I’ve been trying to write this blog post for over a week now. My first attempt started off strong and then quickly spiraled into confusion and despair and eventually ended with me having an existential meltdown and lying on my couch shaking under a throw. It wasn’t my best moment.
During my second attempt I found myself expressing my thoughts and feelings and then promptly trying to justify and in some cases, apologize for them. Yeah…um…no, that’s not me.
I thought he problem was that I couldn’t seem to organize my thoughts. That’s when I realized my real problem is that on some level, I’m afraid to admit what I want. Or rather, what I don’t want. But before I start spiraling again, let me start at the beginning.
Match profiles have a category for whether or not you want children. You can select your choice and you can also select the options you would accept from your ideal match. The options are: “Definitely”, “Someday”, “Not sure”, “Probably not”, “No” and “No, but it’s okay if my partner has kids”. I have “probably not” listed under the category about wanting children under my own answers. I feel like this is the most accurate option I can select because I don’t have that urge or desire to have children. Sure I smile when I see a baby and just looking at a picture of my godson puts me in a better mood, but it doesn’t make me want to have children. It definitely makes me think about it, but it doesn’t change my mind. However, if despite my Fort Knox style efforts I did end up pregnant, I would have the baby. Hence my “probably not” answer on Match. For my ideal match, I selected “probably not”, “no” and “not sure”. As a result, I’ve been searching for guys on Match who have listed similar answers on their profiles. Do you know what I have discovered? Plenty of men want to have children. Like, A LOT of men. Which means I have significantly reduced my already miniscule dating pool of eligible, intelligent, attractive, kind and sane men ages 32 to 43.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, cue Joseph*, an eligible, intelligent and kind 34-year-old man who messaged me on Match about two weeks ago. Now, he had “wants children” listed on his profile, but since he didn’t specify that he was also looking for a partner who wanted children AND since he messaged me, I assumed that it must not have been that important to him. I was wrong. After over a week of messaging back and forth he started asking me very specific, yet normal questions that one would ask a potential mate. Among them was a question about how firm I was on my stance about having children. That pissed me off immediately. Obviously if he was asking me a question like that it meant that he was serious about wanting to have children. That wasn’t what pissed me off. What did it was the fact that he messaged me and wasted a week of my time when I had made it quite clear on my profile about where I stood on the matter. I decided not to be rude so instead of replying, “Can you read?” like I wanted to, I stuck to the facts and told him I have no desire to have children and at this point in my life I don’t see children of my own in my future. Joseph never replied. So much for intelligent and kind.
I think the worse thing about my brief online encounter with Joseph was that he made me begin to second-guess my decision on having kids, which is what triggered my meltdown. If you asked me 20 years ago if I wanted to have children in the future, I would have said yes. Over the years I’ve been back and forth on whether or not I want to have children, but in the last few years my decision has been firm.
It’s not that I haven’t pictured myself with children. It’s that I have pictured myself with children and I don’t like the picture. Allow me to explain. Growing up, within my extended family and my culture in general, the family dynamic that I encountered was usually the same. Particularly for women. You grow up and you live with mom and dad until you find a seemingly nice boy. You date him, you marry him, you move into a house and you have babies. The end. No, seriously. The. End. For you at least. I mean, the cycle just continues after that, but your life essentially freezes there and you are just a mother and a wife and you take a backseat to your children, husband and career IF you still have one. If you’re wondering if I’m being dramatic, sadly, I’m not. I’m not saying that women who experience this are unfulfilled or unhappy; I’m saying that I do not want that type of life. In fact, I’ve spent all this time running from it. I’ve seen a few exceptions to this, of course. Cousins my age who have kids and still manage their careers and look cool while doing it. But I don’t want to juggle that. I want the freedom to travel when and where I want and there are some days when the thought of just up and quitting my job and writing on a beach is enough to get me through the day. You don’t have those luxuries when you have kids. You just can’t.
I think what it comes down to for me is that I grew up with fairly stringent parents and as I got older the goal was to simply gain my freedom and independence. I only achieved that about eight years ago. It doesn’t feel like that much time to me, so it’s not something I’m willing to compromise anytime soon. To each her own, but my freedom is more important to me. I want to travel. I want to get tattoos. I want to find love. I want to sleep in on weekends. I want to stay home from work and watch Netflix in my pyjamas. And having children? Well, they pretty much put the kibosh on those things. Now, in case you’re wondering, yes, I am fully aware of how selfish that is. But as Brock said to Joan in an episode of Girlfriends, “When people know in their heart of hearts that they don’t want to have kids and they have them anyway, that’s stupid, and I’d rather be a little selfish than stupid.”
But it’s not just that I want to travel and do my own thing. I don’t want to have kids because as much as I think that I have my life together, I don’t feel like I have it together enough to make a human being. I am not physically, mentally or emotionally prepared to be completely responsible for a tiny, helpless human being. The idea of it is terrifying! Now, some people might say that this is normal or you’re never completely ready and would encourage me to do it anyway. To those people I say – that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. We’re talking about bringing a life into the world, not splurging on a pair of Jimmy Choos you’ve been eyeing for months.
To me it’s simple math. Wanting childless freedom + not being prepared to have a child = no babies. Unfortunately, based on these Match profiles it looks like it might also equal being single forever. I do want endless freedom, I just want someone to share that freedom with. I’m starting to tremble again.
Although I’m beginning to lose all hope that I will ever find the right guy for me, the good news is that I’m really finding myself in the process. I’m discovering what I want and don’t want and what I’m willing to compromise on and what my deal breakers are. It’s actually pretty awesome, existential meltdown aside. But my Match subscription is still valid for four more months so we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, I’m finally going to put this blog post to bed, pour myself a huge glass of wine and pack for my upcoming girls’ trip to New Orleans. Colourful beads, haunted plantations and beignets? Yes, please! Because that’s me.
*Name has been changed
That's Me 