When I embarked upon my online dating experiment in January 2021 and went on about thirty first dates, I took advantage of the opportunity to write about all my dates and notice which parts of me showed up on each date. I thought I had a pretty stable sense of self but was shocked at what a different person I was depending on who I was with and which parts were dominant in response to other people’s parts. As I prepare to co-teach DATING FROM SELF with my partner Jeff, who also has a lot to say about this topic, I thought I’d share some of my journal with y’all, even though I feel kind of shy and embarrassed to do so. So…here goes nothing.
For our first date, we met at Stinson Beach for a beach walk and I noticed right off the bat that my image conscious parts were worried that it was impossible to look pretty at the beach on such a windy, drizzly, hair-limping, mascara running day. He wouldn’t get polished, put together Lissa. He’d get drowned rat Lissa. But I had another part that wanted to show him I wasn’t that vain, that I could hold onto my self esteem even if I looked like the Michelin man all wrapped up in my fleece coat covered with rain gear.
He brought out humorous parts in me, which don’t get much air time. I had smile lines by the end of the date, mostly from appreciating his funny parts, but I also felt like he evoked funny parts in me that are usually buried by very serious parts. His artistic parts brought out my artistic parts, and we got to muse out together, sharing notes about what we love about art and the kinds of art we both make.
My parts found it relaxing that he didn’t seem to need a caregiver or a financial provider or someone to organize his life. He seemed as capable and competent doing all that as I did, so my overfunctioning parts got to relax. I also noticed a part that popped up that didn’t feel confident about what I’d be offering him if he didn’t need me to overfunction, since that’s so long been a part of how I feel valuable in relationships.
When I dive deeper into that part, I feel a lot of curiosity and compassion. I wonder why he (this part seems to be a bit of an internalized patriarch) feels so insecure if his overfunctioning isn’t needed. Why wouldn’t this guy want me if he didn’t need me? And then there are tears, because that was how I got love from my mother, by being needed, by being useful, by being the parentified child.
I risked telling him about what I was noticing while we were together, and he held lovely empathic space for my process and pinged off my story with one about his own overfunctioning parts. He said one reason he picked me from eHarmony was because I didn’t seem like I needed a rescuer. My independence was a turn on to him, and his was a turn on to me, as it turned out. I appreciated his empathy.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to have a terribly long date because it was January 6, my daughter’s birthday. We had an early morning walk date because I wanted to be sure I’d be home by the time she got home from school. The date was going great until we ran into one of my neighbors at the beach and she told me there were rioters breaking into the Capitol building in Washington, when Trump was supposed to concede to Biden.
Later we would call this Insurrection Day. But at the time of my date, it was like the day we heard the World Trade Center had just fallen- utter confusion, shock, horror, fear.
A terrified part flew to the surface and filled my eyes with hot tears that mixed with the foggy rain. A stoic part tried to push her down, since we barely knew this guy and didn’t quite feel safe being that vulnerable. He saw the look on my face and asked if he could hug me. The part of me that wanted comfort overrode the part that wanted me to stay stoic. His strong, compassionate arms felt good to my scared little part.
The news definitely popped a bubble in our date though. We joked that if we wound up together, we’d never forget our anniversary. I agreed, since it was also my daughter’s birthday. I had a part that felt sad for her. Her birthday would be like 9/11, forever going down in history as a sad day for our country that might eclipse her joy. My mothering parts ended the date early, since I wanted to go overboard making sure she was welcomed home after the scary events on Capitol Hill. When I got home, I curled up and cried, holding the terrified young part that felt so out of control. Then I let my mothering parts brush themselves off to get to work making the house beautiful with fresh flowers and balloons.
My date and I had a few more lovely dates, but things didn’t quite work out, by his choice, not mine. Mostly, I had been comfortable with the parts of me that showed up with him. But one part did wonder if I’d been too vulnerable, too messy, too authentic and not enough of a game player. I had a part that always wondered if things might have been different if we hadn’t met the day democracy almost died.
Dating As An IFS Practice
I did this kind of writing practice after every date, mapping out and getting to know the parts that each new person brought to the surface. I found it incredibly helpful as part of my IFS practice. This date had mostly been a good one, but even “bad” dates turned out to be so clarifying and informative, when viewed through the IFS lens.
I met parts I never would have met if I hadn’t gone through the practice of exposing myself to all kinds of people I might never have met otherwise. The beauty of this process is that I realized I have a lot of choice over which parts of me get more purchase in my system depending on the kinds of people I surround myself with. I’d always heard the cliche that we are the sum total of the five people we surround ourselves with.
While there might be some benefit to being intentional about hanging out with people you admire and want to be influenced by, if you limit the people you expose yourself to, it turns out you might not fully know yourself!
As part of my anti-racism work, I did not click any boxes regarding race, so more than half ot the dates I went on were with non-white men. And oh my, did I learn a lot about my race-related parts because of this experiment. But I’ll save writing about those parts until a future part in this series, So stay tuned if you’re curious!
If you think you might enjoy or benefit from getting online and going on some dates with new people, either for romantic partnership or friendship, please feel welcome to join me and Jeff for DATING FROM SELF, an online Zoom weekend workshop about IFS and dating.
Until then, may the Self be with you.
