Finding first love at age 32 is ‘messy,’ ‘scary,’ ‘amazing’
Adapted from an online discussion. Hi, Carolyn: I met someone and, I’m realizing at 32, this is the first time I’ve really been in love. Maybe it was the pressure cooker of the pandemic or the conversations forced by distance - we’re about three hours apart - but this level of emotional intimacy is unfortunately new to me. It’s messy, it’s complicated, it’s scary, and it’s amazing. How does everyone do this? I have moments of intense vulnerability with him, which he reciprocates, but how do I deal with the anxiety/ voice in my head afterward that it’s just going to drive him away??
- In Love
In Love: Have you identified exactly what you’re so afraid of? Why you think your vulnerability will kill this? If it’s just generalized fear of getting dumped, then I hope it will be helpful to recognize that we have, pardon my bluntness, two choices: suffer a painful loss, or die first. That’s it, really. You either break up with loves or bury them, or they outlast you.
By a certain age, people are all walking around with firsthand experience of this intense pain - that or the pain of never feeling that attached to anyone. Most also have firsthand experience in getting far enough through that pain to feel love again, to feel happy again, to laugh out loud again - I’m betting after some time spent unable to imagine ever feeling good.
So, not only is it 99.99% likely you are fully equipped emotionally to handle wherever this relationship takes you, you are also enjoying the exquisite payoff of your human wiring: the in-love feeling. Yay for you.
When you hear that voice in your head, try asking it what it’s so worried about. Does it think you can’t handle what we are all, more or less, built to withstand? If it’s more than that, then do listen and seek support accordingly, but otherwise tell it to shut up and have a little faith in you.
Re: Love: Is this one of those negative voices that was planted in your head when you were a girl about how a lady shouldn’t act because a gentleman won’t like it?
- Anonymous
Anonymous: Interesting and infuriating possibility, thanks.
Re: Love: I can only speak for myself, but as someone else who has always been single into my early 30s, I have these same thoughts when I try to date. I’m worried I’m not acting in a way that my potential partner would like, not because I’m scared it’s improper, but because I don’t know what a person in love is supposed to act like, which is something that someone in their 30s has typically experienced. On top of all that, as Hot Priest opined in the “Fleabag” finale, love is terrifying and awful, so it’s very easy for me to fall into an anxiety spiral about. Misogyny, internalized and otherwise, plays a role in many parts of our lives, but it’s not responsible for every insecurity. The problem is, how am I supposed to act with something this foreign and scary to me. - Scared
Scared: Like yourself, of course which is so hard to do on purpose that it’s almost useless advice. But it’s the best option we’ve got. After a few deep breaths.
Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com.