Finding true love with myself — and more than one man

My twenties should have been some of the most carefree years of my life. I dated, had fun, and made love; but I also spent a lot of  time being more cautious than twenties are meant for. As a child of Trinidadian parents, who was baptized Catholic, I grew up hearing about all the ways to get a man: avoid being a “slut” or risk repelling the interest and respect of men, don’t be “too easy,” dress modestly, and no sex before marriage, because men will never want to marry you if you’ve “been around.” I tried to color inside of the lines of respectability so I could find and marry a good man. Now, I write this as a 38-year-old woman who has never been married and may very well be one of the few happily unmarried women that I know.

I tried traditional monogamy for years and have been grossly unsuccessful. I spent two years in a relationship where I did everything I was taught, and at the end of it, he broke up with me for not being perfect. He then proceeded to tell anyone who would listen that we were never in a relationship and I had made our “close friendship” out be something that it wasn’t. I sacrificed who I was to please my partners and although I looked happy, I always felt like I was wearing my shoes on the wrong feet. I was a bisexual woman whose taste in men varied as much as my taste for food, on any given Friday night. So, how could I be in a relationship with just one person when I wanted so many people who had nothing in common besides me? I was a round peg trying to fit into a square hole. When the relationships ended, after all the changing I had done, I was left with little more than heartache, time, and myself. Being alone made me miserable because I had done so much compromising of who I was, that I no longer recognized the person I was alone with. I had spent years becoming who my partners wanted me to be, only to have them change their mind about what they wanted in a wife.

For all intents and purposes, I was the grand prize, being treated like a participation ribbon. The moment I realized that I loved my partners the way I did, I would reach back into my mental archives and pull out everything I had ever learned about getting and keeping a man. When it came to sex? Anything they wanted to try, we tried. I truly did not mind the fact that sex was not particularly satisfying for me because my partner was happy and that was supposed to be the goal. After all, everything I had been taught told me that a woman who could not find a man to marry her was not much of a woman at all.

“Being alone made me miserable because I had done so much compromising of who I was, that I no longer recognized the person I was alone with.”

But I have always had an inquisitive mind and because of that, there was always something nagging at me about everything that I had been taught. I could not reconcile why men were not taught to behave in a way that would earn them the respect of women, but women were being raised to earn and retain theirs by constantly bending to men’s moving desirability goal posts. I also could not reconcile how, if the goal was to settle down and be happy with your partner, these rules could be applied to women who were interested in other women. For something that was made to seem so “catch all” and final, why could it not be applied to any situation involving romantic relationships? Asking myself these questions at the age of 21 was the first step in my sexual radicalization.  

By the time I was 26, I had (barely) survived my first real heartbreak. I had been devastated by the break up and spent countless hours trying to figure out where I had gone wrong and what I may have missed that caused him to leave me. When I finally started dating again, I was so frustrated with the way men were using me to satisfy their emotional and physical deficits, I decided to mirror their behavior to teach them a lesson. I did the one thing no one had ever taught me when they gave me the laundry list of things to do to get and keep a man: I dared to be happy on my own terms and prioritize that happiness. I have dated several men since this awakening of mine. I’ve fallen in love several times and it has been beautiful and transformative each time.

I have had romances that lasted for years and others for just a few days, but all were very real. Now, I do not hold my feelings in, I let them be whatever they are. I tell the men who are interested in me that they are not the only ones, giving them the opportunity to make an informed decision about pursuing me. The result is, I am loved in ways I had never imagined possible. My heart is handled carefully, my mind is stimulated constantly, my sex is passionate and satiating, and I am affirmed daily. Recently, a woman told me that she envied that I was able to have men fall all over me without compromising who I am and what I need, and asked me what my secret was. I smiled, because I remembered that once upon a time, I also believed that to be impossible. Finally, I shared the secret with her: “Honey, I am the Sun in my galaxy and the Sun never asks anyone’s permission to shine.”