First off, I want to be clear that while this post focuses on online dating, this isn't just about boundary violations happening within that context.
Boundaries are crossed in dating in general all the damn time, whether you meet IRL or on an app.
Perhaps certain aspects of online dating exacerbate boundary violations. For example, how many times have online daters heard the phrase, "It's a number's game" and, in resignation, joined the program? With that mindset, it's not that hard to treat people more like a number than a unique individual with a heart and feelings.
Furthermore, as we already know from the social media and online world in general, it can be easier to act the fool and not consider the impact of our words and actions on others when hidden behind a screen.
However, again...
Now that we have that out of the way... I recently posted on my Instagram Stories a WhatsApp conversation I had with a guy who I matched with on a dating app a year ago, went on one date with, stopped talking to for months, then heard from the other day.
If you missed it, here's what I posted:
Since that incident several hours earlier, I have continued to feel that ongoing activation in my chest while I took a shower, ate a late lunch, finished an editing job, and studied for my editing course.
I'm still feeling that low-level, uncomfortable buzz underneath the surface. And so despite wanting to live my life and be productive or just fucking relaxed during my Sunday evening, I'm consciously being with my anger, disgust, and all the other feels once again so that I might move through it...
If you've been listening to the podcast, you know that I have been doing some deep trauma-healing work for the past few years now. Experiences of trauma can run the gamut of what we experience in our primary attachment relationship as children to the racism we experience as people of colour to {shock trauma} to experiencing misogyny as {women}.
...
I could sense my anger wanting to move into hopelessness, but given the work I've done with communing with my Anger part, I was able to stay with the anger.
This, to me, is "progress" ... This is where I wanted to be in my anger when Foolio told me that he was horny. If I had shut anger down, I might have...
I wanted Foolio to know he was wrong ..
The activation for me remains because this is just one of so many... This "incident" touched and touches on so many...where my body has learned to, in general, not trust male-presenting humans.
