Entry Sixteen: "The Exhaustion Sets In"

I thought I could keep going.

I'm staring at my phone. The app is open. Profiles scroll past, smiling faces, carefully curated photos, bios that all start to sound the same.

Looking for something real.No games.Here for a good time and a long time.Let's grab a drink and see where it goes.

I've been doing this for weeks now. Swiping. Matching. Messaging. Going on dates that range from uncomfortable to pleasant to disappointing. Performing interest. Performing openness. Performing the version of myself I think will be appealing enough to match with, interesting enough to message, attractive enough to meet.

And I'm exhausted.

Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes. The kind that lives in my chest, heavy in my shoulders, in the way I have to force myself to open the app each night.

I swipe right on someone. We match. He messages immediately: Hey beautiful, what are you up to tonight?

My phone buzzes. A notification. My body responds before my mind does, a small jolt of tension that travels from my stomach up through my chest, a quickening of my heartbeat, my shoulders bracing slightly as if preparing for impact. I've trained myself to expect disappointment, and my nervous system knows it. Even before I look at the screen, my body is already tensing, already preparing to be let down.

I stare at the message. My thumb hovers over the keyboard. The repetitive motion of swiping has left my finger slightly sore, a dull ache in the joint where I've been flicking through profiles for hours. My wrist feels strained, my hand cramped from holding the phone at the same angle, night after night.

I feel nothing. No curiosity. No interest. Just a dull sense of obligation, like I should respond because that's what you do when someone reaches out. And underneath that obligation, a fullness in my chest, the weight of weeks pressing down, making it hard to breathe deeply.

When I try to type a response, I notice my throat is tight. The words I'm supposed to say, the interested, engaging, appealing version of myself, they feel stuck behind a wall of tension. My chest feels compressed, like I'm holding my breath without realizing it. I have to consciously relax my shoulders, which have crept up toward my ears.

But I don't want to.

I close the app without responding.

Sit with my phone in my lap, feeling the weight of all these weeks pressing down on me. My body sinks into the couch. My breathing, which has been shallow and quick, finally begins to slow. There's a heaviness in my limbs, not the good kind of tired that comes from exertion, but the depleted kind that comes from performing, from holding yourself together, from constantly evaluating and presenting and hoping.

Too Available Man taught me I don't want to be someone's entire world.Emotionally Closed Man taught me success without vulnerability is hollow.Inconsistent Man taught me chemistry without reliability is torture.Boring Man taught me I can't force attraction where there's only kindness.Ghosting Man taught me even good starts can end without explanation.

Each one taught me something. Each one showed me a different way connection can fail.

But the cumulative effect is this: I'm drained.

The apps have taken something from me. Some essential energy I didn't realize I was spending. The constant evaluation, am I interested? Is he? Should I swipe? Should I message? Should I try harder? Should I lower my standards? Should I give it another chance?It's exhausting in a way that lives in my body. My shoulders ache. My neck is tight. There's a persistent tension in my jaw that I only notice when I try to relax it.

The performance of it all. The curating. The presenting. The hoping and the disappointing and the starting over. Each cycle takes something from me, a small piece of my energy, my openness, my willingness to believe that the next person might be different. My body knows the pattern. It braces for disappointment before my mind even registers it.

I think about deleting the apps. Just closing them all and stepping away.

But then what?

Go back to waiting? Go back to hoping I'll meet someone organically, in a bookstore or a coffee shop, the way people used to?

I don't know.

All I know is this: I can't keep doing this.

Not like this. Not from this place of depletion. Not from this hollow, performative space where I'm swiping on people I don't actually want to meet, messaging people I don't actually want to know, going on dates I don't actually want to go on. My body is telling me, through the tension, the heaviness, the way my chest closes when I open the app, that this isn't sustainable.

I close the app.

Put my phone face-down on the couch.

Sit in the quiet.

And for the first time in weeks, I feel myself breathe. My shoulders drop. My jaw unclenches. The tension in my chest eases slightly, not gone but... lighter. My breathing deepens, all the way down into my belly. My body finally releases the bracing, the performance, the constant evaluation.

The quiet is cool and still. My muscles relax into the couch. I can feel my heartbeat slow, steady, returning to normal. There's a relief in this silence that's almost physical, like I've been holding my breath for weeks and I'm finally allowed to exhale.

And I realize: my body has been trying to tell me this for a long time.

—Still here, still tired, still honest