Dating apps can sometimes feel like an international sporting event nobody remembers signing up for.
There are heats, rankings, photographs, statistics and the quiet suspicion that someone, somewhere, has already qualified for the final without telling you.
Then there are profile pictures.
Small pieces of evidence we are expected to trust, even though every user knows that light, angle, time and optimism can work together like a minor criminal organisation.
I once arranged to meet a man in Fulham.
The photograph had been generous.
Reality was not wrong.
It was simply a different production.
The important thing, though, was not that he looked different.
It was what happened inside me when I realised I did not want to continue.
My body knew before I had prepared a polite explanation.
I pulled back.
Clarity before elegance
For years I had been very good at trying not to disappoint people.
Especially people who had shown interest in me.
Attention could feel like something I was supposed to reward.
Desire, as though it created an invoice.
But there are moments when clarity matters more than elegance.
Being polite is a quality. Turning politeness into an obligation can become a trap.
I did not need a twelve-slide PowerPoint explaining why the encounter was not going to happen.
I did not need to make my no beautiful enough to be accepted.
I simply needed to recognise it.
Attention does not create debt
This is especially complicated when we do not feel at our most desirable.
If somebody chooses us at a moment when we are insecure, we can begin to feel grateful before anything has even happened.
Gratitude is a terrible foundation for consent.
Being alone does not mean being available for everything.
Being desired does not put us in debt.
Not being perfect does not mean we should thank anyone who chooses us.
And above all:
desire does not arise from gratitude.
Consent is not the prize we give someone for making us feel desirable.
A boundary is information
We often make boundaries sound aggressive.
As though saying no were an accusation.
It is not.
A boundary is not an attack. It is information.
It tells another person where we are.
They are free to dislike it.
They are not entitled to negotiate us out of it.
I did not stop looking for connection after that encounter.
I did stop auditioning.
And I stopped believing that a no needs to sound elegant in order to be valid.
The duty to always be nice.
The right to be clear when niceness is not enough.
Continue the Thought
How many times have you called it “politeness” when you were really trying not to disappoint somebody while disappointing yourself?