“It’s not that deep”, Yet ‘The greatest coward of a man is to awaken the love of a woman without the intention of loving her’. So said Bob Marley.
And the reality is, that it truly is that deep, because for me, a woman who says what I say and says what I mean, the awakened love of a good woman is like awakening the goddam ocean.
Welcome back to the Single Era Diaries rebooted podcast, rebooted because last year's season came to a close thanks to entering into what was evidently a situationship with a man that managed to capture my attention out of close to 5000 men who liked and were messaging me in August last year on the Tinder app.
These apps are not, in my view, designed to elicit true connection. But rather to place you into a doom spiral of one new shiny option after the next. Like, why are they designed to allow up to thousands of people to like, comment and attempt to entice your interest, if their aim is supposedly to operate as a platform that facilitates the discovery of shared interests, leading to real human interactions that combine to develop into real human relationships?
So despite having a stand out witty conversation, with the guy that has gone on to hold the esteemed mantle now as my ex. I disappeared from the apps in early August last year, almost as quickly as I appeared there.
I found it frankly overwhelming and way too much of a distraction with seeking to get over the unraveling of my 15.5 year relationship with my former co-pilot and now co-parent. Yet the conversation with this one guy was one that stuck me in the months that I had left the apps behind. His opening gambit of ‘omg, marry me’ - led to a make believe skit about our catching a flight out to vegas to elope. His catching his flight to meet me there without meeting me at the airport and my catching the wrong flight to dubai only to be showered with riches by wealthy gentlemen. Whilst he was in Vegas spending all our wedding savings on the black jack tables. Remaining as a core memory of having really enjoyed the exchange as it differed so much from the lacking in imagination opening gambits and conversations I had before and since.
So having wished him luck in Vegas, and him stating that he hoped the men of Dubai treated me right. I bid farewell to him and deleted the Tinder app where we were conversing, along with the Bumble and Hinge app. Yet two months later, feeling in a slightly better headspace about the prospect of dating to simply have a bit of a laugh, I re-download the Hinge app. Which wasn’t quite so overwhelming by way of attention, back in October 2023.
Who should I meet there? - The guy who stood out as being witty and smart and straight away, I sent him a note calling his name out, to which he replied ‘well,well,well if it isn’t my very brief fiance’. From there he went on to explain that he forgave my leaving for Dubai and could in fact forgive it all, but the Tinder execution cut him deep.
I apologized, not fully explaining the rationale behind my disappearing because like queen Kate Moss tells us, ‘Never explain, never complain’. But we struck up the conversation again, where he asked ‘when are we going to cut the sexual tension and finally meet’? I later learned that he sent this whilst he was on a night out. So you see ladies, the men can use their phone to speak to you when they’re out, if they actually want to.
Anyways, we continued chatting and as the conversation drew to a close, he said something along the lines of ‘you're never going to speak to me again are you? My reply was, well you never asked for my number so…’ And he replied with ‘Hit me with it’ saw me giving him my number and me flipping into Whatsapp to update Emma, my bestie who joined me on last week's show, who at the time was over in the US.
Just a few minutes passed before he Whatsapped, with the line ‘Hey it’s’, and for the purpose of the show going forwards, let’s refer to my ex as ‘Gosling’. Because he loves Ryan Gosling. “Hey,it’s Gosling - We’re married now.” And that friends was the catalyst that led to the demise of the single era diaries version one and to the most recent experience of my heart feeling like it’s been pulled out of my chest, thrown to the floor and stomped all over like it's on the floor of a rave.
Because like my bestie Emma went on to comment about this whole drama that has become my life, “Gosling made you feel loved and then he left you”. Which is a fair assessment.
But the truth of the matter is when it comes to any of the relationships that we have in our life. We don't attract what we want, we attract who we are. So if we aren’t emotionally available or fully ready to enter into a relationship and commit. Then even if we sort of change our mind along the way, but don’t back that mind up with our full intention to commit, then we will attract whatever qualities we currently have, in the people that we are interacting with.
So with the Single Era Diaries now rebooting, I’ve been reflecting on how I have come to be here, following the rise and fall of a connection that I was led on many, many occasions to believe was going somewhere.
Now, for those of you that have been here for a while and listened to the pilot episode but also, the original format of the single era diaries podcast. By the way, I’ll link in this week's show notes for you to listen and catch up on. You will know that despite having absolutely no desire to really date, let alone enter into any new relationship at all. I found myself doing the complete opposite of that. And whilst the experience of meeting someone new, who I genuinely shared so many synchronicities with and enjoyed the most amazing connection with, awesome chemistry, superb compatibility and just someone who I could happily talk and spend time with for hours on end. Even though that hasn’t turned out the way, some rom-com version of our time together would have. Here’s the newsflash - I’m actually quite relieved.
Because this whole micro relationship has only served to demonstrate to me that I need to 100% remain single to do the work on understanding how to be whole enough on my own. So that if I ever enter into a relationship again at some point in the future, I am bringing a whole healed version of myself, that has worked through the pain points, the trauma, the baggage and the triggers, before moving into something that could have potential to develop into something more.
But because of my emotional immaturity and lack of understanding of how to play the rules of the dating game that I don’t understand, having every potential to fuck the next ‘could have been great thing’ up. And I am not here for that!
You see I’m from the old world of dating and relationships. And the way it always worked for me in the old world, where there were no crazy dating apps with scores of emotionally unhealed humans bumping into each other like moths flapping around a lamp light. Was that I would be pursued and asked out. I would say yes, I would then be courted, taken out on dates, which would then lead to my being asked out by them formally and a relationship would commence which would by the natural order of things, have highs and lows, fun and sometimes arguments. But would invariably be committed, monogamous and desired enough by both parties to stick around and enjoy the ride.
And I mean, to sound fully SATC cliche, ‘I couldn’t help but wonder, when did the old world of a man courting a woman he’s attracted to end, and this new world, of ooh look there’s another shiny option that’s just popped up in my peripheral vision, like a whack a whack a whack a wackamole,’ begin? And this is why I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to what I can learn from this current situation of reluctantly dating with zero expectation of meeting anyone I actually liked, unexpectedly meeting someone I really liked and who appeared at the time, to really liked me back, turning into a brief relationship / friendzone, with my latest ex.
Because as I firmly believe, things are happening for us, not to us. So whilst the rom-com version of my latest relationship hasn’t worked out in the way that I thought it was going to. There are some really important lessons in this situation that will hopefully allow me to learn the lessons that will aid more healing and more growth. So with reflection in mind, the truth of the matter is, I should never have entered into a new relationship so soon in the first place. Why? Because I am an emotionally immature woman who doesn’t know the rules thanks to having experienced the old world way of relationships.
That immaturity has shown up with anxious attachment, not understanding how to push pull, and according to some recent comments on the internet about this situation, being a boner killer. Let me read out a few comments I’ve received this week about how to retain the attraction and interest of a man in this modern dating world.
- “People attach and withdraw, all of us do it. It;s just hard to remember the parts where you had the power.”
- “They see wanting to be cherished and adored as ‘delulu’ and entitled. Which it kind of is when you think about it. They want to connect over good, happy times, laughing and having sex. But once we do that, we can’t detach.”
- “If you want to be adored, then you have to keep yourself above them. But by lovergirling and wanting to be saved, you make yourself pathetic. In our heads (womens heads) it’s cute, but to them it’s gross.”
- “It’s good to identify where & when you gave your power away and remember for next time. So we (women) want the fairytale and we give everything to shoe horn that in. But when we do that, we lose our own discernment and go all in enough from the ‘forever’ outcome. Because we’re scared they’ll betray us. So we in turn get sneaky, with bids for reassurance, we become clingy, intense with our conversations and in turn ruin the accumulations of vibes.”
- “We show ourselves as easy breezy, but it’s sneaky, because if we’re really lover girls, we’re pretending to be easy breezy and then go WAMMO, here’s my whole heart and if you drop it, I’ll die.”
- “Boner killer - Chasing love is like seeing a horse whispering. Don’t look directly at it, approach from the side, when it comes to you, don’t make sudden movements, if it moves, let it go.”
And so you know, reflecting on these comments, which are frankly fire wisdom. Coupled with excavating my way through the messages and reflecting on the conversations that my ex and I had. It’s my professional assessment, that my emotional immaturity and woefully lacking experience in how to date and start new relationships these days, was too much too soon and my formally stone cold heart that entered the dating scene last August for a laugh. Was awakened so much that the cool girl version of me died a death and was replaced by a needy, want me, pick me, love me, choose me, wifey women - That evidently, in the context of all the additional baggage he was working though in his life at the same time, turned him off.
In many ways this was inevitable - I exited my last long term relationship as the equivalent of a wife and a mother. My ability to be the cool girl, that so easily attracted long term partners when I was younger. Has evolved to become a woman who says what she means and means what she says. But also a woman who has not felt the rush that new love and lust brings with it in the best part of a decade and a half.
This situation of moving from long term, old pipe and slippers coupled with a child together, which is what my former co-pilot and I moved into. Following might I add, years of being party people; living, working and traveling throughout the UK and Europe on an epic adventure. Before creating the best fetal collaboration you could wish for, in our daughter. Back into, ‘hey, I’m back in the world as the cool girl I always was’. Was a step too far - without first having taken the time out to fully get to know who I am again.
And in order to do that, that required me to do what I set out to do, which was to be single for at least two years as a minimum before contemplating anything close to dating. But the truth is - When you become used to, as I absolutely did, to having a partner by your side, with everything you do and everywhere you go for a decade and a half. It turns out, it’s super easy to go back on our stance of extended singledom and self love, healing journey. Because loneliness becomes palpable.
I entered the dating scene last year as someone who wasn’t ready and equipped with the tools, rules and self love to know and embody the fact that ‘I am the prize’ to be won. Not the prize to seek out those who might pick me, but the prize to be impressed, woo’d, competed for and treated with respect and integrity. Instead, whilst I am inherently the cool girl trope personified. It was, thanks to not having done the work - the wife and mother woman in me, that went out to market to seek external validation. The wife and mother in me, was still wounded that she couldn’t get her former long term relationship to work. That the therapy didn’t help keep my family together. That little family I quite literally wanted to have my whole life was now serrated down its middle. And the person I had enjoyed having at my side, was at that time at least, an enemy who had hurt me, and I too had hurt him.
Without knowing and embodying the understanding of this at the time - The cool girl, emotionally available, fun, relaxed, chill girl was engulfed by emotions that were awakened by a man, who has his own work to do in order to become emotionally available.
And so when we think about the fact that in the universal rules of attraction, we attract what we are - Two former cool cats, who had exited long term relationships, but hadn’t taken the time to do the work to understand ourselves and sort through our baggage. Collided, not once but twice. And with that collision, the roles switched too quickly, where I moved from being chased to becoming the chaser. When the elasticity of his attention pulled back, I was unable to pull back too, when his contact reduced, my anxiety would peak.
Why? Well because I’m used to being in a partnership, not getting to know each other mode. I’m used to a dynamic where for years my ex would travel to and from work together. Be that in the car, or on the tram from media city into Manchester central, or on foot from our City apartments, to our offices, or on the bus from Harborne into the city centre.
For years, I had a partner who I would speak with all day, every day. Texting updates on what was happening at the office and speaking briefly at lunch to say ‘I love you, how’s your day going’?. To move from that to somehow having to figure out how to communicate every now and then, is a tough shift.
Much like the fact that it’s hard to code switch back to the role of ‘cool girl’, when for years in both my professional life and home life, I’ve needed to be anything but cool. I’ve been the General, the lead, making things happen and organizing everything that’s happened around me.
I’ve been the masculine role in many, many ways. The main and often-times the sole earner. I’ve reported directly to the C-suite who expected me to get shit done and not have excuses. I’ve been the driver and the doer and the maker and the manager. To switch from that to easy breezy, ‘cool girl’ has been the character shift of my life.
And so, on reflection, I don’t believe that I mis-read the signs of interest and attraction of my now ex as being anything less than genuine. But I do believe that I read those signs in a way that managed to drown out the ‘cool girl’ and awaken a woman, who so desperately and achingly wanted to be loved and to love.
The danger that I’ve found in going back into the world of dating and relationships in this modern era of swiping right for something shiny and left if it’s not floating your boat. Without having first taken the time to do the work on yourself enough, that you’re whole enough to stand firmly in your feminine energy, that shows the world and men around you that you are in fact, the absolute prize. There’s a risk of our needing to receive what we as humans are designed to receive which is love. Drowns out our ability to be cool enough to allow things to develop organically and slowly. Whilst at the same time, doing what the modern dating world appears to demand, which is casual, let me just keep exploring my options whilst I figure out whether this is actually what I want at all.
You see, the reason that I attracted what I have come to understand as being what I am in this most recent dating experience, as being an emotionally immature and emotionally unavailable man, who got swept away by his emotions and feelings about me before he was truly ready. It's because that’s exactly who I am too.
The tricky part is that as I come from the old world of being pursued, then courted, before that becoming a relationship. Is that the fact that I felt incredibly attracted to, care deeply about, think fondly of and much to the continued bemusement of my latest ex, turned friend, fell very much in love with this man.
My emotional immaturity development, saw me step into the wife, mother and C-suite worker Bee hustler woman who chased instead of standing back happily in my power to attract. In short - It all went too fast, because moving fast and breaking things is the way that I have to operate both in business and in life.
Hustling, negotiating and demanding is how I have worked my way through the ranks of business but also from being a teenager, kicked out of home to fight my way up and out through the layers of the layer cake that all played a role in trying to prevent me from reaching the layer cake level I’m stood at today. As I share my life on a podcast, produced by a start-up company that I’ve created and own.
So, in hindsight, as much as it hurts - Gosling did the right thing in breaking off the relationship back in the Spring. He even sought to do the right thing by having a desire to maintain and continue our friendship. Because evidently as has been demonstrated by many times over, the gentle process of getting to know someone over time, to see their good parts and bad parts without the added responsibility and pressure that comes with the expectations of being in a relationship, are how some of the best relationships can grow roots.
He’s even, and it pains me to say it - Done the right thing by starting to see other people, because it was obvious I was continuing to keep that fire burning for him. Despite the fact that he has on so many occasions sought to gently show me & flat out tell me that he’s not ready for the fire.
And as a single man, which is what he continues to be, he has every right to explore and to evaluate all the possibilities and options that he may have missed whilst being in a long term relationship, that like my own didn’t work out.
Thankfully he led the breaking off of the relationship, back in the Spring. Because perhaps unfortunately for him, I wouldn’t have done that. Even though there were definitely aspects of the new relationship that felt scary in terms of the size and ferocity of my feelings. And frustrating in terms of the strength of the connection, not marrying up with the flow and the pace that was needed. Because I happen to be one of the most persistent, tenacious mother fuckers most people will meet. I don’t quit easily, or perhaps ever at all.
And so this showed up in my relatively short six month relationship with my latest ex, as my feeling that many aspects of what we shared together were really fantastic. But there were obvious signs that he wasn’t ready to be in a relationship. And rather than being emotionally mature enough to accept that, I dropped light years away from the ‘cool girl’ and went full on ‘let’s hustle and scrap for this mother fucker’, make it work bitch, make it work bitch, make it work. Which was probably the biggest boner killer of all time!
And yes, I do still believe firmly in all the synchronicities we share, the power of the connection that includes shared values & interests. Yes we are attracted to each other and I firmly believe that yes, we fell in love with each other. But it was way too soon - Because he needs and deserves and stated that he wants the time to be single and explore the opportunities of the world. And I need and deserve and have stated that I want the time to be single to explore the opportunities of becoming myself again.
Our being emotionally immature and emotionally unavailable as each other, sprinkled with a dusting of magic synchronicity and fate - Brought us together as the right people, wrong time. Which has now opened up to become the time to step back and do the work on ourselves. Which for him, involves seeing new people and seeing where that goes. Because, just to add - When we started this all up back in the autumn of 2023. Our assessment of what this would become was to ‘meet new people and see where it goes’. It’s just enormously unfortunate that my own lack of capacity to have worked through the layers of inner exploration and emotional regulation, saw me chasing down the fairytale ending too quickly, rather than relaxing with a glass of pinot, whilst laughing our way through the rom-com.
And the reality that I must accept, is that we both initially set out to simply meet new people and see where it goes. Yet, evidently though, it transpired that we felt a great deal for each other, got swept up in the connection and the emotions of it all, and so entered into trying to have a relationship before either of us was actually ready or prepared to do the work that inevitably comes with responsibility. And requirements from the perspective of emotional intelligence and investment, to actually sustain a relationship.
I’m both glad and grateful on reflection, that he took the lead to end whatever this could have become. That he had the foresight to acknowledge and accept that there were many aspects of our brief relationship that felt out of integrity for him and weren’t meeting what he needed right now, nor were they meeting my needs that I was very obviously abandoning so that he could continue to choose me. In turn, diminishing my status as the prize to be sought out. Not the gift that’s been left at the doorstep delivered.
So here we are, thanks to a whirlwind micro romance / love story / micro drama - Because sorry Gosling, if you are listening, I am evidently the drama and all this main character energy, I frankly have little control over that.
The premature wrap up of the Single Era Diaries podcast, version one is no more. It’s funny, because when I was planning to wrap up the first version of this show. My bestie Emma, who joined me on last week's pilot said at the time, “the Dude has ruined your podcast for sure.” Which in many ways is kind of true. Because, it was me who chose to wind up the single era diaries because I was no longer single. But in doing so, that was another act of giving my power away. We were in a new relationship, not fucking married for crying out loud.
And so where we are now, is in a place where I absolutely have to remain single whilst I do this work to figure this all out. I can’t be running around like a Brat summer, 20 something year old. When I’m more of a Brat summer, Harris / Waltz Campaign Director. And by not only acknowledging these facts, but also by doing the work to understand that I wasn’t really ready to enter into a relationship so soon after getting out of a decade and half partnership with my co-parent I hadn’t taken the time to heal with the aim of actually understanding myself again as a single person.
Without acknowledging that I am unable to do ‘casual’, I should not have been engaging in something with someone who was only ever really looking for casual and not something more. I can work on doing far better at this whole dating / relationship thing when the time feels right. Which by the way, right now feels like never. But never say never eh!
And so what I have absolutely learned from this experience is that I definitely need more therapy. I have a lot of work to do.
I mean out of close to 5000 guys who liked and wanted to date me, I managed to find the one guy that was witty, smart, amusing, and incredibly kind. If I did that once, then no doubt, when the time is right, I can do that again.
And on Gosling - To set the record straight, He’s not a player - He’s simply a man who wants to and has every right to be able to enjoy what it means to be a single man without the added responsibility that inevitably comes with entering into a committed relationship.
We tried to get into something before really either of us were ready, it didn’t work out and he ended it. Which was absolutely the right thing to do, because the fact is he didn’t want to be in a relationship so soon without exploring all the possibilities available to him as a single man. And in honesty, neither did I before exploring all the possibilities of finally getting to understand and know myself as an individual not in relationship with anyone else.
The messy part about this situation is that we have tried to continue our relationship in the form of friendship, too soon after the close of the relationship, for me. It’s proven too hard for me to switch back to being the cool girl, when I continue to feel the way I do about him.
So the space is good and in that space, I will heal and in the future our connection and friendship can resume without wifey wannabe showing up to ruin things and fuck things up.
We can only show up in relationships, to the extent of which we have sought to understand and have met ourselves. Which whilst for him, may not be that deep. But for me, it’s the fucking ocean And right now, I’m down deep in it, wading at the bottom, avoiding sharks and trying to avoid an extreme case of the bends as I somehow find my way back up to the surface, to breath freely once again.
Ends
Words by Jade Taryn
Founder, CEO & Creative Director
Nascent Media
Written and read for the Single Era Diaries Rebooted Podcast a Nascent Media Original Production
