About two years ago, I was over dating. I mean REALLY over it. If you have dated a long time, you reach a point of dating saturation, and I was there. I was romantically neutral. You could have lined up 10 hot men in front of me and I would have felt nothing. Actually, I would’ve said they were taken or gay, or had something mental going on.
So, I decided to take a break. I closed out my online dating profiles (actually, I just put them on hold because I still couldn’t bring myself to completely stop looking). I bought a ticket to New Zealand. I wanted to go someplace far, far away from L.A. I was convinced this city was my real problem. There were no good men here—only the stereotype players and egomaniacs. It was no wonder I couldn’t find someone. I wanted to go somewhere that required hiking shoes, not a boyfriend.
When I told my friends I was going, they looked at me skeptically.
“Who are you going with?” they asked.
“Nobody. Going by myself.”
“Really?” Surprised/ horrified face. “Do you not have any friends that you can ask?”
I tried explaining myself…that I wanted to go on this trip by myself. That I hadn’t taken time off from work, and now I wanted to leave. Why should I wait for someone else to be ready? I wanted to reclaim my independence. I wanted to be ok with being single and not relying on a boyfriend to take me to some exotic locale, as it could happen that I’d be single for the rest of my life. (Yes, dramatic I know. But still, trying to prove a point.)
As it turned out, this trip was a defining moment in my life. For those of you not familiar, New Zealand is filled with gorgeous scenery—mountains, waterfalls, and lakes are everywhere. There was a moment when I stood at the top of a mountain in Queenstown, ready to try my hand at paragliding over this amazing landscape. My guide was about 20 years old, and had just smoked his last paycheck. His eyes were bloodshot and he kept asking me if I was scared.
He handed me what appeared to be a spacesuit, entirely too large and meant to turn me into the Michelin Man once we were airborne. I put it on like a good student and waited for my instructions. Surely this suit would prevent me from plunging to my death.
“Now,” he began, looking sort of towards me with bloodshot eyes, “I will count to three, and then you run as fast as you can towards the edge of the cliff. There will be resistance from the parachute, so you’ll feel like you’re dragging a pile of bricks at first.”
I nodded my head, unsure of how I would be able to glide through the air like the pictures in the brochure if I ran off the side of a mountain with about 200 pounds of equipment strapped to my back. My heart beat faster.
He’s done paragliding so many times, he could probably do it in his sleep, I told myself, breathing deeply. Besides, it’s not such a bad way to die…
“One, two three!” he counted a bit too quickly. I stood still, my frozen feet planted on the ground. This would be harder than I thought. I suggested he count to 100 to better prepare me.
Then he laughed. “Just kidding,” he admitted. “I didn’t hook you in yet!”
I watched him fasten me to himself and the parachute with round metal clips. A gust of wind knocked both of us off balance. I took another deep breath to calm myself.
“Ok, we’re ready!” He counted down again, just to three, but this time I ran. I saw nothing ahead of me but the edge of the cliff, and I made my way towards it as fast as my petrified body would allow. I didn’t think about what would happen next. I can’t say what propelled me forward when everything to this point had not exactly contributed to my sense of security. All I knew is that I wanted to run.
I fell for a brief moment, quickly and forcefully, until the parachute could catch the wind.
“What do you think?” my guide shouted into my ear from behind. “We hit nice wind today.” I wondered what would have happened if the wind had been angry.
“This is amazing!” I shouted back. And despite being completely at its mercy, spiraling towards a makeshift landing strip thousands of feet below, I felt a rush of warmth in this cold wind. This was what it felt like to lose control, to be completely free.
I returned from the trip realizing two things: the importance of letting go and the need for reconnecting.
I wasn’t getting anywhere in my dating life because I was trying to control things…when am I ever going to meet the right guy? What if I die old and alone? I won’t meet him in L.A. Mostly, I wasn’t living in the present moment. I was always thinking in terms of past and future. This is a recipe for depression, because I wasn’t enjoying the present moment for what it was. Paragliding snapped me out of it.
I also needed to reconnect with myself…to remember what it felt like to do something I really enjoyed. When I returned to L.A., things were different. I was different, in a good way. Men started approaching me, and dating was fun again. (Ok, it helped that there was a hot hiking guide on my trip…more on that later.)
So, I like to look at things this way: I didn’t run away from my L.A. dating life. I was looking to reignite the passion. And it worked.
About Kelly Seal
Kelly is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. She blogs about dating, relationships, personal growth and what "healthy living" means to her. You can follow her on Google+, Twitter @kellyseal or through her website www.kellyseal.com.
Everyone should take a trip like that or practice doing things alone. I started going to movies alone occasionally just to see if I could do it. It actually got easy. Same with dinner. Lunch. Once you become OK about being alone, some of the desperation falls off of you and all of sudden you become more attractive to everyone. Irony.
But hell NO. Paragliding? Are you nuts!!?
*Gigantic Gay Gasp* New Zealand is my dream destination!
You had me laughing out loud at how you just submitted to the bloodshot-eyed stoner. But the experience down under did work wonders, apparently. I learned something thanks to you today: to never get sandwiched between the past and the future. 🙂
P.S. Funny how envious I was while misunderstanding your saying you were over dating as you had enough of dating too much. :p