Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
Hi!
I stumbled across your blog during a dark night of the soul. I’ve been having lots of these lately since COVID. The more accurate term for this trend might be depression and anxiety — both of which I’m receiving medication and therapy for. I’ve even become an outspoken advocate for awareness of folks with mental health, and have been featured in the media. In truth, I’m an all-round badass person, and have really been fighting to see myself that way.
Before my depression hit like a ton of bricks, I was working at the UN with refugees. I should add that I’m a woman in my thirties, and ran the whole communications unit on my own. I quit because they wouldn’t allow us to participate in the George Floyd protests, among other things. I wanted to be a writer and to move back to the US, where I’d lived in my twenties. I wanted to criticize the government of my home country and their treatment if refugees openly. Somehow I gained a scholarship to make that happen in order to pursue a PhD. I shouldn’t say “somehow,” because I’ve been academically and professionally successful all my life. I’ve always been the ambitious young woman my parents can be proud of (and I’m slowly getting there, in terms of being proud of myself). But my luck in love has always been pretty shitty. Sometimes I wonder if, all this time, my ambition was really due to my as-yet-undiagnosed anxiety, an anxiety that kept me going going going. I say this because I think I’m a catch. Objectively, I’m pretty exceptional. But I wonder if this has always made me out of sync with the world.
I’ve always found myself in rooms, for instance, where I’m way younger than everyone else. Now that I’ve returned to the US for a PhD, I’m older than everyone else in my programme, as well as being a foreigner. The last time I came to the US for school was during Trump’s election, where I was face-to-face with a kind of race-based vitriol I’d never seen before. I’m Black and grew up in a Black country. For the first time I understood intimately what I knew objectively — that this country is rooted in such entrenched systems of oppression of so many various, marginalized peoples, including Black ones. I took this all personally. But how could I not, when at the time there was so much discussion about Black women being at the bottom of the barrel when it came to being picked by men of all races? Everything I read at the time tried to tell me to keep the faith in finding a partner — things like racism would just self-eliminate a prospect who I didn’t need to be interested in anyway. But the facts of the world would make me angry instead of hopeful, and then hopeless. It wasn’t fair — and still isn’t — that I had to reassure myself that I’d still find love when statistically, I am less likely to.
Right before I came to the US, in the middle of my plans to migrate and my first serious bout of depression, I met someone. I should have known better, but I entered full force into a “situation ship” with someone who was abusive. It shattered my life — though I’m still proud that I was able to establish a new one in the US. I felt completely demeaned by someone who belittled me for not being “feminist” or “queer” enough to enter into the poly dynamic of his dreams. There were other ways he tried to cut me down to size — successfully. I left utterly destroyed and just so skeptical about heterosexual dynamics fundamentally. This is in part because the women in my family have largely experienced some form of abuse. I witnessed my mom’s abuse via a stepdad; my mom witnessed my grandma’s abuse via her stepdad. I used to cover these realizations up with a lot of alcohol in my youth, but now that I’m sober and my eyes are opened, everything just feels intense as hell. How do I feel comfortable about dating again? How do I keep faith that there are good men out there? How do I even try to date knowing that men might think I’m too fat, or too Black, or all of the things? What if I am destined, like so many other Black women — and an immigrant to boot — to be alone? How do I date in a sexist, racist world?
– Unsure
I’m going to level with you Unsure: shit’s rough, and there are no easy answers to any of it. What you’re saying and what you’re experiencing is 100% real, understandable and valid. You’re facing well-known obstacles and dealing with being someone who’s marginalized on multiple axis and ones that I as a straight, cis white guy simply don’t.
It’s entirely understandable that you’re feeling this sort of despair right now. You are – as many people are – dealing with being a reasonable person in intensely unreasonable circumstances.
I’m not surprised that you’re feeling ground down. It’s an understandable reaction to your situation.
You’re right. It’s not fair. It’s not fair at all. But – to quote the sage – I take great comfort in the unfairness of the universe. I mean, can you imagine how awful it would be if the universe was fair? It would mean that all of this… everything… was deserved.
And again, I want to emphasize that what I’m about to say comes from my perspective as someone who doesn’t face the systemic levels of marginalization and oppression that you do, so please take this with all appropriate levels of salt and skepticism.
But here’s something I’ve learned over the years – something that forms part of the foundation of the advice I have for men, women, non-binary people, straight people, queer people, cis people and trans people.
The first is that hope isn’t an emotion; it’s a practice. It’s something that has to be actively worked at because… well, because hope is inherently irrational. It is irrational to look around at everything and say “well, it could be worse and I bet it could be better.”
But holding on to that belief – that it could be better, that better is even possible – is something that has to be done consciously, until it becomes muscle memory, because the alternative is simply despair and giving up.
There are folks who would argue that this is just sensible; hope, after all, is a delusion, a bet against terrible odds. It’s far from certain and, in fact, it’s far more likely that what one hopes for won’t come to pass – certainly not in the way that one imagines or prays for.
But that’s kind of the point of hope. Hope is all about uncertainty and beating long odds. If the outcome were guaranteed, then it wouldn’t be hope, it would just be waiting. It would be patience.
And much as patience requires practice, so does hope. Hope requires choosing to look at things and to choose to see a path, or many paths, towards a better destination, even if it’s hard to see. Even if it doesn’t exist. Even if it’s straight up imaginary.
Because if you don’t practice holding onto hope, the answer eventually becomes “quit trying and just wait for the inevitable end”.
But here’s the second thing I’ve learned over the years: the way you fight despair is through action. Part of why despair is sinister is that it’s paralyzing. It’s the state of saying “nothing matters, it’s best to expect the worst so it doesn’t hurt as much and you’re better prepared to face it,” and to accept things as being permanent, unchangeable and far, far too big for someone like you to do anything about.
But taking action – literally any action – pushes back against that. It’s Steve Rogers, beaten, broken, spitting up blood, feeling his splintered ribs, standing back up, staring someone in the eye and saying “I can do this all day.” Even knowing that he’s opposing someone who can reduce him to dust with a snap of his fingers.
The actions can be big or small, but they should be in the opposite direction of where despair says to go. It may be as small as connecting with your neighbors and making sure everyone’s doing ok. It may be volunteering your free time at an animal shelter or the museum or going knocking on doors for a local political race. It might be as simple as organizing a volunteer group to clean up a small corner of your community. Or it may be simply continuing to treat yourself as though you matter – facing all the forces, institutions and systems that’ve accumulated over the years that say that you are less deserving, less wanted, just lesser.
Now where the two intersect is important. Action counteracts despair, yeah, but action requires direction and focus, otherwise it’s incoherent, undirected, and far, far less effective.
Hope, provides direction. Remember what I said about how hope sees a path forward, even if that path doesn’t exist? That’s where hope intersects with action. Hope focuses and aims intent. Action turns intent into deeds. Seeing the path forward isn’t enough; you have to actually walk it or even blaze that trail yourself.
What does that look like, say, in your case? Well, it looks a lot like saying “so what?” in the face of everything arrayed against you. Black women, culturally and socially, get shit on more than just about everyone else – in life as in romance. The practice of hope says “that may be true, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept it and give up,” and continue to love yourself and value yourself enough to hold out for someone who’s worth your time. It’s to look at the people who tell you that you’re too black, too fat, too smart, too accomplished, too proud and give them all the finger because fuck ‘em. It’s to look at the people who tried to smother your light and shine just a little harder because fuck you that’s why. And it looks a lot like looking at the abuse you’ve endured, that your mom had endured, that your grandmother endured and saying “this doesn’t stop me from trying.”
And from there: continuing to fight. Continuing to uphold the radical act of loving yourself, respecting yourself and being honest with yourself. And honesty doesn’t mean “look at the statistics and make your peace with things being arrayed against you”; it also means looking at your accomplishments, what you’ve achieved and what you’re aiming to achieve and saying “I’m worth more than what most are willing to give me and if that means holding out longer rather than accepting less, then that’s ok”.
In a dating context, maybe this means continuing to stay on the apps but being more selective of where and who you choose to give not just your heart but your time to. Or it may mean giving up the apps and instead just meeting people, giving a little more priority to the potential of serendipity, but also to giving people more time to show you who they are. Some will seem promising but reveal that they’re not right for you. Others may seem completely at odds with everything that you want but turn out to be much more in line with you who are and what you want and deserve. It may also mean being willing to be single and to not date for a while – to not even try for a bit and instead live your life. And in living your life that’s in alignment with your highest good and your purpose and integrity, you may well find that this is precisely what brings you in contact with someone who is worth your time and your attention.
Now, is it as easy as that? Oh fuck no. Are you kidding? If it were I’d be out of a job. It’s hard as hell. You have everyone and everyone, including your own rational and sane thoughts telling you that this is absurd, that it’s crazy and that it’s pointless. You have every failure stacking up against you, every system of accumulated oppression standing in your way and all the crabs in the bucket who’re opposed to your trying to climb out attempting to pull you back down. You even have your own exhausted brain, body and soul telling you that this is crazy.
It not fast, either. It’s the bird pecking at the mountain day by day, chiseling the mountain away until the first second of eternity has passed.
Which – as the other Doctor once said – many will think is an incredibly long time. I think it’s one hell of a bird.
But that’s why hope has to be a practice and why action is a choice. It’s choosing to act irrationally because to be rational would be to give in to despair. But through embracing that irrationality, you can bend destiny itself in a way that nobody thought was possible. It won’t always be in the way you expect, and hope can change a lot over time – in no small part because you will change and what you hope for will do so as well. That change isn’t a betrayal, nor is it a sign that you’ve given up on hope. It’s just acknowledging that what you want and what you need has changed, just as you have changed. The dreams and hopes of our youth are often very different from what we dream and hope for in maturity because we have learned more about ourselves.
Now there’s a corollary to this: hope and action take effort and energy and sometimes you don’t have any to spare. That’s fine. You can be the biggest, baddest ass out there with a star for a brain and a nuclear reactor for a soul and you’ll still need a moment to catch your breath and say “well shit” when you fall from the heavens and hit the ground. Needing to take a moment or take a knee isn’t giving into despair or giving up on hope or action. It’s not about never falling down, it’s about being willing to get back up afterwards. If you need a few in order to pull self together again, reassemble the broken pieces and fill in the cracks and gaps with gold, that’s just fine. That’s an act of hope as well.
So how do you continue to date when the world is broken, when everyone tells you that the forces arrayed against you are just too much? You start by asking “what if they’re wrong?” And then set out to prove it. And when those forces knock you to the ground, you stand up again, stare them in the eye, spit out the blood in your mouth and tell them the truth. “I can do this all day.”
Good luck.