After getting out of a 4-year relationship I had been in since my teen years, I am now learning the landscape of adult dating. As a woman who needs structure to even go with the flow, I have no clue what I’m doing, what the norms are, and what’s too much or too little.

These anxieties remind me of something bell hooks wrote in Communion, about how women are afraid to love too much. This is a problem I had once before with a sailor I had a weird, long, complicated history with. I’ve always been super passionate and tend to hyper-fixate on things that stimulate me. I think that’s because it’s rare for me to be stimulated for a long period of time. So, because the sailor stimulated me, but never made me his actual girlfriend, my brain and body treated every experience as a reward because I never knew if it would be our last. Then, each interaction would give me a severe dopamine hit, which I began to crave. He was also a Scorpio, which implies that the touch-and-go, yet still possessive, love was just a way of life for him. I liked this to an extent because I am an out-of-sight, out-of-mind type of person at times, so I didn’t feel the need to be that listening ear for him or do all the things a girlfriend is supposed to do. Though I did end up still doing those things…

That ended 4 years ago, and then a week later, I met the man I just got out of a relationship with. That relationship was not filled with as much passion as the one I had with the sailor. It was also not as stimulating, but I assumed it was safe and non-toxic. It turned out to be unsafe and toxic in the end, but I gave him a chance because I thought it was time for me to date a nice guy (he was not a nice guy; he was a Leo). Not everything was bad with him, and there were definitely some good times; they were just all buried in trauma-filled rubble. Now that that relationship has concluded as well, I have decided no more boyfriends or serious relationships and just casual dating.

But what IS casual dating, and what does that look like? I’m assuming it looks something like Nola Darling’s love life in Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It, and in all reality, that doesn’t sound too bad. Until the men make you pick who you genuinely want to be with. And the answer is lowkey none of you. Although once upon a time I had three men similar to Nola in my rotation, now I have only one. And believe me when I say traversing the one is complicated enough.

He is another Scorpio whom I find very stimulating. Why? Currently, I have no clue. Perhaps it’s because he lives life like he’s not in his head. Every time we hang out he is 100% present, and he is very accepting and welcoming. I’ve found this to be true with many Scorpio men. They’re typically very chill and just let you do you. I think the key to dating a Scorpio is to know that if they did not like you, they would not be wasting their time with you. Period. You have to be confident because they can smell fear. But I digress. The new Scorpio dentist is my first introduction to adult dating, and it is COMPLEX, to say the least. We began by taking things very slow because I had just ended my previous relationship with the Leo terrorist. I wasn’t taking things slow to be a prude or for any sort of religious reasons. I was just waiting to feel comfortable, or that spark that’s in all the movies and books. After 5 months, I decided to allow our relationship to become physical. I never did feel that spark, but I felt like it was probably that time. 

At first, I was afraid of having a physical relationship because I had just been with one person for 4 years. After so long, you become boring and begin to feel like you’ve lost your groove. Well rest assured, groove has been found. Now our issue is containing the groove. Hence the title. For so long, I believed I was asexual because I typically don’t feel sexual desire and rarely enjoyed sex. Just like me deciding it was probably time for me to have sex with the dentist, that’s how most of my initial interactions would go. I did not feel the desire to sleep with the person, but I felt like it was just the logical thing to do. This was not a problem I had with the sailor, but that’s because it was a very slow burn. Very, very, very, slow. 

Many of my friends thought it was because I was really queer and forcing myself to be heterosexual, but that was not it. Turns out, being a neurodivergent baddie means that your brain approaches sex differently! So, the nicest way to put it is that the Leo terrorist did not stimulate me. We both knew that to be true while in our relationship, but we had the idea that we could work on it. Well, we never did, and he decided to work on it with someone else while we were in a relationship. A 30-year-old white someone else…

After four years of unfulfilling encounters, the hard-headed Scorpio dentist has solved my previous problem. Now I gotta have it. All the time. We should all be concerned actually. The only thing is that I don’t know how to have it and keep it without complicating it, because I overanalyze everything. Sometimes I want to send a random text about something that reminds me of him or something I’ve been thinking about for days, but I’m unsure if that’s too much? Sometimes I want to send him like 15 reels a day because he doesn’t have TikTok, but I also don’t know if that’s too much. I have never called him because I also don’t know if that’s allowed or not. Who knows? All I know is that I’m just trying my best to mask everything that’s going on in my head and mimic his behaviors to determine what is acceptable and what isn’t. Then I’ll put in half of the effort he put in to make sure I’m not overdoing it.

But I know there are certain rules I should probably get familiar with for adult casual dating.

• Boundaries are important, but so is being flexible
• Don’t overanalyze everything as it is happening, and be where your feet are
• Communicate the important feelings, and not the intrusive ones
• Don’t be afraid to be direct and say exactly what you want
• Listen to yourself and your intuition. If it feels off, it probably is. BUT consult your council to see. (Hopefully they’re not delulu too)
• But don’t be afraid to be yourself
• If you’re medicated, TAKE THAT MEDICINE WHILE YOU’RE DATING.
• Don’t listen to the advice strangers give you on the internet for dating