Nearing the End

The end point of my social experiment with Seven Weeks of Celibacy ends on Halloween this Sunday.

Yay?

I am still mulling over where to go next. Not sure if I'm ready to adopt this as my official lifestyle, but the last few weeks have been unusually clear-minded for me. Aside from a week in September when everyone in NYC seemed to have SAD (or PMS?), the only bad weeks I've had corresponded with backslides into being boy crazy.

Taking this time to refocus, by taking a slash-and-burn approach to my (lack of a) sex life, gave me lots of time and energy to look back on the summer and identify individual aspects of my experience and filter out the ones I truly hated.

For example, hanging around at public events waiting to be noticed, by strangers or known entities? Yuck. I'm not sure what part of my brain fell dormant to think that was a good idea for me (although other people have fun with that, more power to 'em).

Doing unsolicited favors to ingratiate myself to attractive people? Double yuck. One day I'll wax long upon doormat syndrome, to help others avoid my dumb mistakes.

Staying out late in bars trying to be cute or impressive to people, and then being too tired to do things that were actually fun later in the week? Also super dumb. Maybe I temporarily became a pod person.


But not all of my reflections were negative! I seem to have fallen out of interest with fancy clothes and makeup (or just been lazy), but it's fun to dress up when going out with my lady friends to a ritzy place. Reading tarot and listening to people's romantic stories in bars can be fun! Focusing on the actually fun things I wanted to do gave me lots of time and energy to do them, as well as my daily routines. I'm still not against coupling, most apparent when I attended my friends' lovely (nerd!) wedding and was very happy for them :-)

Bottom line, I am not against mating, but I despise the Mating Game. Or a strange self-taught version of the Mating Game that makes me tired and sad. From these observations, I will make a new resolution for the rest of the year.

Now I need to find a new clever catchphrase for the next six to seven weeks of social experimentation :-)