To fling or not to fling

I’m slowly learning to accept that not everything can be thought through overnight. Some things in life take a long time to figure out, which is a difficult concept for over-thinkers and perfectionists like myself to come to grips with. I think it’s natural that at this phase in my life, these kinds of realizations are beginning to unfurl. On the precipice of adulthood, the challenges you face start morphing into ambiguous shapes and colors that have less and less straightforward solutions. Figuring out how to handle certain situations takes an order of intelligence that they never taught us in school. And thus, on the matter of dating and relationships, I reorganize my thoughts like a Tetris board every night, swearing I’ll have it all decided by the morning. But the reality is, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Like most other cis-het females, I grew up believing in the false narrative of storybook romance, but then my parents got divorced. And then I went to college. And then shit got real. It got messy, and so too my thoughts on the subject, which has resulted in an indefinite streak of overthinking my opinions on love, dating, sex, and men. This is going to be an unorganized post — rant, if you will — but that’s the point. Akin to the ever-complicating challenges that plague our transition into adulthood, my mindspace on the topic is sloppy. It changes everyday (an annoying and seemingly debilitating truth that I’m still working on accepting) but all of my different thoughts are learning to coexist peacefully. This post is part of the process.

I, admittedly, was a late bloomer. I waited until I was securely accepted at a great university to even consider experimenting with boys. While this has some obvious drawbacks, I like to think that the extra time has made me all the more wiser, such that I can avoid having my heart shattered more so than if I’d jumped into the dating pool at the national average of 12 years old. Still, I deal with the ambiguity of what to do with myself on a daily basis. On the one hand, I want to have a boyfriend, because, well, yes. On the other hand, I want to maintain my freedom and experiment while I’m still young. But this is absolutely not the crux of the problem; God, I wish it was that simple. The problem is that my heart and my ego are under the constant threat of male insolence, obliviousness, and pride.

“Commitment” might as well be pure, unadulterated Latin for the extent to which it is an extinct piece of vocabulary these days. Having a boyfriend is basically a huge achievement, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, an elusive ideal that can even seem old-fashioned to some. That leaves two options: be single until death, or attempt navigating the immense, wildly gray spectrum of dating (if I’m even allowed to call it that). When you choose the later, there are at once one million unspoken rules, yet absolutely none at the same time. You can do this, just don’t do that. Feel this, but don’t in a million years ever say that. Know this, but never assume that. It can all be very overwhelming at times.

Personally, my biggest struggle is deciding what I deserve, and who deserves what from me. But the two usually contradict each other. I’ve always been decisive in the sense that I know what I want and am aware of my self-worth. Therefore, you would think that it’d be easy to go after what I deserve, which, as a good-hearted and loyal human is to be loved and wanted. This is where things get messy. The people who I want to be loved and wanted by don’t always deserve my love and wanting. As is the case for many young women, the way I desire others usually doesn’t align with how they desire me. So what does one do? Do I sacrifice what I know I’m worthy of — respect, loyalty, trust, commitment — to meet my own desires, or do I sit and wait in painful longing?

My answer to this conundrum changes every day. Again, this is highly inconvenient because what happens when it comes time to actually act? I’m scared that I’ll make a decision while I’m in one mood and then regret it the next day when I’m in another. A boy wants me, but he doesn’t treat me right. I’m attracted to him and want to have fun, but I don’t want to set aside my pride and give up something of myself that he definitely doesn’t deserve. But we’re only this young once, so why the fuck do I care so much about ‘what he deserves’? I should be more chill and just go after what I want, but if I’m more chill, I’ll wake up the next day feeling like a cheap doormat. It’s a constant tug-of-war between the desires of my body and mind, with my pride and dignity hanging in the balance every damn time. I wish it didn’t feel so serious, but the unfortunate reality is that society makes it impossible for girls to breathe in the wrong man’s direction without getting labeled for it.

There are a lot of factors that influence my stance on casual flings with boys who will never commit to me. Among them are the type of music I’m listening to, the amount of alcohol in my system, the level of attention they’re giving me, and the way my friends talk about them. Of course, you’re not going to feel the same way about going home with someone at 2AM in a fraternity basement when their hand’s on your waist than you would at 2PM listening to Olivia Rodrigo with your besties on the way to lunch. My biggest fear is saying “yes” at 2AM and choking on regret 12 hours later. This is why I wish figuring out my thoughts on matter was more straightforward. Feelings change, but past actions don’t.

Sometimes, when I’m an hour deep into my Hot Girl Summer playlist, I think, fuck this: I’m over the whole “if he wanted to, he would” singsong… it’s time to embrace the “if I want to, he will” energy. Why? Because I deserve it. Because women should be equally free to pursue no-strings-attached sex as men. Because gossip is stupid and overthinking my own pleasure is bullshit. Because we should be able to take just as much as we give. But other times, when I’m reminded of my own worth, I think, how in the universe am I going to allow someone’s son to have all of this when he can’t even keep his roster in the single digits? Aren’t I more remarkable than being one of eleven? It may seem like an ego thing on the surface, but for me (and plenty others, I think) it cuts as deep as challenging my core value. It’s about respect.

At the end of the day, all of this is about struggling to be okay with giving up something to someone who doesn't necessarily deserve it, but doing it anyways because that same sacrifice also serves my own pleasure, which I absolutely do deserve. In that way, I shouldn’t look at it as a sacrifice, but a conscientious decision rooted in self-agency and maturity. A choice made by me and for me, which is hopefully enough to not regret anything in retrospect. My goal is to stop micro-analyzing the repercussions of every decision when it comes to boys, because everyone else is honestly just too busy with their own lives to care as much about mine as I imagine they do. Moving forward, I’ll try to remember that as long as I’m confident about who I am and aware that my personal choices do not determine my worth as a woman, everything will be okay. I am free to do what I want, and so are you.