Misseducated

Hello Wonderful Readers,

I’m struggling to write to you right now. I was on a bender until 3 am this morning, and last night was filled with so many juicy details that it will take me at least a couple of weeks to tell you all about it.

Of course, a new guy has entered my life, and I’m nervous to write about him because he reads my work and is supportive of me. As you know, in the recent months of writing Misseducated, I’ve been burned by my own work much more than I hoped, and it has hurt. Yet, somehow, I have to believe that my work matters enough to keep going. And that leads me to the first part of this story I’ve got for you here. It’s the part of last night that sticks out to me the most.

Last night, I woke up from a power nap at about 8:30 pm. I had plans to meet up with Arturo (yes, the new man) at a Jazz Club later in the evening. He’s kind of a night owl, so I was thrilled when I woke up bursting with energy. I was ready to take on whatever the night had in store.

All you need to know about Arturo is that he’s 35, divorced, and from Los Bosques, an upper-class suburb of Mexico City. He also lives in Polanco and works at Google Mexico City office in Las Lomas. We met on Raya and have had a couple of dates together which have gone quite well. So well that, last night, he invited me to meet him at the Jazz Club, Casa Franca, in Roma Norte after he finished a late dinner with his coworkers.

Yesterday, we had been texting in Spanish:

Arturo, 5:57 pm: See you at Casa Franca? I’ll let you know when to get there.

Tash, 6:01 pm: Sounds good. See you there and enjoy your dinner!

As 9 pm rolled around, I was flailing around my apartment, desperate to make myself look as hot as humanly possible. I know I’m not supposed to get myself glammed up for a night out solely for the pursuit of a man (thank you, Cindy Gallop), but just like any bad feminist, I was embracing the fact that rules exist to be broken. Luckily, I had lined up drinks with a female friend to keep myself distracted from Arturo until the moment we were to meet.

I messaged him on the way to the cocktail bar to meet my female friend,

Tash, 9:48 pm: Hey, Arturo! What time should I meet you at Casa Franca?

And then I emotionally sat on my hands. And I waited.

My female friend and I ran into some other friends at the cocktail bar. Then we went out for pizza. Then we went to yet another bar. While I was sitting there, I admit I was being a terrible friend. I was only half-paying-attention to what they were all saying. It’s early October. It's cuffing season. I am wrestling with myself inside because I know that I need to lock a man down (only metaphorically, of course) before the winter sets in. However shall I make it through these upcoming cold months alone? However shall I procreate and create a plethora of healthy, rosy-cheeked children? My body is barking at me. In this economy? Not even my logical business-school-educated brain can argue with my urge to get knocked the f**k up. This is biology at its best; at its strongest.

I checked my phone at 11:26 pm. Not a word from Arturo. Not a peep. It had been a whole hour and a half. As I sipped on my passion-fruit-laced kombucha with a salt rim, I wondered: Was Arturo going to message me back? He had seemed nice until now. Maybe he got too drunk at dinner? Maybe he’d picked up another hotter girl at Casa Franca already? Maybe he didn’t want me to come after all?

You know, I’ve been single for a while. And that’s because, well, I don’t know. There’s got to be something wrong with me. I shouldn’t have sent him that very forward message asking him when he’d be at Casa Franca. I’m too needy and desperate, and men can smell it.

I started to get upset. I turned to my friends for consolation.

“Treat him like a candidate for a job interview,” one of my friends advised me. “If you were interviewing a candidate for a job, and they showed up super later or didn’t show up at all, would you stand for that? No! You’d never hire them.”

We laughed it off, and something else very exciting happened that I will tell you about next week. But as time went on, I got more and more anxious. Clearly, Arturo didn’t want to see me. Why couldn’t he have just told the truth in the first place instead of pretending? I couldn’t bring myself to check my phone again, just to be trodden down further that Arturo hadn’t messaged me. I would bring all of this up with my therapist in our next session. If this guy wasn’t going to meet my needs, well, then I was ready to give up on us getting to know each other. To numb the pain of it all, I got another round of drinks with my friends.

It was 12:09 am before I checked my phone again.

Arturo, 11:46 pm: We’ve been here a while. Are you coming to Casa Franca?

My hands shook as I read the message. I accidentally dropped my phone smack on the table. The ice in our cocktail glasses wobbled. Arturo had messaged me. And I had been so busy wallowing in my story of him not being interested, or of him finding someone better than me, or not caring about me, that I hadn’t done the damn simple task of checking in with him on my phone.

As soon as I saw his message, I rejoiced with my friends. Arturo wasn’t a complete a*****e after all. And maybe, well, I had been being a bit dramatic. I would leave my deep-seated worries about my self-worth for another time because he had requested my presence.

I hurried my friends through the end of their conversation. We quickly got the bill. They walked me over to Casa Franca, and after a couple of trips through the various rooms (which I will also tell you about another time because I ran into one of my exes from On Dating Mexican Men), I finally found Arturo and his coworkers.

It was sometime past 12:30 am when we finally hugged each other hello. Then Arturo turned to me, and he said,

“I’m so glad you came. I was beginning to think it was too late. I was worried you had already gone to sleep and weren’t going to make it. It’s so good to see you. I’m so glad you came.”

His words took me aback. They struck a chord. I puzzled to myself in that moment, again distracted as we caught up with each other about how our day had been.

After all the anxiety and the trips through the realms of self-worth that I had dipped into in my own mind, here was this perfectly nice, if not also imperfect, guy standing in front of me. Somewhere along the way, between the hundreds of hours of Instagram reels I had consumed and the narratives about the opposite sex that I had bombarded myself with, I forgot that on the other end of the phone was also another living human person. And that if I wanted to get to know this person, I would have to meet them where they were. Maybe that meant compromising. Maybe that meant being patient. But without a doubt, it meant that I needed to ground myself in my reality and not fall into old, unhealthy stories of how I was treated in the past. It meant not having silly, made-up expectations of a man or any human and how they should show up for me in any given situation.

And yet, in my experience of entrenched loneliness and questioning my own worthiness of connection, I had accidentally left him hanging. And I had even transferred that instability and potential for disconnection onto him. My limited story of myself had almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Wading through the trash of my information diet and obsessing over my own emotions and ability to connect with others had left me isolated. To the point where I could hardly afford a tiny inch in the corner of my brain to consider the experience of another person, much less a person seeking a deeper connection with me. We had almost passed each other like ships in the night.

It reminds me of a fascinating TED Talk I watched a couple of years ago with psychologist Dr. Guy Winch. In the story, Winch shares that he always calls his twin brother on their birthday. That is, until one year, when his birthday rolled around, his twin brother didn’t call. Du…

Hello everyone!

This week I’m sharing an interview with Dr. Tarra Bates-Duford about how to help someone in an abusive relationship. Below you’ll find a summary of our key talking points, and then the full transcript of our discussion so you can read along.

I hope you find this informative, and that it comes in handy one day. Please share the episode and article with anyone you think it would help.

Love,

Tash

💌 ✍️

How to Help Someone in an Abusive Relationship

Discussion with Dr. Tarra Bates-Duford, PhD, a forensic psychologist specializing in familial dysfunctions and trauma. You can find her on LinkedIn and Instagram.

What is the definition of domestic violence?

Domestic violence is a pattern of intentional violent or aggressive behavior. It can be physical, sexual and verbal against a close family member or romantic partner.

What are the main misconceptions about domestic violence?

* That the individual can leave (In reality, they often can’t).

* That they’re choosing to remain in the relationship (In reality, they may not have a choice).

* That it doesn’t happen in affluent communities (In reality, it can happen to anyone, from all walks of life, religions, relationship types, and sexual orientations).

How do abusive relationships often begin?

* They often begin with the depreciation of a person and mean-spirited jokes, then gradual isolation:

* E.g. “You’re stupid. You don’t do well on your own. Those people aren’t your friends. You’re so gullible. Left to your own devices, bad things could happen.”

* They suggest the person can’t do anything right, and that they would be safer if they gave control and decision-making over to their more knowledgeable partner or family member.

* Gradually the tone changes and because we accepted their language as a joke, it feels inconsistent and like too big of a deal to bring up now.

* Over time, it can escalate into violence and fears for their safety or their children’s safety.

What traits do abusive partners often have?

* They are usually insecure people who struggle with power.

* They tend to be overlooked.

* They may not be taken seriously in their own lives, so they look for people they can exert power over to feel validated.

* They are trying to compensate for feelings of powerlessness and helplessness.

What traits can victims of abuse relationships have?

* Marginalization, or growing up in a toxic family

* A history of domestic violence, maladaptive behavior, or dysfunction in their own family

* Unless we learn how to manage this or have something to compare it to, we may subconsciously try to replicate the environment that we are familiar with and rebuild dysfunctional families ourselves.

* Lack of a father figure growing up can lead to a controlling idea of what a father is that the victim confuses with love e.g., “I don’t want you to have that. I don’t want you to wear that.”

What are the signs of an abusive relationship?

* Your partner makes you feel less than, not valuable, not worthy.

* If you're constantly trying to fulfill the need of your partner without that person trying to meet your needs. There is no compromise. It's either this way or the highway.

* You do not have a voice in your relationship.

How can you stop early signs of relationship abuse?

* Have clear deal-breakers and personal boundaries that you enforce.

* E.g. Say “I do not tolerate racial comments, even jokingly. I do not accept language like this, not even in jest.”

* The Camel Exercise: Imagine a two-humped camel and the straw that broke the camel’s back. What you're willing to accept is one hump and what you're not willing to accept is the straw between them, or the things in your life that you are unwilling to compromise on. Beware of comments or language that are another straw on your camel’s back that you don’t accept.

* Announce and assert your boundaries to eliminate confusion when someone has crossed the line. If you have boundaries that have not been announced, you don't have boundaries because people don't know where you end, and they begin.

* Do not violate your own boundaries. From this, an abusive partner will realize that your boundaries are permeable and that they don’t mean anything.

* If you’re able to enforce your own boundaries, an abusive person will likely not remain close to you in your life, and eliminate themselves, which is what you want. And this can help you give space to healthier people and relationships in your life.

* Reflect on your experiences in your relationship: if a friend came to you and said she was having a similar issue that you’re having, what advice would you give to her? Would her relationship sound abusive to you?

How can you help someone in an abusive relationship as a friend or bystander?

* Encourage that person to empower themselves, and create a safety plan (see below for details).

* Don’t “add to” the victim experience by pressurizing them. If you give controlling commands e.g. “You need to leave that relationship,” what distinguishes you from the abuser? Instead, you have to create a distinct voice that is totally different from the person abusing the victim.

* Don't put demands e.g. “If you don't do leave him, then don't even bother contacting me again.” Don't give ultimatums. Ultimatums suggest that your love is contingent upon what that survivor is willing and unwilling to do.

* Remember that just because you tell them to leave their relationship doesn’t mean that it’s safe for them to do so.

* Remember that when someone is about to end or leave an abusive relationship, it’s the most dangerous time.

* Anticipate what you don’t know. If you’re suggesting they leave, where should they leave to? Or if they have kids, leave and go where? Do what? What do we do about food, income and shelter? Be able to provide some real resources instead of demanding them to leave.

* Have them keep someone in the know, like a close friend who knows their schedule, who will realize if anything happens outside the norm.

What should you include in a safety plan?

* It’s a written-out or agreed-upon plan on how to leave an abusive relationship.

* It describes when and how the victim can leave in ways that might be safe e.g. when their partner is sleeping or out of town.

* It could involve:

* Plans to make separate keys for the car

* Packing bags

* Pacing belongings in other locations so you’re not fumbling around the house trying to find things when you leave

* Stashing money somewhere, in case your joint bank account is no longer available to you

* Having cash so they can’t track your credit card purchases

* Remaining in contact with a friend the abusive partner doesn’t know about, where the victim could stay and hide at that house

* Having the numbers to case managers and Domestic Violence shelters.

* A good safety plan also includes a lot of alternatives, including plans for picking up the children from school, and what to do if the victim needs to get out of their house quickly.

How can we stop abusive relationships from happening in society?

* Hold perpetrators more accountable for their actions, not just send them to jail for a couple of hours to cool off.

* Understand that more than our spoken language, it’s our unspoken language that impacts our children. We may be teaching our children these maladaptive relationship patterns without realizing what we’re teaching them.

What else should we know about sexual abuse in relationships?

* It can happen at any relationship stage, and it doesn’t matter if you’re married or not married, if you know the person or not. If you say no, and you’re not interested in engaging in sexual activity, it’s still no. No one has the right to violate you and disrespect your boundaries.

* Some people think it’s different for married couples because they see marriage as some sort of ownership, instead of a partnership.

How might you figure out if what you’re experiencing is relationship abuse?

* Imagine that instead of yourself, a friend is recounting her experiences to you like the ones that you’ve had in your relationship. What would you say to your friend about her situation?

Podcast Interview Transcript

Tash: Hello, it's Ta…

Dear Wonderful Readers,

I was looking forward to updating you with the next part of my story. Until s**t went down on the internet. (See recent weeks here and here).

Given that this s**t went down in the last 48 hours, I haven’t had the chance to process things properly yet. However, I was still determined to write something for you today. Luckily, I also have one exciting update for you that I hope will be a strong metaphorical band-aid over this situation for us all.

Without meaning to, this week, my life turned into a very dramatic and scary telenovela. Perhaps I was asking for it by writing about my love life in Mexico with no filter and very thin guises of anonymity for the other characters. But to be honest, the Instagram harassment and the casual threat to my personal safety have put a downer on the whole situation. I had to confirm that these people don’t know where I live. Guess what that did to my nervous system and my latent PTSD? Not good things! Lol. Don’t worry, I know who they are and why they’re mad. But it’s a bummer because the story was just getting juicy!

Many of you have contacted me to say how much you loved my stories these last couple of weeks, and for that, I am truly grateful and inspired to keep going. However, when the haters mount up, the amount of b******t I am experiencing starts to tally and counteract the good. If this newsletter paid me a s**t ton of money, which I hope it will one day, then maybe I wouldn’t care. But right now, as a labor of love, it starts to hurt when people keep lobbing daggers at me through the screen with expert precision.  

I will be the first to admit that I am not perfect. My flaws include having far too much curiosity for my own good, a propensity to meddle in other people’s business, and publishing whatever I want without giving much thought to who is reading it. Yet the closer my stories reflect my personal life, the stranger these situations become. Do I go on a date with a weirdo so I can write something off-piste about it? Do I pursue people and experiences to sensationalize them with spice later?

This week was a hard lesson. I learned that I should not do things just for the story itself, especially if that would put me in danger. What happens when the characters confront me in real life? It’s a mindfuck. I have to develop a thicker skin while treading more carefully. As my woo-woo friends have suggested, this may be what the current full-moon-eclipse is trying to teach me (Still, don’t ask me about astrology; I know nothing about it.).

But ultimately, I do love writing for you all. Especially in recent weeks, I have absolutely loved these little serialized chapters. You get to read a bit more of the same story each week, and the momentum is exciting because I have a clear sense of what I’ll reveal next. That keeps me on my toes with all of you. I want to keep that cadence going, but as you can tell, I’ve had quite a rough week. So hopefully, next week we can start again with a new series of mischief I’ve been up to.

However, not all hope is lost. Here are some things that have been bringing me back to life:

* Reaching out to all my closest friends in Mexico. Thank you all for being an incredible source of emotional support and helping me through with your witty and sometimes ridiculous reflections.

* Getting drunk with said friends, catching up on all the gossip we’ve missed and laughing a lot to help take my mind off things.

* Hugging myself. It’s the best way I’ve found to give myself compassion thanks to Dr. Kristin Neff.

* Channeling the strength of my ancestors. Do you know how f*****g tough you have to be to survive the Irish winters? Before electricity and central heating? Part of my family has lived in Donegal for probably thousands of years. Those people, the women especially, are tough as nails. Their strength is part of me.

* Cleansing everything. I exorcised all the bad energy in my house by opening all the windows and burning copal, and then sage, which I originally got from the Taos pueblo in New Mexico. I feel witchy and lighter.  

Lastly, before I share the exciting update, I want to comment on how we treat women in our world. It is disappointing to me that some people like to blame women for men’s bad behavior. What about holding the men accountable for their actions? What about some self-reflection? Using a woman as a scapegoat, blaming her for everything and calling her a liar is old news, and it’s childish.

I used to blame women for things or think that they were just being inconvenient and difficult when they spoke their minds. That was until the Harvey Weinstein and Larry Nassar cases convinced me otherwise. It was shocking to me that while many young women in each case were assaulted by the same person, a big reason why they didn’t come forward is because they thought no one would believe them. However, false reporting for rape, for example, is estimated to be between 2-8% of accusations. That means we should believe other women about 92-98% of the time. So, let’s bend the moral arch of the universe a tiny bit. Let’s start believing other women, rather than blaming them. How about that?

Anyway, that’s more than enough of that. The good news is that my head is bloody but unbowed, probably because a quarter of my blood comes from generations of stalwart Irish women. Now we can move onto something much more interesting:

The Exciting Update: Launching “Ask Tash 💁‍♀️”

Today, I’m very excited to launch an experimental section of Misseducated called “Ask Tash.” It’s a new and special way that I can connect with all of you, and the concept is simple.

Like an advice column, you can email me any question to [email protected], and I will answer it for you as honestly and openly as possible. If you would like, with your permission and anonymization, you have the option of me publishing your question with my response on Misseducated as well.

You can also find “Ask Tash” on the Misseducated homepage.

Yay!

Love you all. Thank you, and we will start a new series next week, I hope,

Tash

💌 ✍️

Related Posts from Misseducated

My conversation with Jorge, the hot waiter, unfolds in Spanglish over WhatsApp. Of course, I leave healthy delays between messages, so I don’t come across as too keen.

Jorge: “Hi Tash. It’s Jorge. How are you?”

Tash: “Good morning. Do you work at Quintonil?”

Jorge: “Yes, haha.”

Tash: “Lol. Where are you from? How old are you?”

Jorge: “I’m 33 and I’m from Veracruz.”

Tash: “I’m from London, and I’m 29.”

Jorge: “Cool. I have to start my shift, but let’s chat soon! Do you have Instagram?”

We exchange Instagram handles. I tell him I’m traveling for the next few weeks, and he tells me to get in touch once I’m back. I’m lying around the house in LA on my family holiday one afternoon when I finally look at his Instagram profile. It’s private. But his profile picture tells me all I need to know.

I use my thumb and forefinger to zoom in closer on the tiny circle. There he is in the picture, smiling and stubbled, clad in full hiking gear. And then, undoubtedly, unavoidably, inconveniently, there is a girl in hiking gear standing next to him. Does he have his arm around her? Well, with their hiking poles, it’s hard to tell. It takes him a day or two to follow me back before I can finally see what I’m dealing with.

Most of Jorge’s Instagram pictures are of him and his colleagues brandishing extravagant pieces of fish or perfectly plated food alongside chefs and knives. I imagine that to work at a high-end place like Quintonil, you have to be a fiend for good food, and your job is your identity. Are there lots of pictures of the girl? No. But when I do find a picture of her from way-back when, there’s her Instagram handle, and her profile is public.

I discover that she is also Mexican and also from Veracruz. There are plenty of pictures of them together, dining out to exquisite meals and hiking trails along Popocatepetl and El Nevado de Toluca. And yes, there is a ring on her finger. I begin to read into things, dig into things, and project my limited and nervous thoughts all over things.

Here’s a lovely couple from Veracruz who moved to Mexico City together. This man is clearly obsessed with his work. His fiancé loves him dearly and cherishes the dinners he takes her to because he knows all the best restaurants in the city. But she wishes he wasn’t so dedicated to his work so they could spend more time together and start to build a family.

I think back to the dinner with my family at Quintonil. Did Jorge have a ring on his finger? I am pretty sure he didn’t. Otherwise, I never would have left him my number in the first place.

I pause. You see, in Mexican culture, the way I’m communicating with Jorge is not very appropriate. It’s not done for a married man to have many single female friends or to be friends with his wife’s friends, for example, and vice versa. So, I can’t help but wonder. If Jorge is engaged or married, why is he talking to me?

Summer this year has brought some of my most strange and confusing interactions with men. It is probably a complete coincidence, but soon after I got my Mexican residency in July, weird things started happening to me.

The first was when I met Lorenzo, a videographer from Los Bosques, a fancy suburb of Mexico City, at an art event. We talked for about three weeks before he took me out for a dinner date at a cantina. The dinner went well, except he took a very long time in the bathroom, so his food got cold. He also told me stories about how he often came home to find his uncle sleeping with other women and prostitutes while he was still married to his aunt. That should have been a red flag. Still, I’m a sucker for men who pay for dinner.

The morning after, I woke up with 6 missed calls from Lorenzo. At first, I excused it, thinking he had butt-dialed me, and we kept talking. Later, when I checked Instagram, I found that I had 13 missed video and audio calls from a girl called Luisa. She also shared a picture of her with him, in which he looked very guilty indeed, and she wrote,

Luisa: “Did you go to this cantina with Lorenzo? Tell me! I am with him.”

I then texted Lorenzo to ask who Luisa was. Lorenzo never responded again. As my old Economics teacher, Mr. Simpson used to say: “Extraordinary scenes!”

Tash: “Haha, your poor phone.”

Lorenzo: “Hi! How are you? How was your flight?”

Tash: “All good, thanks. I got to San Cristobal de Las Casas already. Did you want to talk last night, or was it your phone’s mistake? Also, who is Luisa?”

🦗

I was shocked. Lorenzo had a girlfriend who I had no idea about. I was bewildered. Yet, I’m very grateful that Luisa somehow found out and contacted me. Thanks to her, I only wasted 3 weeks of my life with Lorenzo, not 3 years or even 30.

My experience with Lorenzo left me rattled. As you know, I’ve dated multiple men in Mexico. I started to replay my past. While I was only exclusive with a few partners, my sense of trust began to shake. Had any of them had secret girlfriends? Had any of them cheated on me emotionally or physically, and I never found out? Here I was, on the verge of becoming a homewrecker without even knowing it. Why had Lorenzo embroiled me in his b******t?

I believe cheating is wrong. If you’re dating someone and want to sleep with other people, why not talk about it and open the relationship? But no. Lorenzo was a two-timing, dilly-dallying, willy-wallying loser who would play Luisa and me like a puppet in each hand for as long as he could. He had even continued to message me after it seemed like I might not have received Luisa’s messages. What a dick!  

As I walked away from the Lorenzo situation, I began to wonder to myself:

When I go on a date now, do I have to ask whether the guy has a girlfriend?

I pressed on in the dating world. Yet I didn’t get far enough.

That day, I had flown to San Cristobal de Las Casas, a cute pueblo in the mountains of Chiapas. I was onto new friends, live music, and better things, or so I thought.

At the Café Revolución, I met Marco, an interior designer from Tuxtla Gutierrez, the main city in Chiapas a couple hours’ drive away. We hit it off. Marco was short but very strong. He had round glasses, a cheeky smile, and a sleek style. He liked to tout his Mayan roots and the history of Zapatista political activism in his family. He told me he lived in Tuxtla Gutierrez during the weekends with his dogs, his cats, and his pet rabbits and donkeys. He spent his weekdays in San Cristobal designing interiors for hotels. What I liked about Marco was that he seemed genuinely curious about me. He listened to my stories in Spanish. He was interested. He was patient. I felt I could be myself around him.

The next evening, Marco treated me to dinner at a wholesome taco restaurant my friend had recommended. Marco insisted on paying and said he wanted to hold my bag. We would drop my bag off at the hotel before continuing for drinks. With the unfortunate recent memory of Lorenzo lingering in my mind, I felt I had to ask Marco,

“Tienes una novia?” (Do you have a girlfriend?)

Marco paused for a second. He shrugged. He grinned. Then this man had the stupidity or the audacity to tell me,

“Pues, sí.” (Well, yes.)

It stopped me in my tracks. I felt like a fool who had been taken for a joy ride. Yet again. Two dinner dates in the span of a week with men in relationships. What the f**k? How had I gotten entrenched in this garbage, s**t-filled stew? As we headed down the street towards my hotel, I quickly took my bag back from him. I couldn’t believe these men. I felt sick to my stomach. All my smiling, wide-eyed conversations with Marco over IPAs at the bar felt like they had been a lie. He had managed to tell me so much about his life. He had told me all about his pets. Queso and Nacho. Those were his cats’ f*****g adorable names. But Marco failed to leave out the tiny detail that his girlfriend of three years was in Tuxtla, living in that house they shared together, and that might soon be filled with a beautiful family and children and even more pets, or so I imagined.

I challenged him …

✨ I’ve missed writing for you! I think you’ll like this story… ✨

I will give my number to the hot waiter at this restaurant. But this dinner is not my typical Wednesday night, and it’s far from over.

The light in the restaurant is deep and gold. Low beams radiate out over the main dining area. Impeccably dressed people sit on wood-framed chairs and silently drag their spoons across plates of mole. My dark rouge lipstick stains the thin curve of my wine glass as I take a sip. After I put the glass down, I can’t help but run my hands over the hazelnut table, sturdy yet tantalizing. Five other glasses of various shapes, sizes, and colors sit there, waiting for me to work through them. I am sharing the wine pairing with my father. I had an early shot of tequila and a cocktail. I have the sneaking suspicion that I am a little too loose.

I am wearing all black. I wanted to look thin and be comfortable but also look hot. A short cashmere turtleneck dress and a blazer with gold buttons. High-laced boots. The top part of my hair is in a thin braid. I decorated myself with the trimmings of gold necklaces and rings, my fancy jewelry which I never wear in Mexico. But I am wearing them tonight and pulling out all the punches, because we are dining at Quintonil, one of the fanciest and most expensive restaurants in the whole of Mexico City.

I called, emailed, and confirmed our reservation over a month ago. Along with my father, my mother and aunt are also here to celebrate my aunt’s retirement. Everything has gone perfectly on their trip. The sexagenarians (i.e., the people in their sixties, my family members, lol) are ecstatic, yet I’m dwindling with the exhaustion of a five-day chaperone. All I have to do is make it through this dinner. It’s the peak of their trip. It’s the height of indulgence. And it’s the perfect second off.

Yet, from the moment I walked into Quintonil, what can I say? I was already on the prowl. My period finished last week, which means I am about to ovulate if I’m not ovulating already. As I sip my wine again, I shake my head silently to myself in knowing shame. I am drowning in the intensity of my baby fever. As we trundle over fond memories of summer holidays, I had to admit it to myself. I was not just hungry for the most delicious, exquisite meal in the city. I was hungry for the aftertaste of man. (Or woman).

I didn’t mean to get drunk. What happened was that my father wanted to order the wine pairing, but my mother insisted he can’t drink that much, or he will snore, and she won’t be able to sleep. My father passes me every half glass of wine he’s not allowed to finish. Across the pristine plates, well into the 6th course, my wine glasses look like the traffic jam we briefly got stuck in in the Uber on the way here. I sloppily joke with my aunt and my mother,

“K-Keep your eye out for any single men between the ages of 25 and 40.”

I guess my father pretends not to hear. My father places another thin glass of wine in my queue. The rain is pounding on the roof. I glance through the low, wide window at the lush, jungle-like garden beyond. The air is a balanced temperature. The trickling music, the elotes, and the lamb barbacoa melt together in front of me. I sit up straight. I try to keep it together.

I’m not sure when he first comes to my attention. I notice him holding a tray and standing by the wall, almost hidden in the shadowed corner of the room. He has black hair tucked behind his ears and crafted stubble on his chin. In the shadows, it is hard to tell if his hair is salt-and-pepper. But it is gelled, definitely.

The next moment, he is standing over me. He has brought me a gift. It is another plate of carefully manicured vegetables, this time with lush pink tuna, the catch of the day. The light salt of the fish. The creamy, spicy, lemony kick of yet another green sauce.

Well, that is his job, isn’t it? To explain the dishes. To serve us the food. Is it just my imagination, or is he serving me first? His hands are thin. His skin is tan, and his fingers are rounded and rough. He leans over me. Our shoulders are almost touching. I feel a short shiver at the base of my back. I prop up my chin, resting on my hand, pretending to be elegant and oblivious.

I’ve written about this before, but I can tell whether I want to have sex with a guy from the shape of his hands alone. And let me tell you: this waiter’s hands are incredibly f******e. There's no hair around the knuckles, but they look strong. He has the kind of hands that might lock me in the bathroom with him, I imagine. That might pour a 40-ingredient, 10-year-old warm, dark chocolate mole across the pale skin of my naked chest under the light of a single bulb. Before he pulls my hair back and f***s me, getting it everywhere. The ghost of my feigned innocence might lift out of my body. Because beneath all the pleasantries of the dinner table, I am a bad girl, and I know what I want.

I look up from my plate and remember I am in the strange company of my family. I chuckle in silent shame as I narrow in on my goal. I want his attention. I want to chat him up. I’m not sure what is so hot about this. Yes, he is attractive in his long, tucked-in black shirt. But there is also something forbidden about it. Forbidden, because this is his place of work. Forbidden, because I am still presenting as a young girl, surrounded by the pomp of some of the wealthiest people in the world. Yet none of the tax loopholes or client contracts or ETF investment portfolios matter now. I still need sex. I still want sex. And I want to have sex with him.

For me, the power dynamic sharpens the chemistry. It is his job to serve me. Not that I believe I deserve to be served. But this is the game we are playing. The societal game. I walk near him on the way to the bathroom (to freshen myself up and make sure I don’t look terrible). He is taller than me. We speak in Spanish as he shows me the way. Always on hand. Always there to please. Once I am alone, I gaze into the bathroom mirror. I confirm that my makeup is still on my face. My eyes are dark. My lips are still red. I think to myself,

“You’re hot, too. You’ve got this.”

When he serves the next meat course of wild boar, I tell him,

“Conseguí mi residencia en Hidalgo.” (I got my Mexican residency in Hidalgo.)

We have a 20-second conversation about the unique wild boar dishes of various Mexican states before he quickly excuses himself. He resumes his position, holding the tray beside the wall and standing in the shadows. I glance at him repeatedly when I can.

As my family shares the last bites of the special cake they prepared for my aunt’s retirement, I say to her,

“Here’s a phrase you might like. Chingatelo. As you know, chingar means to f**k. So if I tell you, chingatelo, it means f*****g finish the last bit on the plate.”

The hot waiter happens to be hovering at that moment. He seems to giggle a bit.

“You’re teaching them the slang,” he says to me, and I smile at him. Of course, I didn’t have the guts to tell him I learned that phrase from my barista ex-noviocitio (lover), another man of incredible talent and taste.

The hot waiter serves me. He serves me again. And I watch as he leans over me and wipes away the tiny crumbs and drops of alcohol that I had spilled on the table in front of me. Of course, he wipes my area of the table first. I notice the thickness of his fingers. Is he enjoying this also? Does it excite him? I sit up straighter and look away as he loyally makes his way around the table, wiping the spaces in front of my aunt, my mother, and my father.

As we finish up dessert, and he returns to the corner of the room, I catch the intensity of his gaze. Was that a slight grin? My heart quickens, chest pounding. I bite my lip. I know what I need to do. I reach into my tiny leather purse. I pull out a small white square of paper and a pen. I take the square of paper out a bit too early because my aunt and my parents need to keep talking about…

Hello there, This week, you felt liberated. You twirled to cumbia music barefoot in the sodden muddied grass at the backdoor DJ set in San Cristobal de Las Casas. You looked up at the deep pink bougainvillea against the construction site that surrounded the garden. You saw the water tank on the roof of the building next door and the clouded night sky, and you said to yourself,

“I don’t have to answer to anyone. Moving to Mexico was the best decision I ever made. I am free. I am still young.”

You returned to the city and called up all your girlfriends and invited them to go dancing. It is just passed your half birthday. You are inching closer to turning 30. You are still young, you try to tell yourself, so you must drink four different types of alcohol and dance in a club with a bunch of 24-year-old men on a Thursday night until 2 am to prove that you still have it in you. With each passing second, you’ll never be as young again as you are right now. Perhaps it doesn’t matter how old you are, you consider, as you notice your knee pain is acting up again on the dancefloor. The beats pound through your body. Perhaps all life is youth, or so says some cliched phrase.

Last month, when walking around in Polanco, you stopped in Santa Clara. You drank chocolate milk, fresh from the refrigerator, at 5 pm in the afternoon. You are convinced this is the height of adulting.

You can’t deny it. Spilling your feelings about a man you had been in love with for a year has left you weightless. The heaviness of well-kept secrets and feelings is no longer wearing you down. There are familiar male faces resurfacing with new messages to you on your phone. Did they know? It’s like the universe has shifted energetically and their spirits noticed the tiny space you’ve cleared for yourself. They immediately lurched in and grabbed an inch for each of themselves.

You discover a dirty pair of your polka-dotted socks buried in the pillows of your couch. You left them there, as you tend to do when you come home and take off your shoes after work. No one was around to tell you to pick them up because they ruined the clean aesthetic of your typical home. Instead, your dirty socks had faded into the distance of your daily passings, until now. It always bothers you to find dirty items of clothing you forget to send to the wash. It is always something. You are never perfect.

Prompt

Share with us:

What was a recent moment of liberation for you? What makes you feel liberated? What makes you feel young?

Do you like dancing? If so, when was the last time you danced and had fun? When is the next time you will dance? Mark a date, time, and place in your calendar for dancing, if you dare.

Tell us about a treat you like to eat, when you should be saving room for dinner. What are your guilty pleasures?

Is there a person in your life that makes you feel lighter and freer? Tell us about them.

Are there certain activities you only do in the privacy of your own home that you never tell anyone about?

Paid subscribers are invited to overshare in the comments 🤓.

Sending you good vibes for the weekend as always.

Love,

Tash Doherty

💌 ✍️

Author of These Perfectly Careless Things, a cuming-of-age teen romance novel 📚

Blogger at TashDoherty.com

Insta | LinkedIn | TikTok

Congratulations!

By reading this article, you're taking the first step to embark on the transformative journey of a lifetime. This road is not for the faint-hearted. But if you’re sick to death of your mundane, stable, corporate 9-5, this is the easiest solution I can offer you. Ditch the bi-weekly injection of cash from your salary, the only thing that’s keeping you sane, and you’ll have a chance of discovering:

Your ultimate life purpose! 🤲

Discovering your ultimate life purpose is the solution to every single one of your problems. Whether you’re recovering from the existential heartbreak of disappointing your parents or you didn’t get that promotion at work you really wanted, identifying the special reason why you were put on this earth is the answer to everything. It solves everything because it makes every aspect of your current personality, identity, and how you define yourself not matter at all anymore. Who you were before is completely irrelevant! It’s time to discover the new you. The better you. The true you.

Did you get bullied in school? Did you get dumped by your partner, who you thought was the love of your life? Has your Saturn been returning for the last three years, but it’s never gotten back to you? Don't fret. We’re about to construct a whole new self on top of the less-than-perfect one you’ve currently got. Everything is going to become crystal clear. Of course, you're going to need all the spiritual (cough emotional cough) help you can get. But once you discover your ultimate life purpose, you will be bigger, better, richer, and more successful than you could ever have been!  

All you have to do is follow these simple, easy steps in this exact order and within this exact time frame. Pay close attention. You can’t miss this.

So, what are you waiting for?

* Read the philosophy of dead white men, or Rick Rubin 💀.

Unfortunately, you’re all kinds of misled these days with modern “woke” culture. For the kind of spiritual work you want to do, modern thinkers just won’t cut it. You need to start picking up those old, complicated books that no one you know has read or will ever understand. And once you start quoting the heck out of them, your friends will think you’re incredible and perceptive.

You’ll quickly realize how elevated you are intellectually compared to them. And the more philosophically superior you feel compared to other people, the closer you will be to breaking from the mold, denouncing capitalism, and discovering your ultimate life purpose. You’ll also distance yourself from everyone who has ever loved you in the process. But that’s beside the point.

So, go ahead and read Plato’s Republic, Nietzsche’s books on nihilism, Hume’s essays on skepticism, and what Proust wrote about whatever. Make sure you’re reading texts that are so convoluted that you would have to replace almost every word in it to make it resonate with you at all. You'll try to do this by replacing every mention of "he" with "she." You'll try to replace every mention of "God" with "non-gendered, energetic forces of the universe." The more mental rewriting of a text you have to do, and the more confused you feel as you're reading it, the better. Especially if you’re a woman or a person of color, the more alienated you feel as you read these works, the more disillusioned you will be with historical dead white man philosophy. And that means you’ll be broken further open from the comforting stability of your normal life.

Depression, jadedness, and nihilism will make sure that if you don’t feel like s**t already, you will now. And then, taking stock of all the ways that you've been slighted, aggressed, oppressed, or you've suffered in your life will suddenly feel overwhelming. And that's the kind of spiritual breakthrough that we're looking for!

You need one more nail in the coffin of your old life for you to turn around and start seeking something bigger, grander, and more aligned with the energetic forces of the universe (of which there are many and which you are on the cusp of discovering).

It's depressing to read about God, Jesus, and men only, and that’s what is so fantastic about it. In addition to Rick Rubin’s book, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being,” I recommend Ernest Holmes’ book, “Creative Ideas.” It’s over 100 years old at this point, which means it’s niche and will give you that intellectual superiority over your normal friends before you cut them off completely. But seriously, that Ernest Holmes book of prayer-poems actually has some good stuff in it. It’s about The Science Of Mind and strikes the perfect balance between historically outdated, God-fearing language and modern-day manifesting.Onwards!

* Dive into your darkest trauma 🚷.

You can start to discover your ultimate life purpose in the way that I just described, but igniting your spiritual awakening with some kind of terrible trauma definitely helps. Debilitating breakups, grief, a fucked-up marriage you couldn't get out of for 20 years, eating disorders, and mental illnesses are all just signals that everything in your life is crumbling. You’re about to rebuild it back with your ultimate purpose, the answers from the universe that your old self was way too boring and mainstream to be able to see. All the worst s**t that's ever happened to you will catalyze you to start seeking those really cool, really powerful spiritual medicines. Those will guide you to the light of knowing and discovering your ultimate life purpose.

It’s way easier to get your Saturn back to you when everything in your life is complete chaos. Only when you’re completely debased and freaked out to your very core can you be open to bigger possibilities. So be sure to start unpacking the deepest, darkest stuff that has ever happened to you, and see how long you last in the corporate mainstream!

3. Wake your inner witch 🧙.

It's time to start believing in a lot of stuff. Astrology, tarot cards, stars, shadow work, Reiki, acai, avocado toast, Birkenstocks, crystals, life coaches that charge $500 per hour, natural wines, and natural deodorants. You can start out small and work your way into it, like entering a scolding hot jacuzzi. Just keep dipping your toe in the water, and seven hours later, you’ll find yourself still completely submerged with your fingers as pruney as those Sun-Maid raisin boxes you hated eating in school.

If you start to smell, it's only your body's natural odors. And that is a gift to the world. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Oh, and you’ve also got to start wearing cloaky-looking linens with feathered hats and crystal necklaces. Soon, you’ll have a whole troupe of hippie, witchy friends who are way more enlightened than your friends from college ever were. You have to dress like your cool friends, too, because each of them knows what their ultimate life purpose is, but you still don’t. So if you copy everything they say and do, you’ll get there soon, too, kid. Don’t you worry.

Given the amount of mainstream, corporate, capitalist upbringing that you've had, you're going to need as many crystals, dreadlocks, and stick-and-poke tattoos as possible to save your soul. The more unrecognizable you look from your former self, the better. Compared to photos of yourself from even one or two years ago, today, you’re aiming to look completely unrecognizable. Obviously, you’re going to have to start composting, and you should have probably started being vegan yesterday. You should probably move to some kind of rural homestead because with so many microplastics polluting the world and giving cows cancer these days, you need to be able to control every single thing you put in your body. Only when you’re really and truly vibing with nature in this way will the forces of pacha mama bestow upon you the sole reason why you were put on this earth.

Now, you’ve also got to spend lots of time in the sun and wear lots of clunky jewelry with blue stones that will turn your fingers green. While these faux metals are releasin…

A few weeks ago, I had a fantastic conversation with Dr. Amy Divaraniya, CEO of Oova, a hormonal health testing company. We talked all about how very few women have regular 28-day cycles (only 13%, and maybe even closer to 5% according to Oova’s latest data!) and what that means for those who are trying to conceive or who are hitting perimenopause.⁠⁠

I love a good #femtech story where a woman brings a product to market to solve her own health issue. Congratulations to Dr. Amy for raising a whopping $ 10.3 million for their Series A. That's big money in femtech! ⁠

Here's to taking our health into our hands, and I hope you enjoy the story!

Listeners of Misseducated get 10% off Oova.

Go to https://oova.life/misseducated and apply the promo code MISSOOVA10 when you checkout.

Episode Transcript

I apologize in advance for typos or misattribution of words. We'll gladly make any corrective updates that you identify. 

[Intro] [Dr. Amy Divaraniya] They say that if you have PCOS or irregular cycles, our data may not be reliable for you. And I was like, well, that's great because we know that 87 percent of women don't have a 28-day cycle. So, who are you trying to solve this problem for?

[Tash Doherty] Hello everyone. And welcome back to Misseducated with me, your host, Tash Doherty. And today my guest is Dr. Amy Diverania, the founder and CEO of Oova. A personalized at-home test to help females understand their unique hormone profile. There's been a lot of talk of hormonal health in Femtech over the last couple of years, and Oova is leading the way in measuring LH, estrogen, and progesterone, three key hormones in the menstrual cycle.

In 2023, Dr. Amy and her team raised a whopping $ 10.3 million Series A, which is big money in Femtech, so we're super excited to dive into all things hormonal health. So, Dr. Amy, welcome to Miseducated. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk to you today. You got your PhD from the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai in Genetics and Genomic Sciences.

So what inspired you to get your PhD, and what did you discover in your thesis and your research? 

 [Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Before I did my Ph.D., I was actually working in the industry as a data scientist, and I've been really fortunate in my career to be surrounded by folks who are smarter than me and amazing mentors. I've never really disliked a boss; they've always pushed me.

To be better and move forward. My director actually took me out to lunch one day and was like, Amy, he was so mad. Right. It's really weird to see your manager mad. And it's not directed towards you, but he's like, I want to give you a promotion, but I can't because you either need a PhD or ten years of experience.

And at that point, I only had five years. So he was like, leave here. Go get your Ph.D., and then wherever you go, I'm coming, and I was like, all right, fine. Like, I'll invest in myself. Like, don't invest the time here invested in you and go and get your Ph.D., so I did, and I was really particular about where I wanted to go.

Who I wanted to work with. I was kind of a groupie of my 2 Ph.D. advisors, who were at the time also leaders in the genomic space, very visionary, and I was always that person in the audience listening to the same talk over and over again, just inspired beyond belief. I wanted them to be my mentors, and they both accepted me.

I got into the school. They agreed on my Ph.D. dissertation topic. We kind of hit the ground running from there. And believe it or not, my director that had advised me to do this actually came in as an investor in the company, too. So he did follow me, which is really exciting. But my Ph.D. work had nothing to do with what we're doing today.

It was really looking at genetic networks and figuring out why women or not women, why people were developing certain diseases in the inflammatory. Like, why were you getting lupus over cardiovascular disease when they're so related? What's that trigger that says you're going to get this disease versus another?

And we were able to actually model out various genetic networks by looking at different tissues and health records to validate everything, which is really cool. I had beautiful pictures throughout my dissertation. 

[Tash Doherty] Wow. So, you planned to go back to your industry job when you finished your PhD? 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Well, yes and no, I wanted to go back to work. I wasn't really in this, like, I need to start my own company mentality at all, but I didn't really want to go back to big pharma because I felt like. Those companies are so big, and you have all these great ideas; you often get lost, and it takes so long for innovation to come to real life. At that point, it's not even innovative anymore.

My plan was either to go into a biotech or startup and my PhD advisors were really well connected there. So they were like, what kind of company do you want to go into? And at that point, I was going through infertility myself. And I was experiencing the gaps in women's health and not understanding what my body was doing.

And so what I unintentionally did was pitch Oova. I basically said, do you know any company that is monitoring hormones, helping women navigate various phases of life, and doing it in a nonblood form? And they both looked at me and were like, no, you need to build that. And I was like, okay, sure.

They're like, I have an investor coming tomorrow, get a pitch deck together, and I'll put you in front of them. I was like, all right, fine. I happily walked back to my desk, Google, like a good student. What is a pitch deck? And I put together an 87-page deck to put in front of this investor. 

[Tash Doherty] 87-pages. That's quite extensive.

I mean, I had just written a dissertation that was hundreds of pages long. So, 87 pages felt like nothing. He was very kind and tore that deck apart with so much grace and was like, you only need these seven slides, Amy. And I was like, Oh, okay. And that's really where it started. Wow. Well, I love the idea of having so many mentors that you can learn from, and he will just give you the honest truth.

Like nobody needs that many pages. This is Silicon Valley. Like people do not have time to sit through hours and hours of research. So that's really amazing.

[Tash Doherty] And so when you talk about your own experience with infertility, because you were trying to conceive like with your partner and was it like a question of like, Do you know anything about, you know, your unexplained infertility? Was it when you were cycling, or did you have PCOS or some other kind of like other condition that was affecting whether or not you could conceive? 

[Dr. Amy Divaraniya] Yeah. So, I've always had irregular cycles since my first period. It's always been a regular, and I've kind of tried everything like I was misdiagnosed with PCOS for multiple years.

I was put on the hormone birth control, all of that to find out finally with like a sane OB that, okay, having an irregular period is just normal for you. So I kind of accepted that, and I let it go, but when it was time to start trying to conceive, I was doing everything right. I was using my fertility tracking apps.

I was peeing on sticks. I was tracking every symptom like I was a data scientist by training. So like, give me data, and I will find that golden nugget. But there was no pattern to be found in this data. All I was learning was that I'm irregular, and it's so frustrating because my train ride to work every day was literally dissecting all my data.

That's what I would do. Like, no one can sit on the seat. I have my stuff spread out. Like, this is my time to really dig in, and I couldn't find anything. The most frustrating part was when you were looking at the fine print of all these products. They say that if you have P. C. O. S. or irregular cycles, our data may not be reliable for you.

And I was like, well, that's great because we know that 87 percent of women don't have a 28-day cycle. So, who are you trying t…

How To Not Lose Yourself In A Relationship - By Tash Doherty

“Look into his angeleyes, one look and you’re hypnotized.” – ABBA

Introduction

I’ve been doing the “dating” thing recently, and a subtle but terrifying thing keeps happening. When I’m seeing a guy I like, I start reorienting my life around him in tiny ways. I leave my late evenings open in case he wants to message me. I only make tentative plans with my friends because he might ask me out. Soon, I find myself sleeping over at his house in the middle of the week, leaving sleep-deprived and with a poor performance at work the next day. This seems harmless at first, but soon it snowballs. Within a couple of weeks, I’ve become a clingy, needy mess, a shell of my former independent self. And unsurprisingly, the relationship doesn’t work out because of this.

Strangely, when I have just myself to contend with, one could say that I’m a “responsible adult” (big words). I exercise regularly. I live in a cute, clean apartment where I feel safe. I put food on my table. But things have changed since I’ve decided I want to have children and am now looking for a more serious, long-term partner. Once I start dating someone, my entire life routine goes out the window.

It's a painful and annoying trap to fall into again and again. So, in this piece, I explore what this is and share everything I’ve learned on how to avoid it. I hope that by reading this you can somehow sidestep this shitstorm altogether.

Why does this happen?

On one extreme, I sound lonely and desperate for this guy to fall in love with me. This is partly cultural. In our culture, we are obsessed with love, fairytales, and happily-ever-after. This leaves women totally screwed. Even though I’m a feminist, I was raised on a diet of Disney princess movies like Snow White and Cinderella. At some level, I’ve probably internalized the toxic narrative that I’ve been bombarded with since my childhood: men rescue women.

On the other extreme, we have modern feminist ideals where women are throwing the idea of babies out with the bathwater. It’s projected that 1 in 4 young women today wish to remain childless, and almost 40% of young single people are not interested in dating. This is great for them because, as Cindy Gallop says:  

“The moment you decide you don’t want to be in love, that just takes a whole layer of crap out of your life.”

Life for single, childless people is simpler and easier, and they’re probably happier for it. But some of us want to have kids someday. Some of us are dating to find the father of our future offspring. We can bang on the drum of being an independent career woman all day. That is, until our life goals suddenly suggest a man’s presence might be helpful. So we let the guy sleep over at our house, even if we have a lot of important s**t to do the next day, because we want him to like us. Ultimately, it’s like Cindy Gallop said,

“[As women, we] are taught to undervalue ourselves from the moment we are born.”

How can we get out of this? How can we learn to value ourselves, our routines, and our lives? Not just as some feminist theory, but in practice? Here is my non-exhaustive list of tips.

Please comment or reach out to me if you have additional ideas.

Tips

* Remember that it’s your hormones. This guy does not have a magic dick.

Besides culture, biology is not helping us either. The physical desire I regularly feel to want to get pregnant is intense. Especially around the time of my period, I can feel myself trying to finagle ways to keep this man around for at least another week or two before I ovulate. I’m not even kidding.

The solution here is to remember that any one guy, whoever he is, does not have a magic dick. If you can pause for a moment and hold onto your horses, you’ll remember that you are still young and fertile enough, and you probably live in a major metropolitan city where you could go on dates every night if you wanted to. You can meet someone else. This is not your only chance ever to f**k. This man is probably not exceptional. Your hormones are fashioning this fake mirage to get you to attach to him.

Here’s what my grandmother had to say about this:

“It’s part of a woman’s base of understanding that you have this romantic streak. Because that’s what gets you pregnant, and it keeps the race going.”

So, before you deprive yourself of a good night’s sleep for an average dude, remember that this is Mother Nature trying to f**k with you. She’s trying to get you to reproduce. You can take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back before you cancel your entire day tomorrow. This man is not in love with you. This is just a spark set alight by your hormones. Hormones that have been designed to hook you, just like they’ve hooked every single one of your ancestors over the last billion years.

You must resist Mother Nature at all costs or perish.

* Do A Reality Check

It can be fun to fantasize about our partners and our future lives together. But as we’re drawn out of our reality, eventually it will hurt a lot when we come back to Earth. As my grandmother said:

“It’s part of our nature to have this fantasy. You assume that the other party is going along with it, but they aren’t.”

For my entire relationship with Luís, I fantasized about him whisking me away to his family’s second home in Valle de Bravo (the Mexican equivalent of the Hamptons). Instead, he smoked too much weed and couldn’t plan more than lunch one day in advance. Another boyfriend I had spoke multiple languages and taught kids how to code. It took me months to realize he was not the future Amal Clooney on international peace-keeping missions. Instead, he was a software engineer with no idea what he wanted to do with his life.

So, let’s run a reality check on the person you are dating right now. Next time you have a moment away from your partner, ask yourself:

* Am I excited about dating this person as they are right now?

* What are they doing with their life right now? This is who they are.

* Am I happy with how they treat me and are they meeting my needs right now? (very important question)

This is hard. It means paying attention to the red flags. If this person has red flags, like a substance abuse issue of any kind, it means that no matter how you might feel about them, they’re probably not a healthy person for you to be with. Whoever this person is right now, that is who you are dating, not some idealized version of them.

* Stick To Your Routine

“You have a life. You have other priorities, some of which come before him.” – Sherry Argov

When I’m dating a guy, being with him feels more fun and exciting than anything I do alone. But in her book, “Why Men Love B*****s”, Sherry Argov warns us not to get swept up in this. Her book is a relationship guide for women who are “too nice”, where “b*****s” is more about her humorous tone than about men liking women who are cruel or mean.

Here is her advice for when you’re starting a relationship:

* “Don’t stop eating, sleeping, or exercising.”

* “If he wants to spend more time with you than you can comfortably do, invite him to join you in one of your activities.”

* “Force yourself to keep the routine you had before you met him. Once you lose your rhythm, you lose your psychological equilibrium, and you become needy.”

As much as possible, we must try to remember who we were before we met our partners.  

So, take a look at your calendar when you were last single. Do you have music, dance, or craft lessons scheduled in there? Do you have a favorite exercise class or friend activity that you do every week? Do you like to spend quality time with your dog, or at museums? These are the things that you like. They make you happy.

Even when we are in a relationship, we must keep doing these things.  

* Have Some Self-Respect

“The nice girl treats her interests as “little things” or secondary. The b***h doesn’t treat her interests as minor or little things. They are her things.” – Sherry Argov

“People value you at the value you are seen to put in yourself.” – Cindy Gallop

This is a tough pill for me to swallow. In my single life, I do whatever I want and have my own life that I’m excited about. And yet, when I’m dating, I have found myself shimmying across the city late at night in an Uber because a guy invited me over late to his house after he finished band practice with his friends. The guy did make time to see me…sometimes. But I was way more likely than him to drop everything and see him when, in hindsight, it was inconvenient for me. This is all because I thought I had to be a sacrificial lamb in order to make our relationship work.

When we value ourselves more highly, people will value us that way, too. We’re only as valuable to our companies as the salary or financial worth that we’ve negotiated for ourselves. We’re only as respectable as what we say no to. Writing this piece is making it even more clear to me that female pleasure and the orgasm gap in heterosexual relationships is not the only aspect of our lives where we are subordinating ourselves in service of male contentment. We must learn to value our interests, priorities, and what we like in many aspects of our lives. And we should value them just as much, if not more, than the guy we are dating and what he likes.

Instead, being a doormat makes us unhappy and does not make men like us or respect us more. If anything, when we’re better at standing up for ourselves and prioritizing our health and sanity, the guy will respect us more for it. As Argov says,

“Suppose a woman says to a guy she can’t go on a date with him that night because of her weekly pottery class. He scratches his head and thinks, “She’d rather go to a pottery class than be with me?” It not only attracts him; it blows his mind.”

Realizing this, I feel frustrated because I’ve been throwing myself under the bus and cancelling all my plans in each relationship for all this time. My only solace is that if the problem starts and ends with me, it’s pretty clear who needs to change.

* Set Boundaries, Even If It Feels Foreign And You Don’t Want To

“Power is the control you have over yourself.” – Sherry Argov

When it comes to seeing a guy, I can get very impulsive. “Love” feels fantastic. Why would I let “real life” get in the way when I’m forming an intense connection with someone so quickly? F**k it, I think to myself. Who cares about work? Being a responsible adult is boring! I want excitement, adventure, and fun.

But when I talk about this with my therapist, she has another theory: I’m letting the feelings in my body take over without thinking logically about what I need. In my head, I know the importance of a decent night’s sleep. But when my heart is all wrapped up in the attention I’m getting from my partner in the moment, I immediately neglect every other need I have. Sounds fucked up? That’s because it is.

To avoid this happening to you, when you’re having some alone time and thinking clearly,  list all the things that you need in any given day. Then, follow that list as a set of your boundaries, and try to enforce them (even if you do not want to!) when you are with your partner.

For example, on any given day, I need:

* Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep

* Three meals of relatively healthy food with no white bread

* A shower with warm water and a clean towel in the morning

* Time to work, meet with friends and follow my weekly schedule

If you’re like me and you struggle to know what you need, ask your close friends about it. They probably have some of your answers. Are you really into cleanliness, so you need your special shampoo and soap? Are you vegan, so you need to go to a restaurant with appropriate options? I recently ended things with Luís because he’d never message me in the evenings when I wanted to check in at the end of the day. Did I need him to message me? Kind of. It would have helped me to feel that he was interested in me and willing to put effort into our relationship.

* Stay At The Center Of Your Own Orbit

In my last relationship, I spent many weekday nights hanging by my phone in desperate purgatory, waiting for this guy to text me. Then, I’d complain about it to my therapist later about how abandoned I felt by him.

This week, after a month of torture, I had a breakthrough about this when I was journaling. This is what I discovered:

“Just because you meet a guy, you are still you. That’s what you need to realize. It’s not that these men are abandoning you. It is that you are abandoning yourself. So keep a hold on who you are. If you need sex, have sex. If you need physical touch, have physical touch. But do not change the orbit of your world to fit this other person. Your world is amazing. The world you are building for yourself is amazing. If the man is the Earth, well, then you are the Sun.”

Now I’m seeing that the work I need to do in a relationship starts way before the point where I feel abandoned by this guy. I need to go back to those tiny, seemingly insignificant ways that I am giving up myself and my time at the beginning of the relationship and stick to my priorities in my everyday life. This is how I will stop the cycle of abandoning myself.

Conclusion: Keep Learning From Your Mistakes

“Don’t look too deep into those angeleyes” – ABBA

For complex reasons that could take up many Ph.D. theses, as women, we may be subordinating ourselves in unhealthy ways when we get into relationships with men. So, if you can put even one of the tips I’ve mentioned here into practice, that’s something you can be proud of.

Finally, remember to be kind to yourself. You are learning. If you skip work calls because you had a late one with your lover last night, forgive yourself. Be compassionate towards yourself because it can be excruciating to learn these things while you’re dating someone and then the relationship doesn’t work out for whatever reason.

Because we have so few examples in our culture about what a healthy heterosexual partnership looks like, and because our hormones are so freaking persuasive, this is going to be hard. We’re bound to keep making mistakes. But there is one thing we can try to do. As one of my favorite business leaders, Christina Wodtke puts it:

"Make new mistakes." 

In this piece, I explore 10 Forms of Love, inspired by a conversation I had with my therapist.

“You’ve got this very narrow definition of love,” my therapist told me yesterday over the antics of my latest disastrous relationship. “What about your friend who you went on a walk with this week? What about your sponsor, who always calls you back? These people are giving you their time. Time is our most precious resource because you can never get your time back. You shouldn’t take them for granted.”

💌