Leaving a trail of destruction.
Time had flown and now I was 30.
No more.
I’m not going down this path again.
Surely if I found a lane I could say in, I would do exactly that?
I needed a pattern interrupt, and drew up the ‘Dream-Girl-Matrix’.
THIS is what I could Schtick with.
I’m a high performer (I told myself).
Of course I should have high expectations.
Anything that swiped by had to colour within the lines.
And when the avatar was constructed, I knew exactly who fit the bill.
So off it went, a voice note to change the course of history.
Wrong.
Rejected.
“I’m flattered, but I really value our friendship.”
Another came along.
A month in… Schtipped.
Then again.
And again.
Wtf was happening?
What was I missing?
I tried to be ignorant to it, but the embers of my dilemma were still alive.
So I stopped.
Deleted the apps, folded the map and ceased wandering.
Turned the compass inward, letting solitude do what distraction couldn’t.
Shifted focus from projection to production.
Full modern-day-monk-mode.
And then sure enough.
The goal was hit.
Turns out it was easier to build the thing than to learn how to live without it.
What surprised me most,
when it came,
I wasn’t reaching for anyone else.
In my own eyes, had I become, enough?
Perhaps.
But if enough applauds itself in the middle of a forest, is it really enough?
Unicorns vs Mares
As if called right on time, along came a Unicorn.
Very impressive, but I wasn’t into Unicorns.
I was in the zone.
However the Unicorn hung around.
And made their regard clear.
Hmm.
I liked this attention.
Maybe I was interested.
After all, they were one of a kind in every way.
Imagine if we ran off into the sunset together?
Imagine the power-couple we’d be?
This could be one in a billion.
Attraction grew with time under tension.
The only problem…
When shit got real, the Unicorn left me hanging.
“I think we’re better as friends… but you never know!”
You.
Never.
Know.
Fuck. You. Unicorn.
How long would I have to wait?
How could you lead me to this point?
How could I drop the life I’d forecasted in my head?
This was going to echo longer than I wanted to admit.
But then along came a Mare.
A kind, funny, gorgeous, Mare.
Every signal suggested this was a good thing.
The only problem.
The Unicorn was super-glued to the back of my cranium.
This made it impossible to see straight.
The Unicorn goggles were on.
No matter how many signs.
No matter what my nervous system said.
I stood there, dead-batting the future, while facing someone else entirely.
She kept inviting me into hers.
I kept describing one without her.
“I’m not sure this guy even wants me around”
She said as she Schtipped.
So when the Mare left, it hurt.
Like physically hurt.
Like why the fuck do I want to throw up kind of hurt.
I had to find out why.
A bit of introspection to do.
To reopen the file of what-the-fucketh-do-I-wanteth?
And so I called upon The Oracle for my Good Will Hunting moment.
“So Reuben is doing the usual Reuben thing. Making it over-complicated.”
Had I been asking the wrong questions all along?
Maybe the answers were already there.
“This is about you young fella!”
What I’d been looking for
the dream girl I’d constructed
the perfect person I thought would help me realise my potential.
Perhaps she, was me.
Everything I needed to succeed, I already had.
Of course I knew this.
But still proceeded to spend 10 years handballing responsibility.
The irony.
I had a few apologies to give.
“Hey, I just wanted to let you know. It wasn’t because you weren’t around. It succeeded because I finished my to-do list.”
“Thanks, I really needed to hear that”
Cool, well if the matrix actually lived within, not projected onto another mammal…
Who do I want to go on this journey with?
Well.
I think I knew the answer when I was young and dumb.
After all, most of life is spent doing nothing.
And in those moments, I’m gonna need a best-friend I adore.
And my god, when the Mare was around, did I adore her.
My shoulders dropped and my chest sighed.
I just want a best friend I admire and adore.
Who also happens to be sexy.
(sue me)
But like all good scientists, I had to stress test the hypothesis.
‘Is a dream-person-matrix never about someone else?’
‘Is it really as simple as: Best-Friend-Material?’
‘And what if the Unicorn turns up?’
You see the thing about unicorns is:
They make you live in a fantasy and tease a reality that doesn’t exist.
Great company when around, but they’re just not that into you.
And while you’re drunk living in another world, amazing Mares walk right past you.
Choose Mares over Unicorns.
They’re the real ones.
I sat up with fresh insights.
I think we could make it work.
But was it a good idea?
Had I really worked out what I wanted?
Was it fair to put her feelings back on the rollercoaster?
Just because I’d evolved from ‘can our lives fit?’ to ‘do I want to see you again?’
There’s 7,000,000,000 people in this world.
Surely at least 100,000 could be the one.
Did I miss her or just the feeling of her?
Was it because I had given her the time of day?
Could I get there again if someone was given the chance?
Screw it, I had to tell Mare.
Thank you
She placed the almond latte before delivering the news.
"I'm seeing someone else."
Fuck. Why’d I vacuum?
She got her point across quickly.
My heart sank.
But then out came the notes.
As predicted.
Did that in and of itself mean anything?
I don’t know what to believe anymore.
But for a moment it was comforting to see her.
In we dove, her rebuttal to my debate, to Schtick instead of Schtip.
“This makes a lot of sense. Why didn’t you tell me about [the Unicorn]?”
Geez, I didn’t even think that was a possibility?
Who wants to hear about their competitors?
I thought it would deter, but perhaps it might have helped?
Cases were made for too-far-gone versus start-again-fresh.
Chemistry matched while capacity tipped.
It was clear, thy-shiteth had been sortethed too late.
Could things have worked with a clean slate?
But then again, when is the slate ever clean?
Perhaps it’s just easier to marry your first girlfriend before love becomes a negotiation.
But you never know.
Unicorns can morph into Mares.
And Mares can morph into Unicorns.
Things can change when people change.
However it’s never in the time that you want, and probably not in the way that you want.
Yet still we feel compelled to wait with hope.
But seeing as we’re here, why waste the opportunity for a good old fashioned 360 review!
After all, this was in the name of science.
“It’s fine, go for it.”
Gloves were off.
And sure enough, behind the curtain call sat the thing neither of us liked.
A loose piece.
A part out of alignment.
But of course, I knew it was there.
I’d just neglected to fix it.
Not any more though.
A double-glazed rejection reminded that the only thing that motivates more than pleasure, is pain.
Would this exit-interview be the most pivotal conversation of my life?
I guess time will tell.
But in this cut-throat-see-you-never state of dating…
What a generous gift to be heard out and course corrected.
It turns out post-mortem peer reviews from strangers looking-for-long-but-open-to-short might be the tightest feedback loop we have to sorteth-thy-shiteth-outeth.
Bless all the sparring partners.
Without them, Actualised Beings FC can’t field a team.
“I hope everything works out with this guy”
There went another warm-blooded lesson.
And there I went.
Rowing back on a life boat from the island-of-what-could-have-been to board a vessel that’s moving-on.
A fellow Schtippee called…
“Hey, are you ok?”
“Yeah, it sucks, but my god do I feel ALIVE!”
This is the research we as a community of swipers, sliders and real lifers need to do if we are to bask in a life where, even if it didn’t work out, it became formative.
A Mare blocked out of mind by a Unicorn melted the dream-matrix into a feeling and slapped me into alignment on the way out.
Prompting 5000 words of existential out loud reminders to self, dressed up as a manifesto on modern dating.
At least it will hold me accountable.
But perhaps, just perhaps, The Schtipping Point…
is not the moment a situationship jumps for HMAS Tip.
Perhaps it's the moment the compass stops spinning
you grab the wheel,
and steer it True North.
The lead domino to skip the Schtip because you know a co-captain when you see one.
The afterglow of sorting-thy-shiteth-outheth.
Also known as: The Shitting Point.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, thank god I forgot to clean up.
After all, if you want to be great at anything,
you have to find your own way there.
Until then.
Mares will keep walking by.
Unicorns will keep intoxicating.
Matrixes will keep projecting outwardly.
Schtippers will Schtip towards a better-option.
And Schtippees will lie cold and naked in ambiguity.
How do I know this?
Well the pattern repeats until you learn the lesson.
