When you’ve been a single woman who mostly dates men for any significant amount of time, the people who love you are going to have multiple theories as to why you’re still residing on that imaginary shelf, waiting to be picked.
“You want it too much, and it’s off-putting.”
“You give off a friend zone immediately.”
“If you’d just sleep with him, then maybe you’d find him attractive.”
“Nora Ephron movies have ruined you for life.”
When these well-intentioned hypotheses come from the people who love you, it’s easy to start thinking there’s something wrong with the way you relate romantically to others. It’s hard to get out of your own head and stop thinking that you’re the problem.
You’re not! You’re being gaslit! Let me prove it to you with anecdotes, not science.
I was about 15 minutes in to Paramount+’s Fake, the latest sad-single-woman-gets-punished-for-dating show, when something happened so triggering I switched the show off immediately and threw my remote on the floor as if it was on fire.
Birdie (Asher Keddie) is describing her unsuccessful date with Joe (David Wenham): he barely asked her a question, he brought along a friend, she was given the “ick” and doesn’t plan on seeing him again. Her mother, Margeaux (Heather Mitchell), looks at his picture and immediately starts to undermine Birdie’s feelings. “Oh, he’s gorgeous,” she says. “Do you think your father was perfect when I met him? If he’s got good bones, you start and work from there. Find something to like about him.”
Christ almighty! It’s even happening to Asher Keddie on the telly! Is there a single woman in the world over 40 who is not gaslit about her love life?
A year ago, inspired by listening to Barbra Streisand’s schmaltz masterpiece A Love Like Ours, I decided to get “out there”. I went on four dates with Bobby*. Bobby was perfectly lovely – friendly, good job, good looking. But I never looked forward to these dates. I was happy to get home. By the fourth I realised I’d really rather be using those two hours to be with my friends, my sister, my niece or nephew. Or working.
I can’t tell you how angry one of my closest, long-term partnered friends was with me. Why didn’t I give him a chance? Why was I letting my intimacy issues get in the way of being with someone nice who was obviously keen on me? Why couldn’t I try harder to like him?
As usual I listened to her and spent hours trying to figure out which childhood trauma made me unable to like nice, sweet Bobby more. I’ve been in love before – a few times. Was I now just so jaded I’m closed off for ever? Would I ever feel anything for anyone again? Or would I keep getting in my own way?
Against my better judgment, my annual attempt at dating was this year reignited by an old, flirty episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I went on three dates with Ben*. Ben was completely ace: super successful, gorgeous, with a big, full life. Mutual friends knew him and thought he was great. I was excited about date two. A text from him would cause an involuntary smile.
There was no date four. He wasn’t interested in me. And you know what? I’m pretty sure he didn’t have friends in his ear saying, “But you always do that. See her again, she seems nice and interesting. Go on, find something you like about her.”
Given that I was able to be interested in someone, and open to seeing more of them made me think: what if there is nothing wrong with me?
I know myself. I know my own heart. I know what I like and don’t like. I know when someone will enhance my life and when they won’t.
A big love hasn’t happened for me. Maybe it never will and I’m absolutely fine with that, as I have a pretty great life and am loved by my friends and family. When I look around at the people who are truly connected to each other, I think about how romantic love is really all just dumb luck – meeting each other at the right time. An equal attraction.
I’m not second guessing any more. I’m not listening to the well-intentioned gaslighting. I’m listening to my own feelings. And if Asher Keddie’s character had listened to herself in Fake she wouldn’t have had to go through eight hours of emotional torture for a dude she wasn’t into.
*Names have been changed
Melanie Tait is a playwright and journalist living in Sydney
