There Is No Title

My first kiss was in the backseat of a cherry red Camero, the boy’s name was Zebadiah, Zeb for short. The song was “Fool in the Rain” by Led Zeppelin. He grabbed my cheek with his right hand and placed his left hand on my thigh, and when his lips met mine, I thought I was going to burst into flames. Robert Plant’s voice can absolutely send me back to that moment with a sense memory rush of excitement. I had the same feeling again when a man I know recently pulled a similar move on me and I could feel my blood pumping with anticipation, followed by a flood of sweet feelings.

A woman I know told me I was making a fool of myself by being vulnerable with that man and telling him that I liked him, would like to spend more time with him if he had the capacity, and that his recent silence was bordering on hurting my feelings. She suggested that I should have said nothing, “delete, block, and move on”.

That’s what modern dating culture has become I suppose. Everyone seems to be in a competition to see who can behave as though they care the least. Am I a fool that I care ?

Another woman I know became angry and exasperated with me for telling a man that I was seeing that he had made me cry, “You look so stupid” she said. “He doesn’t care. You’re letting him make a fool of you.”

I don’t believe in minimizing who I am, in order to fit into a toxic societal structure, and that sentiment is toxic, in my opinion. I refuse to accept a rule where telling the truth about how you feel and letting the person know they’ve hurt you is giving up some sort of power. What power? The power for me to suffer in silence and pretend I don’t have feelings? The power for them to pretend as though their actions have no consequences?

I choose to protect the idea that we can learn from one another and the only real way to engage in any relationship is to prepare a foundation based on truth and dignity. Dating influencers have people so afraid to say what they really think. Instead they have us behaving like politicians, with prepared talking points and hidden agendas. I resent the implication that I should behave in a manner that is unnatural to me, in order to find a partner. It seems entirely antithetical to the goal. After all isn’t it emotionally mature to state how you feel and what you want, clearly and directly? Vulnerability takes courage.

Another woman quoting a dating influencer said, “Be useless, so men cannot take advantage”. That doesn’t work for me. I’m not useless. I’m nurturing and I love that part of myself. I also believe that the ‘be useless’ mantra infantilizes women. As though they are incapable of enforcing boundaries. There is a limit to my nurturing tendency. I have learned how to cut ties. I suppose I’d rather discover their inability to meet my vulnerability through honest connection than learn to make myself imperceptible.

In tarot, The Fool is one of the major arcana, it often appears in readings when a person is about to embark on a meaningful journey. It represents childlike innocence, purity of heart, and taking a leap of faith. Isn’t that what a relationship should be, the start of a meaningful journey that requires a leap of faith?

In that respect, I am very much a fool. I think you have to be if you ever hope to find real love. Love requires vulnerability, and the truth of the matter is that like so many of us, who carry childhood wounds, vulnerability is quite terrifying for me. In fact, I thought about not saying anything to this man at all. For a moment, I contemplated just as she had insisted, to ‘delete, block, and move on’.

However, I made a decision to take a leap of faith and be vulnerable, on the off chance that they might be able to meet me there, because when I look back on my life, every opportunity I had to play the fool inevitably led me towards joy. I feel in my heart, that I’d rather be a fool, than be a coward.