Why I’m Giving Up Sex and Dating for the New Year

By:  H.T., Website:  Rogue Black Nerd

In the last year or so my relationship with women has…gone to shit.  For one, I wrote an article that at last count, had been read more than 30,000 times where I stated that black men should explicitly date outside their race.  The point where it came to a head was when a close friend came to me with the article and called me out on it.  What’s more, I simply didn’t believe in what I wrote after a few months and had to apologize because I realized I had written the article from the wrong place.

Beyond that, my actual relationships with women were…pretty bad.  My girlfriend of almost half a year broke up with me shortly after the death of my great grandmother, the rebound relationship I was in after that went to hell when, to put it bluntly, because I lacked in the hygiene and confidence department after my breakup; it didn’t work.

Aside from that came my typical issues with my mother.  We don’t live together and barely speak, but with the frequency I speak about her, people assume we share a roof, thus the animosity.  The reality is that in all honesty, I envy her.  Despite the fact that she’s an undeniable asshole despite what any of my friends, exes or….well, I’d say family, but my mom’s side knows the deal and my dad’s family has solid reason to, at most, understand why my father and I struggle with her.

Now you’re probably asking, why do this?  Why give up sex for at least a year?  Well these are the facts:

I’ve been in 5  romantic relationships in my life.  Of those 5 women, I’ve only slept with 2.  In fact, between the 3 women I’ve slept with in my life combined (the 3rd was the friend I mentioned earlier who confronted me about the article) I’ve had sex, well, the number is below 20 times.

My desire for sex has ruined relationships, both platonic and romantic, not because it exists, but because simply put, it clouds my judgement.  I can take a no, but my tenacity and well, desperation becomes a problem.

Aside from that, it really does go into that I’m too pressed to find another relationship after I get out of one, and just look in general.  I never just…exist and see what comes.  I’m always looking, never just…enjoying things.  Then, my friend got married.

It’s not a big deal that some of my friends are married.  Ones divorced, 2 are engaged, 4 are married.  And it takes 2 hands to count how many have kids now.  Hell, one even invited me to her wedding.  But I thought back to two points:  what I thought after the wedding and what I actually did.  For one, I should note that before the first friend’s wedding I was fresh out of a relationship.  I should also note that the now wife of the most recent friend to get married gave me something to think about while drinking with her and my friend at the bar during, yes, an anime convention.

She said, in the nicest yet bluntest way possible, that I really do invest too much of my identity into putting on a good image for others as opposed to being happy.  She pointed out that in the time she’s known me, that she’s watched me drive myself miserable because of others opinions.  Now, cut to more than a year later and the beautiful woman is married to the guy that everyone loves, so I thought what if she’s on to something?

The reason I chose to give up dating and sex was two parts.  Dating, because I had invested so much of my mind, time and effort into trying to get a date that now I was miserable with myself and had begun to not only hate being alone and couldn’t stand the sight of myself in the mirror.  As I have said often, dating in the age of social media is a nightmare as, as far as beauty standards go, men and women are measured against people that likely don’t even live in their time zone.

Sex is more from the perspective of just taking time to learn.  In the age of Harvey Weinstein and Russell Simmons getting ousted for sexual harassment, I’d be remiss if I didn’t think that maybe this is a time to relearn the rules of courtship and intimacy in this day and age.  Simply put, my sex drive has lost me girlfriends, friends, and yes has gotten me in trouble in terms of being off putting to women.  In short, I need a reset in terms of how I interact with women.  I believe that if I can go at least a year, maybe longer with forcing myself to interact with women solely on a platonic level, maybe I can unlearn some of my less than helpful traits as they relate to women.  It may seem unorthodox, but I don’t believe putting me on game or getting swag will help the blatant and underlying issues I have as they relate to women.  I really think this is time I should set aside to assess what I’m doing wrong in my life, both with and beyond women.  Fact is, women will always be there.  But opportunities for careers, extra income and networking will not.

In short, this will be therapeutic.  It’s not as if I was missing much dating-wise anyways, and to be honest, my sex drive, when it’s on, has been a problem.  Wish me luck.