So, it's been exactly one month and nine days since I started dating this random guy I met on Twitter.
By social media standards, we've "known" each other for the better part of a few months; digitally exchanging ideas on the state of the world and finding mutuality among our streams of consciousness, bands of followers and occasional foes who don't share our love for interjecting Jay-Z lyrics into everyday conversation.
What turned out to be an innocent rendezvous to discuss adjusting to the transplant life in Queen City quickly evolved into a series of graceful romantic gestures and the eventual naming of this concept of dating.
This is very new for me. I'm not exactly the most stable person when it comes to courting matters. I come with a track record of indecision, often ditching cities (and "boyfriends") at a moment's notice, piling new workloads against social outings and reserving much of my affections for the opposite sex among my awesome band of phenomenal male friends — many of whom bring me chocolate on demand and listen to my life woes without interruption.
Those who knew me in my early shameful years of bad boyfriends and breakups are bemused that I've even come this far, pointing to my stark ability to put distance between myself and the rest of the world.
In my seemingly noble commitment to working on myself and learning the value of self-satisfaction in lieu of Facebook relationship updates, I have equally aided myself in mastering the art of pursuing adventure before intimacy. Unwittingly, I've balanced with precision the skill of being available without having to give fully of myself. (I promise, my therapist is helping me to get this sorted out.)
And then, after a series of conversations on intentionality with the aforementioned gentleman, it hit me: not only am I guilty of making myself emotionally unavailable to interested suitors, I am equally guilty of treating much of my work with the same level of detachment.
In the age of clicktivism and social sharing, it is far easier to distance ourselves from the actual work of serving others; to disinvest in people and communities who don't share similar narratives, tax brackets or life experiences. It takes much greater courage and commitment to be active participants in the growth and development of new social structures that could change the game for the mass inequity our country (and city, for that matter) pretends to be privy to.
Many of us are far removed from what it means for communities of color to process police killings on a national scale; to fight tirelessly for quality education or to petition policy officials decade after decade for healthier environments and access to transportation and green spaces.
We are removed from the realities of what it means to show up in the world as gendered, trans, immigrant, refugee, senior, poor, of color, religious, agnostic and checkbox apparent.
Each day, I think through where my biases can go to die. Often, I float toward the notion that it is a failure of our human intellect as one of the most evolved species on earth to not do the actual work of investing in those whom we have not considered before.
It is our responsibility, on an individual level, to take on this work to bypass the sheer emotional constraints of learning hard things, feeling hard and uncomfortable feelings and becoming vulnerable as we struggle with challenging and analyzing our own thoughts.
Our social media timelines aren't enough. We'll need to log off and start getting our hands dirty.
