The "Throwaway Boyfriend," the one that was great on paper and the ethics of dating for content
this is love in your twenties
It was casual and it sucked
The question that has plagued every friend group since the dawn of time: can things ever be casual? My credentials? I have rehashed this with friends, have scrolled through multiple essays on Substack (i.e. "Casual" isn't real by
; the myth of 'casual' love by and What the f*** is a situationship? by ) and have had Casual by Chapel Roan on repeat whilst I clean my house since the new year. I’ve started to notice that the questions almost always seem to come from the person fighting the emotional investment, trying their hardest to play it cool, yes it’s fine to keep it casual, yeah I’m cool with seeing other people and could you text me back in a timely manner? No worries if not!!! I’m not one to judge (ever), I’ve been there too, settling for less because I’d rather have a little than nothing at all. Justifying it, thinking, well if I’m going to get hurt anyways, I might as well get something out of this.Recently though, I drank the Kool-Aid and became a self-proclaimed sales rep for Casual. He was the hottest man I’d ever been with, nice and considerate and respectful, called his grandparents every weekend, but also insanely athletic, let’s call him Joel1. We had great physical chemistry, but after date number three I realised that was the only thing I was banking on. The conversation wasn’t bad (but then again, anyone who has met me will know I can chat to a brick wall), but it wasn’t what kept me coming back for more. Around the same time, a friend was also seeing someone new, and while she was convinced he was seeing some other bitch and that’s why he wasn’t texting her back (plot twist: his grandma had died), I was happy to only text Joel once a week, and only to sort out plans. I didn’t care about how his day was going, or whether he was seeing other people. Glancing over my shoulder to read my replies to him, my best friend commented wow you really don’t like him huh. Which is not the point. I didn’t dislike him obviously. But I also wasn’t eagerly awaiting his replies or thinking of him throughout the week when I spotted a book we talked about or a song from his favourite artist came on at the club (the tell-tale signs that you are well and truly screwed).
For the first time, I felt like a woman in a male field. I didn’t need to ask him what are we because we hadn’t been out in the real world for the past three months. I quickly started singing the praises of something casual to anyone who would listen. A friend would comment on how I was glowing, and I’d tell her all about this great new guy I felt no attachment towards. I thought I had cracked the code to dating in your twenties. And then, as quickly as it had started, the excitement started to fade. It was like someone had flipped a switch. The chasm between our (intense) physical intimacy and (practically non-existent) emotional one made itself known. I realised (and here I remind you that I’m only twenty-two, so bear with me) that even though I could get with people I didn’t really care about (and walk away unscathed), I wasn’t so sure anymore if I wanted to. He was still the same (extremely) hot and attentive guy, so what changed?
The plague of the “great on paper”
I’d like to say that I don’t have a type, but it really depends on who you ask. Some friends might mention a variation of medium ugly, ratboy or Victorian anaemic heroin chic (in my defence, he was a dead ringer for Timothée Chalamet). When looking at my most recent dating history after I decided to change my ways, I’ve had multiple friends audibly gasp whilst commenting wow he’s actually attractive! As someone who loves a project, I can work with rustic. I also had somehow convinced myself that the medium-ugly ones would treat me better (spoiler alert: they don’t, and then when things go to shit you must also deal with the embarrassment). I had a track record of finance bros, and once had a guy I met at a bar slide into my LinkedIn DMs. I’d protest that they weren’t my type, but that just seemed to be the kind of guy I attracted. But the real trend, the pattern if you go through all the archived conversations on my phone (where all situationships go to die), would be that all these guys were great on paper. I always get with people who I think are exactly what I’m looking for. Tall, mature, employed, polite. The kind of guys you’d feel comfortable telling your parents about, who look good in a linen shirt standing next to you at events, occasionally bland but never polarising.
“Safe doesn’t mean boring,” but what if it does?
This was my mantra, I kept saying that I didn’t want to be with someone who made my nervous system go haywire (to the detriment of having an outrageously entertaining dating life, I fear ten years of therapy might have dulled my ability to date obviously problematic men) but that somehow got lost in translation and I ended up with people who made me feel nothing at all. I would end up playing the part of the girl I thought they wanted, a fact that became painfully obvious when a friend pointed out how boring I got around the guys I was involved with. I hid away the bits of my personality that might be anachronistic or disagreeable or too much, and then asked myself why I found myself bored time and time again. I knew (in theory) that I could have a relationship where I felt safe and still had excitement. But I questioned if what I really enjoyed was the chase, the wondering if the emotionally detached and chronically nonchalant guy I texted from time to time ever thought to text me first.
Goldman Analyst vs. East London Creative — Final Boss Battle
As someone who loves meeting new people and never runs out of things to say, I love a first date, the excitement and possibility, I almost always come back from them buzzing (though the occasional awful date does happen, which is also great for a story), but my real struggle was to keep up with the excitement once I got to know them better. Maybe my fault though, maybe I just don’t know how to choose them. Maybe it’s about time I broaden my scope, venture east and dip my toes into the creative pool. Sure, if you’re dating analysts and consultants and it ends badly, there’s a pretty small chance you’ll be reminded by their existence by a massive picture on the side of a bus, a cameo on your daily Spotify playlists or a jump-scare moment whilst binging the newest, hottest, Netflix show, but what’s the fun in that?!
The Throwaway Boyfriend and the laws of breakup dynamics
When I was younger, I used to tell my friends I wanted a Throwaway Boyfriend. My thought process was that I wanted to have a lot of experiences before I met the one. The term sounds bad, and I was advised time and time again never to say that in public (though a very smart and funny woman recently told me to say it to men’s faces). I wanted to have stories to tell. I wanted to experience heartbreak so badly, I romanticised not washing your hair for a week, eating a pint of ice cream and wallowing in self-pity. I thought how low you felt post-breakup was a directly proportional reflection of how much love you experienced. I recently got into a discussion with some friends on how men and women process breakups differently. I’d commented that one of my friends who had recently gone through a breakup seemed to be doing okay, and how I actually thought she was fine. She’d told me that she felt like it had been some time coming, we’d discussed her relationship every time we caught up for the past nine months, she seemed sure of her decision. I said I was generalising, but I did usually find that women would suffer immediately post-breakup, whilst their [male] exes seemed to be doing fine, and then six months down the line, they would crack and spiral. Another [male] friend said that he read somewhere (read: probably watched a TikTok) that women will suffer intensely for a short period of time, whereas for men it was more of a continuous dull ache. Because I never know when to shut up and lose the ability to read the room after a couple of drinks, I asked him if he was still experiencing the dull ache from his most recent breakup (we were past the six-month mark). He nodded and avoided eye contact (a rare thing for him) as I tried to change the subject before the vibes were ruined to a point of no return.
Everything is Copy and ethically(?) dating for content
I’ve recently started milking my life for content, and that has led me to reconsider some of my life choices. Much like Kylie Jenner circa 2016, this has also been a year of realising stuff. The first observation came almost immediately after I started writing (publicly) about my life. That one was that we all have a sliver (or more) of narcissism and love to be written about. Everybody wants to be a muse (yes, you! don’t lie). We all have slight voyeuristic tendencies (talking about my love life is a sure-fire way to get more clicks, especially from people I know in real life). I read I feel bad about my neck two years ago and have had Nora Ephron’s voice in the back of my head ever since, my scene partner for imagined conversations, giving me notes on my inner monologue. Everything is copy quickly became a lifestyle, a justification for every risky decision, a guide to living a life worth writing about. Some writers could get me to read their grocery lists, but in my case, I felt like I needed something really juicy to keep people entertained. Was the secret to success lighting my life (dating or otherwise) on fire to get people to notice the smoke? It’s one thing to look back and write about past experiences from a safe distance, and another one entirely to think I’m probably going to write about this whilst it’s happening. I won’t go out with someone just because I think it will be a good story, but it definitely plays a (small) part. The chef, the (aspiring) actor or the music producer might give me more to talk about (in writing and in therapy) than the lawyer or banker, but then again, they’re equally likely to ask me Are you gonna write about me? (immediate ick).
Name has been changed