issue sixty-two

happy single girls history day, i guess

For all the ones that I absolutely excel in by leaps and bounds, there is one area of my life in which I feel incredibly inadequate, impotent, and quite simply behind. You know what day it is, you know what I’m talking about, and you know why we’re here. 

anne representing the state of things!

I don’t want to seem wholly wallowing in my loneliness and lack of prospects (that’s for the text messages I send my best friends while waiting in line to buy a croissant), but in the current moment and situation of my life against the fabric of others, it seems inevitable. People are seeking connection, and a lot of them are finding it. Hearts are being shaped by one another, lives are being changed inside one another, and I’ve had the privilege of watching it all happen around me in very positive and inspiring glimpses of romantic love. 

I myself, on the other hand, found myself recounting to some friends a particularly embarrassing moment that not only sums up figuratively but also literally, the net amount of romantic experiences I’ve lived through thus far. Imagine 13 year old Leah — side parted to hell and back, one of those jersey crossover Rue 21 lace up collar tunics CRISPLY ironed, probably wearing low rise Converse my mom found me at Goodwill for $4. Undeniably awkward and silent, facing the entirety of downtown Chicago with absolutely nothing to lose and a student discount CTA card. And a flip phone and a crush. 

i do it all for her

This iteration of Leah was a little infatuated with a certain someone in my freshman year physics class, and became all encompassed with the kind of gooey ideation only a deeply disturbed (read: crushing) mind can create. We chatted, I (somehow) deftly used my flip phone to get his number, and I crushed even harder. Come Valentine’s Day, I held in my hands the pinnacle of any 13 year old girl’s aspirations for affection: that glimmering, rattling, russet, heart-shaped Russell Stover chocolate box. 

By the end of the day, half of the chocolates were eaten by a friend and I had found out that — gasp — I was being two timed! Even after the establishing factor of one firm, LDS-side-hug in the hallway with the man of my dreams, I found out that day that the only two things love could possibly be were either dead or ill-intentioned. 

Then, that was it. There was one admirer in my sophomore year of high school that I kind of weirdly reciprocated until I found out he was two years above me, and that was the end of that. There was being catcalled by random seniors or State Street bums or anonymous drivers or whoever thought it was acceptable to tell a 13 year old walking home from school that “those is some nice titties!” But all in all, any attention, advance, or otherwise secret admirations have amounted to nothing in my near two decades of conscious existence. 

Fast forward to now, plopped in the back end of the Midwest and in the middle of the cultural wasteland that is my small, liberal arts PWI, the stakes and chances of the love game are almost nonexistent. I’m fully aware of the conditions and realities that contribute to my undesirability as a Black woman in this environment; I’ve rationalized them, pondered them, written essays and proposed theses on them and I know them inside and out. Be that as it may, there’s nothing like the annual reminder of Valentine’s Day to affirm them! 

I’d like to make it clear that I consider myself to be very confident, very assured of myself, and sufficiently secure in my identity. I have more than half a functioning brain, I’d like to say I’m pleasant enough to be around, and I know I’m beautiful beyond the general brainrot of beauty culture and the influence that has on my day-to-day perception of myself. I’m someone’s (and my own) dream girl! I have a lot to offer and a lot to receive, and that’s why I resent the idea that one must “work on themselves” before being deserving of love and partnership. Lord knows I’ve done loads of work on myself in recent years, and even then I should still be able to participate in the lives of others in deeply, meaningful, and deservingly romantic ways. 

This lapse in my life isn’t all consuming, nor is it my number one priority, but as I enter a period of my life in which the building of long term relationships clashes with the expectations of young, fun, riotous and roaring 20s, I can’t help but feel ages behind. It’s a little ironic that for how overly processed and healed and unpacked the rest of my emotions are, there’s a Grinch-like shriveled up compartment that contains the romance button, dusty and abandoned for a lack of necessity. Being stunted doesn’t mean I’m defunct, but a combination of burnout and disinterest has eliminated even the possibility of that childish giddiness I described earlier that made middle-school Leah crush so hard with all the delusional hope a girl could hold in her hands! Ugh!

With all of these things considered, I’m kind of glad that I missed out on the mass hysteria of like, Snapchat-hookup-culture-madness, solely because nobody bothered to hit me up and I also just got a Snapchat this year after finding out my number had been defrauded by a woman named Tina Fingers for years on the platform. More on that later, or maybe not. Observing whatever is going on “out there” in the world of college dating makes it seem like I’m not missing out on much, and I’m perfectly happy to judge and advise my friends from an external perspective with a good bit of sense. 

I’m grateful to have so much love in my life. I’m incredulous that I have so much hope and faith in myself. I’m buzzing with ambition for the things I hope to see and achieve in this lifetime. I’m also biding my time until I have someone, anyone, to share a bit of me with. Eat some chocolate and watch a romcom before midnight strikes, and I’ll see you next week!