The Doe’s Latest Stories

I started doing porn on my 18th birthday. A month later, due to some traumatic events, I dropped out of school and quit my job at the restaurant where I had been working for a few months. I soon met a man online who offered me money for sex. I was scared but needed the cash since I had just quit my job. I said yes.

He sent a cab to bring me to his big house in the suburbs, which he shared with his roommate. He even had a sports car in the driveway. After the session, I ended up leaving his house with $100 in cash and a free bag of weed. I instantly fell in love with how fast I could make money for just having sex. I had only made $40 a night in tips working for hours at my restaurant job. To make $100 and get free weed in an hour or two felt like a dream come true. I saw him a handful of times after that and started taking on more clients.

Escorting made me feel like I had value. For the first time in my life, I felt powerful. Men not only wanted to be with me but pay me for my time. I soon felt like this job was made for me.

I instantly fell in love with how fast I could make money for just having sex.

As a Prostitute, My Clients Were a Mixed Bag

Prostitution did come with its cons though. I never had a great screening process for my clients, so I never really knew a whole lot about most of them before meeting up. Because of this, each night felt like a gamble. I never knew if I was going to enter a hotel room and get arrested, hurt or just make my money and leave.

I did have a few uncomfortable experiences. There were two times when clients had ripped me off and paid me less than I had asked for. I even had a client ask me “how kinky I was” because he wanted to know how hard he could “beat the shit out of me until it was considered abuse.” But those bad experiences didn’t occur often. For the most part, my clients were just average. They were usually middle-aged men who paid me exactly what I asked and got off. Then I’d leave.

Some regulars went the extra mile, spoiling me with tips, weed and alcohol. My favorite clients were the ones with nice cars or ones who liked to take me out on dates or give me extra money for shopping sprees. I also did porn at this time, as I loved being in front of the camera and working with photographers in my area to create amazing content. My favorite project was signing posters and selling them to my clients. I loved being told that my posters were being hung in men’s bedrooms. It made me feel special.

It's not something I regret.

I Struggled With Drugs and Alcohol to Cope With Work

Although porn and prostitution made me a good amount of money, it all went toward clothes, alcohol and drugs. Looking back, I wish I had saved the money and put it toward something more important—like getting myself a car or moving out of my dad’s house. I was in such a dark space in life that I didn’t really see a future for myself, so my money never had a lot of value in my eyes. I didn’t know what the next week, month or year of my life would look like—I wanted to spend my money while I had it and enjoy myself in the moment.

I struggled a lot with using drugs and drinking as a way of coping with issues I had at the time. My substance use eventually started getting in the way of my work. I was a constant mess in front of my photographers and clients and struggled heavily with depression and anxiety. I had awful paranoia due to how fucked up I was all the time and the anxiety that came with my job. I stopped doing prostitution a few months before my 19th birthday. The last client I ever saw was a middle-aged man who had ripped me off and paid me way less than what I had asked for. I went home and cried for hours that night.

He was my final straw, and I decided it wasn’t worth the risk of possibly getting arrested or hurt. I still continue to do porn to this day, and I'm in a much better place mentally. If prostitution was ever legalized, I would gladly come out of my retirement. It's not something I regret. Most of my friends and family know I did it. It's a part of my story, and it’s made me who I am today.

Sometimes, when I least expect it, I’ll get hit with the feeling of having traveled back in time. The memory feels so fresh, it’s as if I’m sitting in the same body I had as a child.

The last time this happened, I had a memory of sitting inside the church in which I grew up. I smelled the wooden pews, the slight chlorine scent from the baptismal pool and an overwhelmingly thick coat of perfume and hairspray. It was too hot in there, always too hot. My skin felt clammy, even in the winter months.

My mom sat next to me, wearing her long black skirt, her flowy blouse buttoned up to the very top and her hair pulled up into a bun, with the front in an absolutely immaculate pouf. She looked like what I knew a woman was and should be—covered, feminine, makeup free, with her family. I would hold her hand and run my fingers across her perfectly cut, long nails thinking, “Wow, everything about her is so pretty. Do they know how pretty my mom is?” But as the music and crowd got louder, that quickly became unimportant and lost in the back of my brain.

Throughout the church service, the men always yelled, and the women openly wept. And I always stared at them for too long. Every Sunday, this happened on some level, and it always took me a few minutes to come out of the initial shock of seeing adults act like that. The noises they’d make were sad, and the words that came out of their mouths were words I hadn’t heard outside of church, and I honestly didn’t really understand what they meant.

This became an abusive cycle that I longed for.

I Never Experienced the Holy Spirit Like Other Parishioners

By the time I was eight or nine years old, though, it became something I wanted to be in the middle of. I’d venture up to the altar weekly—a huge part of being a good Christian—and repent for my sins. Even at a young age, I knew it was something I had to do to cleanse myself of any worldly influence I experienced during my week. It was supposed to be an act of freedom and love, and I always pictured it to be a feeling of warmth and holiness. This was incredibly exciting to me because that’s how everyone had described it to me my whole life.

So, every Sunday evening, I’d walk up there, desperately hoping that this was the moment I’d finally feel the Holy Ghost. That maybe I would get lucky and speak that strange language that I was told God gave us as a gift, when we were truly connected to him. I always hoped. I would stand there, my arms up and palms facing towards the ceiling. I would pray. I would say, “God, I know I am a sinner, but I repent and ask for your forgiveness.” I would say I love you’s and beg. I would cry so hard my lips would dry out and my nose would be stuffed up; my eyelids would be red and swollen. And he never said a word back to me.

I would let these grown men place their hands on my head and shoulders and shout their strange language into my face. Their breath was so hot on my skin it would make me sweat. Their grip was always too tight, and their intensity vibrated right through to my bones. This became an abusive cycle that I longed for. I would cry. I would repent. I would receive silence and ask myself, “Why wasn’t I worthy this time? Why does he think I am not ready?”

The Pentecostal Church Made Me Feel Unloved and Unworthy

This groomed me into the woman they thought was the true definition of someone feminine. I stayed small. I was his servant, always wishing for more, left hungry every week. Love became this wild bouquet of a transactional relationship. Love was following orders without a reward or relief. Love was being an idea I never created myself. And I was only as worthy as my partner—my leader, my God—made me.

A character was created and I dutifully continued acting it out. I found abusive men to mirror my relationship with God. I dreamt of being married and having a handful of kids, raising them in the church and continuing this cycle as well as I could. Isn’t that awful? I felt uncomfortable, unloved, unworthy and often invisible, and I still said, “Yes, this is what I want to continue and put my energy into.” But that’s the thing—when you’re in it, all you see is a black and white way of living; you see right and wrong very clearly. You know that you can’t trust yourself, and you do your best to work harder than that voice of the sinner inside you.

My life was a 24/7 battle with morality. It was fear of the rapture, demons and burning in hell. I had this part of me deep inside that screamed every day to get out, but I held that door shut as tight as I could. I didn’t want to fall victim to the ways of the world and spend my eternity in hell. It was simple. I must fight because that’s what being alive is: fighting and suffering to serve my Lord until the end.

It is forever an example of what I never was and do not want to be.

My Trauma Reminds Me to Never Repeat the Past

But don’t worry, there is relief to this life in which I was raised. I grew. I stopped quieting the constant questions. I met someone who challenged that life with me and helped me find the strength to jump off that cliff into what the world really had to offer me.

I’ve become quite good at bringing myself back to this 32-year-old body, sitting in my religion-free house with my beautiful family. Back into a space where the love I give and receive flows freely, where prayer is sweet whispers between my loved ones and me, of all the hopes we share for each other.

There’s always a film left across my entire body, though. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to wash it off, but I’m starting to get used to the feeling. I’ve learned to walk around with it, like a cute little traumatic accessory unique to me. It gives me stories that I can share with people, and it reminds me of how I’ll never treat or raise my children. It is forever an example of what I never was and do not want to be. These are things I am thankful for.

And if God ever replies, I think I’ll just say, “No, thank you.”

Walking down the aisles at the Whole Foods in Downtown Los Angeles is a surreal experience. For starters, it occupies the same street corner where Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia, is believed to have been abducted. And then there’s the experience of walking through the doors—outside, unhoused residents pitch tents across the street while security guards neurotically patrol the entrance. Sometimes, there’s a man who plays the trumpet outside, a cardboard donation box to his left, a gray cat to his right. The guards let him stay because he provides entertainment to the customers.

Then you enter the store. It’s like stepping into a fresh fever dream. The air conditioner billows at overtime, starkly contrasted by the unforgiving heat of the dry season outside. “Pocketful of Sunshine” by Natasha Bedingfield blares overhead—the playlist is like something pulled straight out of a Hollister in 2008.

Now, it's time to shoplift.

Step 1: Get inspired

The first step to a successful heist: take a second or two to let the ridiculous contradictions of the Whole Foods set in—the $20 “chakra” candles, the luxury skincare, the needlessly expensive produce (rare mushrooms foraged in Japan, dragon fruit, $8 cherries, etc.), packaged sushi that’s more expensive than an actual restaurant—and let it all inspire you. Pretend that this is all a simulation; you are playing a video game, or it’s a GTA mission. That white woman in dreads buying ashwagandha and endangered palo santo? She’s a CPU. Hell, you’re a CPU.

Try to look like a yuppie, maybe even have a latte as prop.

Step #2: Tote bag

I can’t stress this one enough. Make sure the tote bag is ambiguous enough to where it could be your stylish bag of choice or something to lug your groceries in. Grab a shopping basket. Find a cheap, large bag of chips and place it in the basket. Periodically slip items you won’t be paying for into your tote bag.

Step #3: Get into character

Remember: You’re a CPU; you’re playing a role. Maybe you’re an overworked fashion assistant, a micro-niche internet celebrity, an underground rockstar, a Hollywood producer, a super spy, Albanian royalty—doesn’t matter. Personally speaking, I like to pretend I’m George Clooney’s overworked assistant: I don’t have time for bullshit—like a security guard checking my tote bag—because Mr. Clooney needs me, stat! It’s all about performance. Try to look like a yuppie, maybe even have a latte as prop—something that screams, “I write for Jezebel,” or Whole Foods customer.

Step #4: Don’t be intimidated

Yes, the squadron of security guards patrolling the store and its exit can be intimidating. But remember, the demonization of the unhoused has integrated itself into the DNA of places like Whole Foods. In other words, their obsessive assumptions of what a shoplifter should look like can be used as protective coverage.

A useful cognitive tool is to behave as if the objects you are stealing have already been purchased.

Step #5: Remember there’s nothing revolutionary about stealing from Whole Foods

All of these tips, ideally, will make you a master thief. But remember, it’s nothing to brag about. It’s objectively disgusting that the more yuppie-passing you are (regardless of your actual class position), the easier it is to get away with theft. That’s the essential component of privilege in its most searingly obvious form.

The first few times you get away with an expensive heist, you’re high off a rush of false empowerment; there's something seductive to it, like juvenile rebellion. But pretty soon, it’s obvious that stealing from Whole Foods is not the anticapitalist statement you think it is. It’s still consumption, just with a few of the logistical steps (like paying) skipped . There is nothing revolutionary about stealing $40 vitamin C serum or Grade A cacao beans you will most certainly never use. If you’re going to be a scammer, it’s in your best interest to not be a delusional one.

Step #6: With great power comes great responsibility

Just because it might not necessarily start a communist revolution doesn’t mean it can’t be used for good. Lord knows there are plenty of hungry people right outside Whole Foods. Give back—not because you are a saint but because it’s your responsibility. Plus, you can pretend you’re a superspy-esque Robin Hood while you’re browsing the aisles (just for fun).

The first step is to actually get to know the unhoused near you—they are your neighbors, after all. With time, you’ll build a relationship, so the next time you stop into Whole Foods, ask your neighbors if there’s anything they’d like or need—maybe a meal, a snack, a simple luxury and so on. My friend, who I’ll refer to as her nickname Ladybug for privacy, lives in a tent near the Whole Foods. She has a pet cat, so I make sure to grab her some kitty food, her favorite snacks and meals that don’t require preparation (think pre-packaged sushi, sandwich materials, dried fruits and nuts).

Step #7: Be obvious!

This might sound contradictory, but security guards are trained to spot the body language of shoplifters. Don’t look shifty; don’t try to slip anything into your pockets. A useful cognitive tool is to behave as if the objects you are stealing have already been purchased. Some of the most extravagant thefts of mine have been done while holding said objects in my hand, in full view of the security guards, as I walk out the door. But this can only work if you can exhibit the false confidence that you are the rightful owner of whatever merchandise you are taking.

Step #8: Fake phone call

Remember: You’re a character. Stay in character. When you’re about to leave, if you have any paranoia that you’ll be stopped, pretend to be on a high-powered phone call. Walk angrily and shout to the phone something along the lines of, “You tell HIM that we’ll be seeing him in court!” or, “What do you mean I’m playing a concert tomorrow? I already told my agent it’s my niece’s birthday!”

Well, there you have it. I can’t promise you these tips will make you a foolproof shoplifter. But they might make you a better one, so long as you do so with utmost confidence and inscrutability.

A few weeks ago, I was on a run. I don't know if you've ever heard of the running shits, but they're a real thing. A very real thing. At the time, I was adamant that I didn't want to defecate in a porta-potty and I was pretty certain I could make it home. Well, by the time I got home, I somehow didn't have to poop anymore. But I wasn’t constipated. I was home for an hour and a half. I showered. I fiddled around on the computer. Still nothing.

I left for my boyfriend’s to get lunch and the minute I got there, then—then!—I have to defecate. We got to the restaurant and it was such a hole-in-the-wall, I couldn’t see a bathroom anywhere. I told myself: I can conquer this. People have overcome much more dire circumstances. Plus, as the gnarliest of poops often are, I didn’t know if I was going to shit myself one minute or walk off poop-free into the sunset the next.

This was a poop that I couldn’t clench away if my life depended on it.

A Number One Turned Into a Number Two

We got back to his house, and I had some time to kill before I went to the school where I volunteered, so I went inside. Then, I need to go to the bathroom. But I didn’t have to poop. I just had to pee because I ordered my Thai food medium-plus heat and, therefore, I drank four glasses of water and a Thai tea. I went immediately for the bathroom, confident because who cares if someone—even a woman—pees?

Then I sat down.

And, man, this wasn’t just a pee. This was a poop that I couldn’t clench away if my life depended on it.

I nearly hyperventilated, but then I thought: Fuck you patriarchy! Women poop too! So I tried to poop in peace and pride. Well, maybe not pride, but at least not embarrassment. I stood up and flushed the toilet. I washed my hands. The confidence I felt just fifteen seconds prior dissipated, probably suffocated by the fumes of this stinky poo I just took.

How to Flush Floating Poop (You Don’t)

I looked back down at the toilet before leaving the bathroom, and the water was just circulating: my poops like little boats being sucked into a whirlpool.

Jesus! Sweet, sweet Jesus! Do I deserve this? I waited for the whirling to stop and flushed again. There it went. This is going to be fine, I thought to myself, but then the whirling stopped for the second time and one poop remained. I realized that I really had no other option but to flush a third time.

I wondered if he could hear my flushes from the living room. I had flashbacks to being a kid, my brother running out of a restaurant bathroom, announcing to my parents' that he just had to double-flush his poop. I remember the way people stared and the way my dad made fun of him.

Third flush completed, and this one single poop would not go down. I cursed the stars. I cursed 1960s plumbing. I cursed this world we inhabit in which I could be best friends with my boyfriend but not in the way that it was okay for me to tell him about the massive, shitty problem I had in there.

If this sounds familiar, it probably is. Many of us have been there. Unfortunately.

So then I did what I would like to have believed I could make it through an entire life never doing: I took some toilet paper, reached into the toilet and pulled my own feces from my boyfriend's toilet. I wrapped it in more and more toilet paper, trying to conspire some exit strategy for myself and that single shit. I looked in the mirror, breathed in deeply, sucked my stomach in, and stuffed this slightly-wet, TP-wrapped turd down my own pants.

I cursed this world we inhabit in which I could be best friends with my boyfriend but not in the way that it was okay for me to tell him about the massive, shitty problem I had in there.

Act II of My Female Poop Desperation Story

I beelined for the front door, and it appeared that he was not in the living room after all. Sweet, sweet grace! I could explain leaving without saying goodbye to him later, and I could spend the afternoon praying he didn’t go in his bathroom anytime in those following twenty minutes.

My hand was on the doorknob when I heard him say, "No kiss?"

I turned to see him walking toward me. Then, before I could manipulate the situation, my boyfriend was kissing me whilst my own wet turd slowly soaked through half a roll of his toilet paper, and into my jeans. I pulled back and blurted, "Don't go in the bathroom!" He looked at me and before his expression could sear itself into my memory I bolted out the front door.

My feces now lie, unraveling from soggy toilet paper, somewhere in the 1200 block of South Ingalls.

My pride? Probably somewhere around there too.

Research traditionally shows that rape victims are more likely to shy away from sex.

At a young age, I was raped. Contrary to research, I then sought out sex. I went in pursuit of it. The more dangerous the better.

Why? Because I believed that I only enjoyed sex if it was violent. It is only now, years later, that I understand that I am not alone in this fact.

I believed that I only enjoyed sex if it was violent.

My Rape Orgasm Story

In my early teens, I had gone on a date in the city with a friend of a friend. The date had been pleasant enough, but I knew by the end of the day that I wasn’t interested. When we got back to our local train station, he said he needed to pick something up from a clubhouse and, as it was on my way home, I went with him. It was a hot summer’s day, I was wearing a silk dress my dad had bought me—an outfit I was particularly fond of—so fond that I would wear it again even after what would follow. We walked past estates friends lived on and through wooded areas to get to his training ground.

As we walked, he told me he had the keys, as his coach sometimes let him practice on weekends. We walked into the clubhouse but instead of going to pick his equipment up, he turned away and locked the door behind him.

What followed is still a little blurry to me.

I know he pushed me down and held me there while he moved his sweaty hands up my legs. He then performed oral sex on me; the sound of his tongue licking my insides makes me feel sick even today. After what seemed like a few painful minutes he had pressed the weight of his body down on my wrists and my hips—and proceeded to put his dick inside of me.

Through tears, I had pleaded with him to stop but I had lost all power to push him away. I remember feeling frozen to the spot, like all my strength had been zapped out of me. He eventually came and hastily left without so much of a glance or explanation.

I felt pathetic and useless throughout the ordeal. He had got what he wanted. I never saw or heard from him again.

Afterward, I was abandoned in the clubhouse, semi-clothed and disorientated. I attempted to straighten myself up and, sperm dripping down the inside of my leg, I walked to a friend’s house who lived in the area. I couldn’t comprehend what had happened in my mind.

I had been raped.

What followed is still a little blurry to me.

The Shame I Felt Over Orgasming Made Recovery Difficult

At the time I couldn’t connect with the word "rape," I didn’t want to feel like a victim and, in every way that I could, I rejected that notion for years. This was just me, I told myself: I like violent sex, I like being scared.

It was easier believing this, than believing that I would just lie there and not defend myself. I would not have been that weak.

It’s funny, now I can’t remember his name and his features are a little fuzzy in my memory. What is crystal clear are those tears running down my face, my silk dress pushed up against my thighs by his clammy hands and the table sticking into my back.

I can also remember vividly my horrified shock when I came. This moment replays every time I have sex.

My body reacted to my assault in a way my mind could never have imagined. It screwed me up. At my most distressed, at a time when I wanted to imagine I was someplace else, I orgasmed. My attacker looked at me with a smug smile on his face. “You liked that,” he said. And for a long time, I believed I did.

I thought for years that I had distorted desires and went in pursuit of that violence. I think part of me believed that if I had instigated it, I could take control of the situation and maybe I would understand why I had seemingly enjoyed the rape in the first place. This was naïve.

What followed was further traumatizing. I put myself in dangerous situations with people I had only just met. The distorted association between pleasure and violence driving me to push further and further into danger.

I have had sex under bridges with strangers. I have had sex inside clubs with strangers, I have had sex with strangers in cars and let strangers into my home—only for them to leave me with deep cuts all up my back.

Worst of all, this risky behavior led me to be in situations that meant I was raped twice again. I was provided with many more traumatic memories.

Again, these incidences are hard to piece together but the feeling of the warm penis in my hand and then it being pushed down my throat from my third rape still haunts me.

Flashbacks to the assaults prevent me from focusing on the person with whom I am currently having sex.

Orgasming While Being Sexually Assaulted Is Not a Myth

After speaking with a friend recently who had suffered similar experiences, I discovered that I was not alone in my promiscuity after rape. And we are not the only ones.

In 2004, researchers at Michigan State surveyed 102 women who had experienced sexual assault: 38 percent of the women said they had engaged in more sexually risky behaviors after experiencing a sexual assault than they had before the attack.

Shortly after speaking with my friend, I met a sex therapist at a women’s group I was attending. The therapist told me that it is common for victims to orgasm during a rape and that a physical response to an assault does not indicate that individual’s sexual preferences. What had consumed my life, in terms of the guilt, shame and confusion, was simply a biological reaction to a sexual act. This helped to free me from the burden that I had felt all these years, the idea that I was somehow disgusting or dirty because I had orgasmed.

Responses to sexual assault, like mine, are underreported because of the shame and embarrassment felt by the victim. Research findings vary in terms of how many women experience orgasm during their assault, sometimes studies suggesting as little as five percent and others estimating that it is closer to 50 percent.

Researchers Willy van Berlo and Roy J. Levin concluded in a review, published in 2004, that nonconsensual sexual stimulation can cause unwanted sexual arousal. They noted that this does not mean that the individual had consented or “enjoyed” the assault.

Having experienced this myself, it is now very difficult for me to orgasm. Flashbacks to the assaults prevent me from focusing on the person with whom I am currently having sex. I often have to push them away because it is too painful.

This is also common. One study I came across while researching for this article had asked both victims of assault and people who had never experienced assault if they have suffered from any sexual problems. Of those who had been assaulted 58.6 percent were experiencing sexual dysfunctions, with the majority reporting that problems had begun after their assault. In contrast, only 17.2 percent of the non-assaulted women reported experiencing any sexual problems.

Why Rape Victim Stories Are Underreported

Sadly, rape victims are often left unsupported because of the stigma associated with and the legal difficulties with reporting rape. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) estimates that an American is sexually assaulted every 73 seconds but states that only five of every 1,000 offenders will end up in jail. And, unfortunately, according to research carried out in 2016, rape survivors are considerably more likely to have attempted suicide than individuals who have not been assaulted.

I am still recovering from the assaults I suffered. I am currently undergoing therapy to try and piece together the memories I do have from my teens, in the hope I can process them and understand further the link between the rapes and my own self-loathing. I have attempted suicide multiple times in the past and I do have an unhealthy relationship with drinking.

I chose to write this piece in the hope that someone who is in a similar position to me might read it. If you are putting yourself at risk because you are pursuing the feeling of being in control or perhaps believe you enjoy the violence like I did, please stop and reassess what you are doing. You were the victim, not the perpetrator—it was not your sick fantasy. The assault doesn’t define you and you are not just made for the enjoyment of others.

Value yourself and your body. It is something you should protect, not abuse.

I saw him for the first time on my computer screen. I fell in love, slowly but surely, even before I’d spoken to him. He didn’t know me, but he made me happy. No, this wasn’t me stalking some poor, unsuspecting man.

He was a much-loved public figure when I first saw him.

I was just one among many fangirls with the shared dream of loving and being loved by someone who never would know me.

When I was 20, I fell in love with him, wrote poems about him and dreamt of impossible scenarios. By the time I was 21, I was dating him.

That impossible dream suddenly has come true. How it happened is an origin story for another time.

For now, this is the story of what was and what continues to be my first and only relationship, what I think can only be summed up as: one weird love story.

He could have had anyone in the world, but he chose me.

Virtual Relationships Have Their Own Set of Challenges

After getting together with him, the first few months flew by in a haze of euphoria. Who wouldn’t be over the moon about dating their first love? He could have had anyone in the world, but he chose me. I felt good about myself in a way I’d never felt before.

It didn’t matter that he lived far away; it didn’t matter that he wasn’t allowed to acknowledge me publicly; it didn’t matter that he didn’t know much English. I was in love and he loved me back.

But the months began to drag on, and all we did was communicate via Twitter DMs (of all the different ways to talk). But that’s it, that was the extent of our relationship.

Speaking in English wasn’t something I had to think about; it came naturally for me. But for him even texting in English was hard. He used a translation app to do even that much, so I tried my best to be understanding.

The months soon turned into a year. We were still together but we never had heard each other’s voice. We didn’t have the usual memories as a couple, no pictures from dates or photographs of each other. How could we even be defined as a couple?

Yet, we made it work. Until we didn’t.

Some People Think Feeling Connected to A Man I've Never Met Is Crazy

The trouble began when I wanted to tell people about the relationship. No, he wasn’t against it or anything of the sort. The trouble was that he and I had no tangible proof of our online relationship, except the messages we exchanged.

People understood the long-distance part. They recognized that we lived in two different countries and led very different lives. But the minute that questions turned to how we met, or whether we video-call to keep the romance going, I had two options: either tell them a diluted, half-truth version of meeting “through our jobs,” or be honest, and say that we’d actually never met.

The first option became increasingly difficult because I’ve never really been a fan of half-truths, and also because one question inevitably led to another and I could answer none of it.

The second option was difficult from the onset because: How do I explain to someone that I’ve been dating a person I’ve never spoken to?

The few times I tried going this route with trusted friends it always ended with me feeling insecure. My friends, in their well-meaning concern, often said that maybe a public figure with his fame as a shield was simply leading me on, maybe he was doing the same with other girls or, worse, maybe this was some sort of catfishing.

How do I explain to anyone that while he and I may have never spoken, I don’t doubt his identity? This wasn’t blind faith; I’m neither that trusting nor that romantic.

My friends judge and advise and, at the worst of times, even ridicule—however unintentional it might be. And it hurts.

There is a part of me that understands that the concern of being led on or catfished is very real. But that doesn’t have to be a norm. Why can’t this be my norm? The relationship I chase isn’t for everyone.

How do I explain to someone that I’ve been dating a person I’ve never spoken to?

Having a Boyfriend Online Isn't Much Different Than in Real Life

Now, it’s been over two years “together,” and we still never have heard each other’s voice or met. We did move from Twitter onto email and then Facebook Messenger. He did tell his family and closest friends about me, but we remain voiceless entities in each other’s lives because he neither knows enough English to carry on a conversation nor does his employer allow him much freedom.

I wouldn’t say that I am satisfied with where we stand. Of course, I’m not; I want to be able to pick up the phone and call him, to be acknowledged by him publicly, to hold his hand, to have dates with him where we can laugh and talk about things we love.

Most of all, I want to see an effort from him to keep me in his life, and I’ve told him as much. He knows I’m not satisfied and maybe he’ll do something about it.

Maybe he won’t.

But this doesn’t discredit the love we share. He sends me gifts on birthdays, remembers anniversaries and supports my work even if can’t read it in the language in which it’s written. He has never asked me for anything. More than anything else, he’s still by my side, despite not actually being there in person, through all the ups and downs.

The lack of support, my doubts and insecurities and the opinions of others took root. He and I fought for a long time, almost ending things multiple times. But he stuck around and that counts for something, at least to me.

My friends judge and advise and, at the worst of times, even ridicule.

Maybe One Day We Will Meet in Person

Relationships and romance are deeply personal. So what if my boyfriend and I haven’t met or spoken? So what if all we have to show for a two-year relationship is a bunch of emails and texts?

He is real, I am real and what we have is our reality.

This is a love story that’s hard to explain. It’s one that seems dodgy and dangerous when explained out of context, but this is my story and I want a happy ending for it. Maybe that’ll be just that phone call finally happening or maybe we’ll skip everything and jump into living together. Who knows? Definitely not me, probably not him—but also not anyone else either.

And that’s the fun of this weird thing called love.

Your love is yours to feel and your convention is yours to define, and this particular tale is ours to live and ours to end, however we please.

It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was pretty close. I married young and, by the time I reached my 30th birthday, I had four young children, the home of my dreams, financial security and a husband who—if less than perfect—was a good person and provider. We had fun together and a busy social life, even if we never set the world alight between the sheets. I just assumed that I wasn’t supposed to have it all.

A sex life that ventured from the mundane to the “grin and bear it” was the price I assumed I needed to pay for all the other trappings of a middle-class existence. One day, it just wasn’t enough anymore. I first met Joe at his daughter’s sixth birthday party. His wife Laura had become a good friend through numerous playdates we had organized for our daughters; the girls had become inseparable since meeting on their first day of school. Over the next few years, Laura and I became the best of friends.

Her husband Joe, however, remained something of an enigma to me. Men had always been drawn to me (as I had to them), but every time I was in his company he appeared to fix me with an icy glare that always set me on edge. He didn’t like me and I didn’t like that. He wasn’t a sociable man but on the rare occasions that we did meet, his disdain for me bordered on rude. I was flummoxed. And intrigued. He became something of a challenge to me and, while having an affair never really crossed my mind, I was determined to win him over.

I was bored in my marriage and needed a distraction.

That was the beginning of the end.

I Cheated With My Best Friend’s Husband (and I’d Never Been Happier)

I began to find all sorts of fictional excuses to call to their home and, gradually, he seemed to warm to me. One night Laura invited me to dinner with herself and Joe. My husband was traveling for work, something that was becoming more and more common. I happily obliged. Later that evening, I finally found myself alone with Joe, Laura having had too much to drink had excused herself and wandered up the stairs to bed. In one life-changing moment, the atmosphere became electric and within seconds we found ourselves wrapped around each other in the most passionate kiss I had ever experienced. When I eventually left to return home, he came with me to spend the night. That was the beginning of the end.

Our year-long affair began that night, and as it progressed, my interest in my marriage regressed. I was completely committed to my new love who had captivated both my mind and my body. I suffered from occasional pangs of guilt, but, in general, I was a master at compartmentalizing. My relationship with Laura continued, grew even and, through it all, I blossomed. Joe, however, was not doing as well. He was a faithful man by nature and our situation distressed him greatly. He struggled with the deceit and the guilt and tried on numerous occasions to end it. He always came back.

I was drunk on love.

The End of the Affair Tore My Family Apart

Throughout this time, Ireland was on the verge of economic collapse and my husband was spending more and more time traveling in an effort to save his failing business. He had become somewhat manic due to the financial stress, behaving more and more erratically. I used the opportunity to indulge myself even more in my new favorite hobby, thinking little of the consequences that might result. I was drunk on love and, as far as I was concerned, that trumped everything else.

One year and one month after our affair began, everything came crashing down when the guilt became too much for Joe to bear: He confessed to Laura about his indiscretion. He didn’t mention my name but she had her suspicions, knowing her husband as she did and witnessing how he began to behave around me. My husband had also started to suspect something and when Laura confided to him what was going on in her marriage, everything clicked into place. And so, the nightmare began.

I was drunk on love and, as far as I was concerned, that trumped everything else.

Coping With Life After the Affair

Joe left his family home and stayed at a hotel while I navigated my way through the hellscape I had created. At home, in a fit of rage, my husband decided it appropriate to tell our children every sordid detail. They ranged in age from six to 12 at the time, and knew Joe and Laura as our friends and the parents of their own friends. My first encounter with Laura—after it all came to a head—was at our children’s school a few days later. It ended with her spitting in my face as the children looked on silently. I deserved it; the children didn’t.

Their confusion and upset was heartbreaking for me to witness but the biggest challenge to their innocent childhood came when their father finally lost control and punched me in front of them. That’s when I knew that he had truly lost it, that I had pushed him over the precipice that he had been clinging on to for dear life. Nothing excused his lashing out at me but I knew deep down that the man I had married would never have considered such an act.

The stress of the economic meltdown had put him under such intense pressure that when he found out about my betrayal, it was more than his mind could handle. The worst part was, I didn’t beg for forgiveness. I didn’t promise to end it and I didn’t ask him to stay. In many ways, I was relieved. I could finally stop living a lie.

He left a few days after that, returning to the Middle East where he had been trying to cultivate some work. We never saw him again. He abandoned his business, his life and his children. Suddenly life became all too real. I found myself without money, security and abandoned by many that I had considered friends. I lost everything. I was the fallen woman in our neighborhood and the gossips delighted in it. Sidelong glances became the norm and the kids learned to live with the whispers about their mother. We struggled, but we managed.

A few years later, my youngest son picked up the telephone in our home as we were packing up our belongings to leave (the house was being repossessed by the bank as my husband had fled with all of our savings). I looked at him expectantly to see who was calling and watched his face change from calm to confused as he asked, “Who is this?” After a short pause, he continued, “I think you’re my dad.”

I could finally stop living a lie.

I was in the passenger seat of a nondescript white van and riding through residential streets in a California suburb that ranks among the poorest cities in the country. It was my first week on the job.

My coworker agreed to take me on a ride-along of an immediate response (IR) referral—emergency situations where social workers must quickly assess the safety of children. This IR was straightforward: a local law enforcement drug task force raided the home of two known dealers and took them into custody. We were called to retrieve the children. It was an uncomplicated beginning to a bewildering experience.

Nothing Could Have Prepared Me for Working at CPS

Just a few months prior, I had graduated college and faced a world of uncertainties. I was passionate about community development and advocacy for minoritized populations, so social work seemed a good fit. I applied to a social work position for a local Child Protective Services agency as an afterthought at the urging of a relative who sent me the listing. It seemed a longshot to get a job I felt I was not qualified for.

I was still unsure of what I was getting myself into months deep into online and classroom training, which provided the background policy and legal framework existing around child welfare social work. The only practical training involved a one-day simulation, where we took turns conducting a referral investigation: knocking on the door, interviewing the parents and children, and debriefing our assessment. It did little to prepare me to navigate a labyrinthine system, office politics and poor accountability through which life-changing decisions were made.

The training did not prepare me for what would become one of many 17-hour workdays. As we parked in front of the recently raided home, my coworker offhandedly stated, “I bet they are Black,” to which I replied sheepishly, “Isn’t that a bias?” They didn’t respond. We approached a scene out of a movie, with the officers dressed in tactical gear outside eating In-N-Out, while the mother sat handcuffed in a kitchen chair near the front steps to the home. We spoke with her, noticing her of the department’s exigency to remove her children because she was in custody. We also told her about an upcoming court date where a juvenile dependency judge would decide whether the county will be taking jurisdiction of the children, and finalizing what the parents must do to receive their children back into their custody.

We then went to pick up the children from their school, turning a typical day into what would become probably the single most traumatic and defining moment of their short lives.

For me, it was just the first removal of many.

Problems With Child Protective Services

Ideally, CPS protects children by removing them from dangerous home environments. This includes parents who sexually perpetrate their children, engage in domestic violence and/or employ harsh corporal punishment leading to bruising or broken bones. Children who are placed in foster care by CPS are removed from one traumatic environment and are caught up in another one. The statistics on foster children's rate of high school dropout, drug use and homelessness causes me to pause and wonder whether the foster care system is just another government agency doing more harm than good.

One aspect contributing to this assessment is the lack of transparency in the decision to remove children, which is often made with veiled language. As workers, we are instructed to stay away from statements potentially seen as threatening. We are left to dance around the topic and can only provide vague warnings. One of my supervisors once said on a voicemail, “If we do not hear back from you, we will be forced to make decisions without you.” Any social worker knows that translates to, “If you refuse to cooperate, we are removing the children.”

On one occasion, a coworker removed a child because a legal-guardian grandmother would not kick her son—who was the father of the child—out of the home, despite not being explicitly told the consequences of allowing him to stay. It always seemed dishonest that we were forced to play coy when transparency would have made some parents realize how dire the situation was.

I am still not sure about the legality of that entire scenario.

The Children Are the Ones Who Bear the Brunt of the Situation

The lack of transparency is not the only traumatic aspect of the system. Once removed, children were often forced to sleep overnight in our offices. The pace of finding a foster home or approving relatives for placement is glacial, sometimes taking days. The children exist in limbo, unable to go home and without a foster care bed. So, their home becomes a government office, with no kitchen, no showers and no beds. We would put them in large conference rooms and set up cots so they could sleep. It was not uncommon for children to spend the night or entire weekends in the office while awaiting placement.

A nine-year-old child on the caseload of a coworker lived in our office for three weeks—three weeks of sitting in a cubicle, three weeks of being taken to a shelter to shower, three weeks of fast-food and three weeks of sleeping on a cot. At one point, management realized we needed to take her to school, so she was enrolled. We would joke that management should put her on the payroll since she was there all day anyway.

I am still not sure about the legality of that entire scenario.

The children in foster care were never guaranteed a stable home, just one that was hopefully safer than what they came from.

Foster Parents Aren’t Always Good Parents

But once placement was found, it would represent another disruptive point in their journey through the system. Foster parents could be notoriously unreliable and some abusive. While physical and sexual abuse within foster homes was rare—in my experience—more commonly is the mental or emotional abuse, where the children were treated as paychecks and burdens.

One foster parent demanded a specific dollar amount or threatened to refuse to keep the child in their home.

I had another foster parent tell a teenager going into her senior year of high school that he no longer wanted her there, after four years of stability. This foster parent provided various excuses regarding the child’s behavior and her lack of social engagement. It was obvious the foster parent just did not want to deal with her, and once a foster parent decided that they no longer want a child, there is nothing the agency can do to stop them. Many coworkers had foster parents drop children off at the office without forewarning, demanding they be placed elsewhere that day.

The children in foster care were never guaranteed a stable home, just one that was hopefully safer than what they came from.

CPS Workers Have Zero Accountability

The systemic troubles of Child Protective Services extended to immunity for workers and management from consequences for violating policy. Some workers had reputations for doing poor work, falsifying documentation and not visiting children on their caseload in accordance with protocol. Others were known to complete shoddy assessments that could leave children in potentially dangerous homes.

Overstepping authority was all too common. While shadowing an IR early in my career, law enforcement was called in to complete a welfare check because the man did not want to open the door to us. The man begrudgingly opened the door after law enforcement threatened him with arrest. We followed law enforcement in, which was a violation of the man’s civil rights (without a warrant, we could not enter the home without the man’s permission).

The child refused to provide a statement and the father declined to be interviewed, as well. After the incident, the father threatened to sue the department for violating his civil rights, which led the department to drop the referral against him. I wonder how many others, unfamiliar with their rights, were the victims of similar violations? The primary worker and I were never cited or reprimanded for the incident.

And, Sometimes, Workers Are Encouraged to Do the Wrong Thing

In another instance, a worker was forced by management to remove a child prior to a physician weighing in on a suspicious injury. It is policy to have injuries assessed by medical professionals who could determine whether they are accidental or not. This opinion informs our decisions to remove. I do not know why management was eager to move on this case, but they made the wrong move. Shortly after the worker was ordered to obtain a warrant detaining the child, the note from the physician came in declaring the injury accidental. The worker was told to act on the warrant anyhow, as it was already signed. The family was devastated and could not understand why the child was being taken from their custody.

The worker, knowing the decision was fraudulent, went against procedure and allowed the child to remain with their parents. The worker was threatened with being written up and demoted, and was told they were “playing with fire.”

The lack of accountability and willingness to break protocol was rampant. The decisions were made with impunity as we had no quality control or independent inspector's department assuring fair play.

The poor decision-making and willingness to cut corners was partly due to an extremely problematic office environment that treated workers as expendable, overvalued meeting quotas and benchmarks, and encouraged burnout. My office was a revolving door of social workers, with an average of two per month leaving the department. Boundaries were not encouraged: Even if you were not in the office, you were always expected to be reachable should something arise on your caseload.

As a Child Protective Services Worker, I Was Always on Call

Overworking was the norm. I regularly clocked 15-plus hour days and it was not uncommon to see workers sacrifice their days off or come in on the weekends to finish work. It was encouraged by our supervisors. I was told immediately by my new supervisor after transferring units that if I wanted to, I could come in on the weekends to finish up work. The assumption was that I would do whatever it took to help the department shed cases.

We were discouraged from taking time off. I experienced push-back when I stopped succumbing to the pressure to overwork. A supervisor ridiculed me saying, “Oh look, it’s the one who doesn’t come in on his days off.” I had a supervisor call me the day after I was discharged from the hospital due to exhaustion and dehydration to gather information about a case. I even had a supervisor tell me to take an Uber to work after my car broke down, declining my request to take the day off to deal with repairs.

This treatment was egregious given the burdensome nature of the work. Along with the emotional toll, our caseloads remained far too high to do proper social work. At 40-50 cases per worker, it was common to hear workers say, “We aren’t doing social work as much as putting out fires.” It was true, we were not doing social work, just responding to crises. The pressure to keep caseloads down fell to overtaxed workers. Despite rumors, we were not given bonuses for children removed—our reward for removals was an entire night spent in the office while awaiting placement.

The Entire System Needs to be Reevaluated

The incoming work volume made it troublesome to meet deadlines consistently. A new referral requires first contact within ten days, and we were pressured to make that deadline no matter what. I’ve seen workers pass by homes without stopping, documenting that as an attempt to speak with the family. While helping a coworker, I went to a school attempting to interview a child knowing they had been dismissed two hours prior and documented that as a contact attempt. These are not the actions of monsters indifferent about children but are desperate attempts by defeated workers to not drown. Managerial neglect facilitated an environment where best practice work was sacrificed in favor of efficiency. The result is that children and families were not served.

Child welfare is a vast institution, tasked with the difficult job of creating safety and stability for children. This noble cause can be marred when departments fail to address systemic mismanagement, poor accountability and fail to recognize the traumatic nature of the system. My experience represented one office in one state and should not be extrapolated towards every child welfare department in the country. I do believe that some of the systematic issues are widespread and prevalent; and I encourage everyone to become interested in the operations of their local child welfare agencies. These are institutions that are called to protect the most vulnerable, but they must be held accountable by the people they serve. A better future depends on it.

I’m a 39-year-old attractive woman, and I’m a virgin. I’m agnostic, so this is not about religion. I’ve used dating apps, and I made out with cute men in bars with no alcohol in my system, so I’m not shy or reserved. Mostly, it’s a case of stats, expectations, and bad luck. 

I have always been a late bloomer. I was 15 when I started to pay attention to my looks; I had my first kiss at 17. I’ve always had a case of not liking many people, so my dating life was never super-active. 

My friends thought I was picky. I thought they weren’t picky enough. I just wanted someone I clicked with. I wanted love and romance, but I was comfortable on my own. Comfortable enough that I wouldn’t put up with just anyone not to be single.

It didn’t help that I liked boys who didn’t smoke, who were good at communication, and who were taller than my 5’9”. I used to think these needs narrowed my dating pool just because I lived in Turkey where so many men smoke. And they can be too controlling or too nonchalant. I’ve always been surrounded by men who call their girlfriends 20 times a day, and dictate what they can and can’t wear. Luckily, these men are easy enough to spot. However, you also have the opposite end of the spectrum: Men who call you once a week and consider you lucky because they make time to see you. Unfortunately, this type shows his true colors after you start seeing them.

And then there are the mommy issues. They're common in Turkey due to the culture where Balkan, Middle East, and Mediterranean approaches intersect. Women put up with “monsters-in-law” to make the marriage work. No woman is ever good enough. Men don’t mind because the moms encourage their sons’ unwillingness to do housework, show emotional growth, or be equal partners. Obviously, everyone isn’t like this. But this dynamic has caused so many break-ups over the years that I’m surprised Freud hasn’t risen from his grave.

I’m sometimes frustrated, but not sexually. I am more annoyed at my bad luck.

Still, having traveled a lot and interacted with people from a variety of countries, I’m convinced my issue is not just about location. Women everywhere seem to be having similar problems, whether it’s dating or finding a sexual partner they trust.

Part of what's prevented me from having an active sex life is that I am both romantic and fun-loving. Allow me to explain: When men hear the word “romantic,” they assume you want a serious relationship. They think poetry, flowers, and The Notebook. They hear “fun-loving” and think you are down for casual sex. A  guy from Tinder asked me when we could have sex during our first date, and I hadn’t even finished my coffee yet. (And no, there was no second date.) 

I once kissed a cute stranger in a bar (with his consent, of course) to see what it’d feel like. Nothing. I had exciting experiences with a few guys I met in bars after we chatted for hours. And the make-out sessions that followed were hot. But it wasn’t enough for me to want to have sex with them. For a long time, I wanted my first time to be in a relationship, no matter how new. I guess this makes me a bit of a demisexual. I also find emotional intelligence sexy. My attraction dies the moment someone acts like a jerk. 

The older I got, the more I relaxed about what I needed from a sexual partner. I no longer need to be in love or even harbor a crush. However, I still expect trust and a good time. I think those things are easier to find after you have spent some time with someone, even if it’s just a few dates. And being a virgin who has tried things besides intercourse means I know what I like when it comes to foreplay. I know how I like to be kissed and where I like to be touched. I also know how I don’t like to be touched.

It’s often assumed that when it comes to sex, women have it easier. But the number of options dwindles quickly once you have some expectations. Eliminate all the guys who can’t or won’t spell properly, who won’t bother to have quality conversation, who will assume you are always ready for a booty call...you get the idea. I live in a city much bigger than New York City (Istanbul) but I’ve had no luck finding that guy. As I grew older, my expectation became about one thing: the quality of the experience. I’m not necessarily talking about good sex here, though it’d be nice. What I’m talking about is comfort, safety, and fun: before, during, and after. Not too much to ask, is it?

Then there’s this dilemma: Do you tell your partner you are a virgin beforehand? On one hand, their reaction could reveal a lot about them. If they freak out about your lack of experience, chances are you don’t want this guy in your bed. But it’s even worse if they are overjoyed like they have accomplished something. I want someone neutral, someone who’d understand life happens at a different speed for everyone. Alternatively, I might choose not to tell. But what if he asked? Then I’d hint at a lack of experience and go from there based on his reaction. 

How does it feel to be a virgin at almost 40? Honestly, I’m mostly fine. I am curious about what sex will feel like. Who will it be with? Will I feel relieved? Will I wish I had done it sooner, or will I find it overrated? I’m sometimes frustrated, but not sexually. I am more annoyed at my bad luck. But since I am happy single and sexual feelings emerge when I have a crush on someone, it doesn’t feel like I am on a desert without water. It’s more like “This pie could use more chocolate, but I’d rather have less chocolate than bad chocolate that would unsettle my stomach.” 

A friend once asked how I was coping. I figured sex was like coffee for me. Until I tried coffee, I was perfectly fine without it. But now that I’ve had it, I can’t imagine my life without it. (I still hate bad coffee, though.)

After I recently read about how actress Rebel Wilson had sex for the first time at 35, I felt less frustrated and less alone. I hope my story has a similar effect on women who suffer from a lack of options. When will I have sex? Who knows? But I hope it’s good, and not like that time I had that awful almond milk coffee.

This story is based on an interview with the editors of The Doe.

Before I met my husband, I was living my best life. I had just dropped out of college, and I wanted to pursue acting. I was in L.A. for a showcase. He showed up in my Instagram DMs, asking where I was staying. He was a professional athlete at the time and he trained near my hotel. I was shocked when he showed up in the lobby. We had drinks. He took me to the Hollywood sign. He flew me out to L.A. the weekend after that.

The first few months were a whirlwind. He took me to Sedona and we flew over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter. I got exposed to all this food I never thought I would like. We went to Nobu and Mastro's Steakhouse. We went 71Above in L.A., on the top of the U.S. Bank Tower. I had salmon roe over this potato and dill sauce. It was so good. We did a lot of different activities together. We went to museums, we went to USC and walked around the rose garden and had picnics.

He understood me on an emotional level. At the time, I was angry at so many things—about a prior abusive relationship, about my childhood—and he had so much patience for that. We had a similar upbringing; we both came from a broken family. I could be my whole self around him.

Eventually I moved to L.A., and just nine months into dating, I found out I was pregnant. We were both 23 and I was not fully prepared. When he found out, he was so excited and ready to be a dad. I contemplated having an abortion, but then I thought, You know what, we could do this. I kinda want a baby.

He proposed, and I said no, because I didn’t want to be pregnant at my wedding and felt like there was a lot going on. But then we were in Vegas and, as a joke, I suggested having Elvis marry us. Suddenly, it wasn’t a joke.

When our first son arrived, the bulk of it fell on me. I was experiencing the baby blues and motherhood was all-consuming for me—I hadn’t fully grasped how much my life would change. It caused me to grow in so many ways, but it was also so much anxiety. I would wake up and worry if the baby was breathing. All of these feelings about my own mom also came up during that time. I never felt neglected until I saw what it took to show up for my own kid.

I felt so trapped. I was the embodiment of “I’d rather cry in a Rolls Royce.”

My husband responded by hiring a laundry service for me, and then a cleaning person. It was lonely, because I wanted him to do those things. He heard that I was stressed, so he took measures to put those things in place, but not having that emotional connection was really hard.

That was 2017. We had another surprised pandemic baby in 2021. At that point, he’d retired from his sport and was running his own business. The whole time, he really didn't know how to be a partner to me. I didn't feel respected or valued. I would bring things up, then get disregarded. I would tell him how I was feeling, and he wouldn’t seem to care. I was pregnant with our second son when I found out he was cheating on me. He didn’t even work hard to conceal that he was seeing sex workers. He was also gambling a lot. He would be in Vegas and missing our son’s soccer game. His argument was that he paid for all of it, but that didn’t negate the fact that when our son scored a goal and looked out in the crowd, he didn’t see his dad.

I felt so trapped. I was sacrificing so much of myself, my dignity, my value system for my sons. Every morning I would wake up and look out my window to rolling California hills and find reasons to be grateful. I was the embodiment of “I’d rather cry in a Rolls Royce.” Some days, that sentiment comforted me. Other days, it haunted me and made it difficult for me to look in the mirror. I tried to immerse myself in volunteering and loading my plate with kids’ activities and trying to maintain my relationships with my friends. But I couldn’t avoid the fact that I didn’t have a present partner. I was a married single mom.

At one point, I said out loud to a group of friends that I wouldn’t be married if I didn’t fear abject poverty. I barely have an education—just an associate’s degree. He controlled all the money, and I’d be building from literally nothing. I didn’t even know how credit worked. 

I did know what it would mean to divide resources across two households: the kids’ quality of life would decline. For a long, long time, that was what held me back. The cost of living in California is crippling. We weren't going to live in this big, nice suburban house, where the kitchen is a whole football field away from the livingroom. I wouldn't be able to afford to take them on big, huge vacations. Registration for flag football is $275, and then a $70 helmet. You have to buy a mouthpiece, you have to buy socks. Taekwondo is $200 a month.

Two months ago, I finally got the courage to move out. I found a job with the county. I make less than $4,000 a month, and I live in a condo that’s $2,600 a month. There’s just not much left after rent and food and gas. Right now my husband is helping me out financially because he thinks there’s a chance to get his family back, but I’m not sure what will happen once we officially start the divorce process.

I was so afraid to leave our friends and community, and I had to change my kids’ schools. Besides my bestie, I probably won’t see anybody else from my former neighborhood because I live 40 minutes away. But now I’m a little bit more free and at peace. There are also things I like about the condo. I don’t have to shout at my kids from the kitchen because it’s right next to the livingroom. My couch from the old house doesn’t fit—the ottoman alone took up the whole den—but at least I don’t have to do all that cleaning. 

You know how grandmas tell you to stack money and have a secret bank account? That’s advice I should have taken. I was betting on my marriage because we really loved each other initially. But trust me when I say you need an exit strategy.

I came to ketamine therapy out of desperation. I was 35 and had already sampled a buffet of treatments for depression – antidepressants, Freudian therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, yoga, meditation, diet, group therapy, and even LSD. Some of these treatments promised immediate relief, and often delivered. But over time, with the stressors of modern life pressing on the walls of any serenity I’d strained to earn, the effects wore off and the depression returned. There was never a silver bullet, but I was determined to find one. 

This was how I found myself in a Chelsea office room with the lights dimmed, while a soft-spoken, middle-aged female doctor inserted an IV into my left arm and asked me if I’d like to listen to “classical or soundscapes.” I’d never taken ketamine before. I’d only ever associated it with raves and after-hours parties. Oh, and medical treatment of farm animals.

“Isn’t it, like, a horse tranquilizer?” I asked a friend who took it recreationally.

“Not really,” he said. “But k-holes are fucked up.” 

Ketamine is a dissociative drug and, in fact, is sometimes used to tranquilize animals. A “k-hole” is street slang for when the trip becomes so intense that you lose a sense of your own body within space and time. Depending who you ask, k-holes can be a technicolor dream ride or an all-encompassing hellscape.

But the recent medical research on ketamine as a treatment for depression was promising, even if the doctors behind it admitted they weren’t completely sure why it was working. There were more than a few companies offering treatments across New York City when I began my search in 2022, but many put little to zero emphasis on post-session talk support. I chose my facility because they required all patients to have regular access to their own therapist (with whom they communicated results). Plus, they had a sliding scale.

“Think of ketamine like a Zamboni,” one of their doctors told me over a phone consultation. “The drug smooths out your brain and makes it more receptive to developing new pathways.”

When I tried to steer, the sessions often turned sinister. When I released control, I drank the entire universe.

I’ll admit, the hockey analogy got me. The thought of smoothing over the depressive neural pathways that made my daily life feel like I was wearing ankle weights was actually erotic. This could really be it. 

The protocol called for four treatments in two weeks. The on-site doctor would accompany me in a private room equipped with noise-canceling headphones for calming music or soundscapes, eye covers, aromatherapy, and a reclining chair. The drug would be injected intravenously, with dosages measured based on my body weight to ensure safety. I’d be monitored the entire trip. The week before starting, I’d begun having suicidal ideations–a frequent element of my depression–so I went into treatment with blind enthusiasm. I needed results because I needed to want to live. Bring on the Zamboni. 

During my first session, I listened to tropical forest sounds, my mind bouncing from thought to thought, trying not to force any outcome as the drug entered my bloodstream. After what felt like 30 minutes (it was probably about 10), the blackness gradually transformed into a prism of stars, then a river carrying my weightless, floating form into a tunnel of light. I watched my body turn into seedlings, sprouting roots and emerge as a tree under a cloudless blue sky. Each time I tried to grasp what I was experiencing, the images would whoosh and transform. My inner voice felt like it was strapped to a gurney. I was, in effect, paralyzed and mute to the cosmic whirlpool inside my own head. And I loved it.

When it was over,  I noticed my right hand was pressed against my heart.

“You had it there the entire time,” my doctor said.

I left the first session still groggy, the landscape of New York pulsing like thousands of heart ventricles. My vision seemed color-corrected. The heaviness I’d carried that morning had evaporated as if placed under strong sunlight. On the subway ride home, I cried. 

The remaining sessions were a roulette of interstellar awe and grueling darkness. One moment I was riding the galaxy on a rainbow gondola, the next I was facing my uncle James who had killed himself when I was a teenager. No image, no experience lasted more than the span of a completed thought. Nothing could be grasped. Very little made sense. When I tried to steer, the sessions often turned sinister. When I released control, I drank the entire universe. 

After the fourth session, I felt the arrival of a distinctly foreign energy: hope. My doctor reminded me that for many, follow-up sessions were necessary maintenance, but focusing on healthy habits to establish new neural pathways was elemental. The treatments were only a catalyst. The rest was up to me.

I only half-listened. After all, I had the ultimate buffer against relapse: Zamboni brain.

I was back for a follow up just three weeks later. A family conflict triggered my old responses of doom spiraling and I’d fallen hard. I took the injection, floated into the astral plane, and emerged bleary-eyed and renewed, convinced that this time the sensation would last forever. 

Then more stressors came. A job loss. A conflict with my partner. The onslaught of violent daily news. The depression crept in like smoke under a hallway door, slowly overtaking my life until it was suffocating me. I tried a few follow-up treatments, but grew frustrated at the diminishing returns. This depression would never be over, I realized. Clearly, ketamine failed me. I never went back for more treatments. Fuck the Zamboni.

Then, a few months after my final session, I found myself shifting elements of my life to focus on mental health. I made efforts to spend time with friends, moved my body daily, danced, listened to cheesy ‘80s pop hits, journaled, and continued in therapy. I sought out connection and inspiration rather than unending joy. When I was down, I admitted it openly to myself and those I trusted. 

I realized one morning that I hadn’t thought about killing myself for six months—since the day of my first treatment. A personal record for me. I actually wanted to wake up every day and see what happens next. Even on the dark ones.

The doctor’s told me from the beginning that ketamine was only a tool, but I’d ignored them. They never promised a “cure”–just the possibility of reshaping the mind. And hell, learning to want to live again seems like a promising place to start.

Everyone’s had the experience of absentmindedly putting candy into a grocery cart right before you check out, or of indulging a particular physical craving—whether it’s for Thai massage or pad Thai. Everyone, I would also say, knows the gray area between what he wants and what he can get. It’s one of the major disappointments of adulthood to make peace with the fact that you’re not likely to ever have a beach house or a private plane or a high-end designer wardrobe—all of the luxuries you once assumed were yours for the taking. Life simply doesn’t work that way. You start out with a certain amount of money, and you can make more money, but it’s incredibly hard to make so much more money that you land in a different caste, one that flies private, buys Versace by the armful and owns houses galore.

Then the need grows until it becomes insatiable, demanding the things you want.

For Me, Compulsive Shopping Turned Into a Coping Mechanism

I’m not one of those people who have changed my station. If anything, I think my husband and I are steadily sliding back down the class ladder. We both work solidly white-collar jobs (though often contract or freelance), but we can’t get ahead of our expenses. We’re always out of sync, waiting for a paycheck or my student loans to buy our dog her fancy food or pay rent or get the books I need for school next semester and the bookcases to shelve them.

Maybe that’s why I’m a compulsive shopper.

Compulsive buying behavior starts out small and innocent, with an interest in maximizing your money so that it’s not all soaked up by things you need. Then the need grows until it becomes insatiable, demanding the things you want. When I’m sad or bored or restless, I take inordinate pleasure in hunting my prey online, from screen to screen, from list to shopping cart. This particular kind of shopping is challenging enough to be absorbing—I really do get into a zone, just like I do when I’m writing—but not so expensive that it feels totally wrong. What’s the object of my desire? Vintage dresses, mainly from the 1960s. In fact, I have so many I’m planning to start my own online store to resell them so that I can profit from my past mistakes.

Compulsive Shopping Disorder and Body Image Issues Is a Bad Combination

To buy clothes is to confront your body, which is not something that’s always been easy for me. I’d say it isn’t for most women, because of the messages we are bombarded with from the time men could find us desirable. We’re told from a young age—way too young, I suspect, to fully comprehend what we’re hearing—that we need to maximize our desirability in order to attract and keep the male gaze. No, I haven’t fallen down a well back to second-wave feminism. I absolutely mean the male gaze. It is a real thing, and if you doubt its existence, I’d wager you’re either a woman who admirably doesn’t give a fuck. Or you’re a man.

Because I take a lot of medications, my weight has fluctuated by as much as 80 pounds over the years. That means that I’ve been many different sizes. Each one feels different, and each inspires a different kind of shopping. When I was fat, I suffered from intense self-loathing, so I bought myself nice clothes as a kind of compensatory act. At times like the present, when I’m thin, I buy dresses because I want to showcase my body. This complex relationship to one’s size is incredibly common among women and incorporates the messages women get from society: that to be thin is to be virtuous, while to be fat is to reveal yourself as slovenly and gluttonous.

There are dormant periods when I’m occupied with other things and I feel okay about myself, and the shopping abates. But when I don’t feel okay—and I’m a person with a major depressive disorder, so that’s fairly often—I find myself back on Etsy and eBay, cruising, hunting.

To buy clothes is to confront your body, which is not something that’s always been easy for me.

The Origin of My Compulsive Buying Habits

This behavior began when I was at a miserable office job with Orwellian overtones, answering phones before the third ring and email in real-time. I made six figures, but it was horrible, so eventually, I quit. I didn’t quit shopping, though. I just sank myself into credit card debt from all the shift dresses, coats with fur collars and knockout polyester numbers that I couldn’t help but buy. Technically, I’m still in that debt. I just stopped paying my bills when I moved to another country.

There are two kinds of problem shoppers: impulsive and compulsive. I wasn’t sure which one I am, so I looked it up online. I’m compulsive, as it turns out, since there’s an involuntary aspect to my behavior. A compulsive shopper will plan the shopping experience—as opposed to buying on a whim—as a way to avoid or relieve uncomfortable feelings like anxiety. Compulsive shoppers are also more likely than impulse buyers to experience negative consequences as a result of their shopping, such as financial difficulties or conflicts with family. They’re also more likely to fall into a cycle of addictive behavior, in which they shop more and more in an attempt to stave off the stress and anxiety caused by their out of control shopping.

I recognized myself in this description immediately. I knew the displacement of anxiety (another condition that I’m medicated for), the not giving a fuck about how your spending looks to anyone else. Eventually, though, you run out of other crazy people (i.e., people obviously crazier than you) to use as straw men, so you lean into the addiction metaphor. It’s a handy explanation and it fills all of your cavernous emotional holes: You shop for love, you shop for attention, you shop to make yourself feel better and, eventually, all of the shopping just makes you want to shop more.

But calling it addiction still feels like somebody put you in the wrong math class. You don’t belong here with the degenerate gamblers and the young, earnest day traders, the old women who overspend on QVC, and the young women who just overspend. You imagine sitting in a meeting in some shitty room in a church basement, with lousy coffee and those pathetic strangers. You want to be better than that.

But we’re not always better. Life is not always clean.

The Cause of My Compulsive Shopping May Be Rooted in FOMO

One of my favorite storylines in The Sopranos is right at the beginning. Tony is upset when the ducks who’ve spent a few days of their migration in his backyard eventually fly away on the next leg of their journey. He’s sad or feeling something scarier that he’s just calling sadness. Dr. Melfi asks him whether he’s afraid of missing something, or of seeing something that would sour him on the birds. “Missing something,” Tony says, and he talks about loving those birds in a way his wife Carmela surely longs for him to talk about his children.

But this is cruel optimism. Tony’s hopes and dreams for his kids are only within the realm of his imagination. He’s going to be missing something no matter what kind of lives they choose, just as I’m going to miss something as soon as I put the computer away and stop slobbering over the many, many things I want (need?), like new glasses, comfortable sandals, a lot of work done on my hair, a few more bookshelves.

And dresses, like the one I checked out in the middle of writing this paragraph when my mind wandered. I think I’ll go back and have another look.

“So when is the inauguration?”

My question was met with laughter and bemused looks from my new coworkers. I had just moved to Australia after living in Washington, D.C., from 2020 to 2022, and I was still adjusting to the differences. When Anthony Albanese was elected as Australia’s Prime Minister, I was struck by the quiet efficiency of it all. There was no grand inauguration, no pomp and circumstance—just the signing of a piece of paper and a quick transition of power. No drawn-out disputes over vote counts, no major protests in the streets, and no claims of a stolen election. 

The entire process seemed almost mundane compared to the political spectacles I had grown used to in the U.S. In Washington, D.C., elections felt like existential battles for the country’s soul, but here, it was just another change in leadership. The stark difference in political climates left me reeling, highlighting just how intense and polarized American politics had become.

I had come to D.C. from rural Texas as a left-wing activist, hoping to find more people with shared interests and job opportunities to help my career take off. But, after years of riots, teargas, National Guard escorts, and general chaos, I decided to move abroad. Australia provided an ideal setting for advancing my career in international affairs. With its robust social programs and strategic proximity to Asia—home to many countries central to U.S. debates—I’d found the perfect environment to study geopolitics. The opportunity to engage with the region's complexities from a more stable political climate made Australia an excellent fit for my professional and personal aspirations.

The first few months in Australia made America feel more dystopian. As a new employee at a high-level public policy think tank, my desk was positioned directly across from a TV with a 24-hour news cycle. I’d glance up at headlines that displayed exactly the reasons I’d left: “Roe v. Wade overturned by the Supreme Court.” “14 people shot in a mass shooting in Chattanooga.” “Congress to show Trump’s involvement in fake elector plot.”

My first year in Australia was the honeymoon phase. I was amazed by the programs and policies I had longed for in the U.S. When I visited a doctor for strep throat, the entire visit, including antibiotics, cost AUD $75, which was without insurance. (If I had been an Australian citizen with access to Medicare, the visit would have been free.) This was a stark contrast to the high costs I would have faced in the U.S., even with private insurance. At work, I enjoyed four weeks of paid leave and unlimited sick days, and it was illegal for workplaces to contact me outside of work hours unless it was a dire emergency. I didn’t meet two of my female coworkers at my first job because they were on paid maternity leave for a full year. 

My time abroad has taught me that escape is not worthwhile and not the answer.

I was also struck by the contrast in gun control: After the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, which led to the deaths of 35 people, the conservative Australian government enacted strict gun control laws, effectively outlawing most firearms. This stood in sharp contrast to the frequent gun violence headlines I had seen in the U.S.. I felt a newfound sense of safety and freedom, no longer worrying about going to the movies or attending big sporting events. I felt like I could finally breathe for the first time in years, without navigating between the Charybdis of political tumult and the Scylla of the cost-of-living crisis.

My second year in Australia, however, I started to notice some challenges. While Australia’s benefits had initially been impressive, I found daily life more complex. Grocery options were limited and expensive due to the country's reliance on imports. I was paying the equivalent of $20 USD for a single meal from McDonald’s. Casual workers receive a “casual loading”—an additional payment of around 20% on top of the base wage to compensate for not having benefits like paid leave. This means they can earn up to approximately AUD $30, which, while beneficial for workers, further drives up living expenses. The astronomical rent prices, combined with stagnant productivity growth, made living expenses a concern. Despite these issues, I reminded myself that every country has its own challenges, and that given how increased my quality of life was here, I was happy to bear the minor inconveniences that came along with my new home.

In my third year living abroad, it became undeniable that Australia heavily relied on the U.S., with their military strategy depending on U.S. funding and advice, and large portions of private research grants in critical sectors supported by the State Department. Working at a policy think tank, I noticed a concerning pattern: Defense officials held roundtables on “the future of military partnerships with the U.S.,” embassies prepared two separate four-year plans for each potential U.S. presidential candidate, and finance offices struggled to finalize their budgets until the U.S. Congress determined aid amounts. It seemed, and still seems, that no matter which country I’m meeting with or who I’m speaking to, the reach of the U.S. was inescapable.

Even as the headlines continued to roll in with mentions of Donald Trump’s felony convictions and Joe Biden’s mental fitness, I began to miss home. Sure, the current political environment was turbulent and the American people were divided over serious issues, but I missed feeling like my vote made a difference in the nation that was able to call the shots. People abroad were electing officials and making decisions about their own country, but still were unable to fully decide for themselves critical topics given the U.S. 's funding or involvement in the decision. 

And the more I interacted with people abroad, the more I saw the positives of the U.S. I met disaster relief victims in Fukushima, Japan where the U.S. Agency for International Development had helped them with medical care when the Japanese government wasn’t doing enough. I met victims of concentration camps in Taiwan who lauded the American military for providing protection against dictator aggression. I met school children of Cambodian girls who were recipients of American scholarships and would not have had the ability to attend school otherwise. 

It was in these moments that the turbulent events in D.C. and the bombardment of headlines felt small. These people didn’t see America as a lost cause nor a vast wasteland of political corruption and division. They felt a life-changing, positive impact as a result of the U.S.’s generosity. I began to question when I started feeling disillusioned and why the international community seemed more patriotic than I did.

When I watched the Olympics last month, I got a glimpse of the national unity I wish we had more of. It was exhilarating to see Team USA dominate events like swimming or gymnastics. Even when our athletes are losing or performing poorly, we cheer them on with unwavering faith that they can do better. We don't view their failures as a reflection of our nation's worth, but rather as opportunities to improve and come back stronger.  Living abroad has made me realize that the grass isn't greener on the other side—it’s green where you water it. My time abroad has taught me that escape is not worthwhile and not the answer. I feel certain now, more than ever, that despite our vast internal difference, our values and contributions are worth fighting for.

In one of the final scenes of Titanic, the steward asks Rose her name. Rose realizes she will now start a new life on her own terms. She takes a deep breath, looks up toward the Statue of Liberty and replies: “Dawson. Rose Dawson.”

When I watched that scene, I paused the screen and replayed it again and again. I shed bitter tears. Would I ever get to do that? Would the day come when I find the exit of this confusing maze, the moment when I take a deep breath and announce “This is the true me”?

It was one trigger of many that constantly pervade my thoughts in my double life as a secretly non-believing Hasid. Every day, I feel like a prisoner of my own existence.

It wasn’t always this way.

Growing up in a Hasidic home, I found solace and deep meaning in the Hasidic lifestyle. Without television or movies—and a self-sufficient ecosystem from schools and businesses to medical services and welfare organizations—the community’s deliberate isolation created a reality in which the outside world was irrelevant. It was almost like an entire country within a city. I found fulfilment within those boundaries through meditation, Torah study, and prayer.

When I turned 19, my father told me that a girl had been suggested for me, and I concurred that I was ready to go ahead. We were engaged on the same day we met, and are now 10 years married.

Discovering the internet was a new lease on life and there was no going back.

My wife and I are very different personality types; that was clear from the get go. But as a pious, young, idealistic Hasid, what I sought in a wife was someone whose religious values aligned with my own and with whom I could hold a conversation. Marriage, we were taught, was to build a sanctuary for God where we would pursue good deeds and raise a good family.

Shortly after our wedding, our daughter was born and I took a job. It was then that I met the internet for the first time. 

On the dreaded internet, I learned about comparative religion, evolution, and biblical criticism. I would binge-watch Simon Cowell’s talent shows, and I loved the creativity and the narratives of people from simple backgrounds who were achieving their dreams. I was also taken by the melting pot of cultures and beliefs that these shows represented. The more I watched them, the more I realized that contrary to what we’d been taught all along, non-Jews were not our secret enemies and we could be part of everything that capitalism had to offer.

I was astounded to discover a thriving, colorful society; a world where freedom and enlightenment were core values, not pejoratives; where individual expression was virtuous rather than a problem; where people-pleasing was a failure and pleasure a common goal. For me, it was a new lease on life and there was no going back.

When I was immersed in the internet, I imagined myself as a free man. I was pursuing my artistic calling, learning all the latest fashion trends, and looking cool and sexy. I was in university filling my thirsty mind with knowledge of a world I now realize I knew nothing about, all the while dancing the nights away with friends at the nightclubs. I was traveling the world, seeing places I had learned about on YouTube, and marveling at the astounding diversity of the human race. I was falling in love with a beautiful woman so deeply that she had the power to break my heart. I was watching my daughter chase her dreams in a world where girls had unprecedented opportunities.

But then reality would hit me like a ton of bricks. One look in the mirror and I’d see a Hasidic man sporting a strange hairstyle and a large black velvet yarmulke, locked in an arranged marriage with a wife I was sincerely trying to love and a child who was being raised in what I saw as a cult.

I live with an endless circle of self-doubt: the pull to isolate myself from my community.

I saw a man who had missed those carefree college years of exploration and achievement, instead completing a military-style, dawn-to-dusk religious studies program in an isolated yeshiva campus away from the “impure street.” My modest academic goals were way out of my reach, because how would I start from scratch as a married man with family responsibilities who had spent most waking hours from age 12 to 24 studying ancient Aramaic-language Jewish texts? How could I escape the insufferable existence of living with people whose values I did not share and whose customs I did not believe in, and having to keep silent and just fit in? Even the future of my marriage seemed bleak since the main common ground we had held—our values and worldview—were no longer common at all.

I could not just divorce and do my own thing. That would be catastrophic, as most people who left the community lifestyle simultaneously lost their children for good. That was a prospect my heart could not tolerate.

Once I had tasted from the forbidden fruit, I was cursed. I was tied by an impossible knot to my wife through my daughter, and I could not fulfill my dreams. I tried to hide it from my wife, but after some time I realized that if I was a prisoner in my own home, my life was not worth living. I braced, and told her.

Many other “double-lifers” have been forced to divorce their spouses, and I was expecting the same. To my amazement, my wife looked me in the eyes and said, “I love you the way you are and I want the marriage to remain intact.” Our relationship was one of mutual respect and companionship, she asserted, even above faith. We reached an agreement that in private I could do things like using my phone on Shabbos (one of the most outrageous transgressions), but in front of my wife and daughter I would remain observant, and we would have an ultra-orthodox household. 

Initially, her rare open-mindedness was a weight off my shoulders, but my relief has been short-lived. I still have to live with this cognitive dissonance every day of my life.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to appreciate every small step that I achieve. The soul-wrenching but rewarding experience of trusting and connecting with new like-minded friends, learning how to use gym equipment, finding hobbies and talents, and progressing through education starting from secondary school level. The courage and patience taking the baby-steps transition to a neater and trendier look when I’m outside and alone in the neighborhood, while simultaneously trying to adhere to the Hasidic dress code. The constant self-reassurance that there’s nothing wrong with me even though people whisper behind my back. 

I so appreciate every person with whom I’ve crossed paths who doesn’t judge me for my sometimes awkward character, questionable fashion sense, or wide-eyed curiosity as I peek out from under the rock. I appreciate the support organization for ex-Hasids that gave me career advice and an amazing therapist to whom I owe so much, and those ex-Hasids who have provided invaluable guidance and more than anything, for giving their heart.

Still, I live with an endless circle of self-doubt: the yearning; the pull to isolate myself from the community and familiarize myself with mainstream colloquialisms, etiquette, values, and way of life; the urge to escape the ritual purity laws which prohibit my wife and me to touch or even hand something over for two weeks each menstrual cycle, a cruel game that often causes me to shut down sexually, causing us both distress. I constantly battle against the choice I’ve made to live with these sacrifices for my lovely daughter, so that she has a doting father, and so that I can open her mind to more moderate ideologies and acceptable values. But should I be forfeiting my happiness for hers?

This is not just my story. This is the story of scores of Hasidic men and women, some who I know, many that I don’t. Double-lifers, as we’re called, exercise extreme caution and suspicion before deciding to open up to anyone, even close friends. The consequences of being outed can be brutal.

But we are here. I’m here.

The Doe is pleased to announce that we have been awarded a 2024 dotCOMM award!

The dotCOMM Awards are judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP), and are an international competition celebrating excellence in web creativity and digital communications.

The Doe is pioneering the use of anonymous storytelling on social media, and the dotCOMM Awards have honored this work with a Gold Award in the social media marketing category for our creative use of video. 

The Doe is a digital publication sharing anonymous, heart-centered narratives to promote empathy across divides. In order to truly build empathy, someone has to imagine themselves in another's shoes. Our physical representations—race, gender, appearance—often keep us from getting there. Enter anonymous storytelling, which is key in empathy-building across tough topics like politics, reproductive rights, parenting, money, and religion. 

Creating a trove of anonymous stories in text is executable without many barriers, but our team knew we needed to be in the spaces our audience already was in order to truly make a difference. This means social video, a personality-driven platform that is inherently disconnected from anonymous storytelling. The team tried several formats on Instagram and TikTok, landing on a man-on-the-street format where they ask passersby: “What would you tell us if you were anonymous?” People respond in the moment, with a white sheet concealing their identity, creating an authentic connection. 

Those who share their stories with The Doe often thank our team members for asking. By providing a safe space for authentic storytelling, the series has sparked meaningful discussions, with viewers frequently sharing how these stories have helped them navigate their own experiences.

Establishing itself as the premier destination for anonymous publishing online, The Doe stands out as a beacon for those seeking to share their stories with the world in a safe and impactful way, and we are thrilled this work is appreciated by our peers in the publishing industry.

This story is based on an interview with the editors of The Doe.

I was 23 when I got married, and he was 20. We only dated for maybe nine or ten months before we got married. It wasn’t the most romantic thing: We were living in Georgia and after he left the Navy for medical reasons, he got a job offer in Oregon. I figured, Maybe we should get married, because if I move with you to Oregon I'll just be stuck there, so marriage might make it harder to break up. I didn't have any prospects of getting out of town on my own. So the idea of picking up and going on this adventure to Oregon seemed like a great idea. 

At the time I thought we were a really good couple. We seemed to match up in a lot of ways, and I had not dated a lot of people before him. Early in our relationship, he had mentioned a couple times that he didn't think monogamy was natural, that most people would be nonmonogamous were it not for society. I was never religious or anything, but I didn't have great self-esteem. The idea of being married felt safe. I thought of it as a security thing, so I never considered not being monogamous. And he didn't push it. 

When we first moved to Oregon, I had a hard time getting a job, so there was a bit of a struggle there because we were really poor for a while. We fought a lot because of our financial situation. Then my mom got cancer and she moved up to Oregon to get treatment. I had never really wanted kids before, but I decided this would be the moment I needed to do it, because my mom was still there, in remission, and I knew she’d like to have grandkids. I had my babies within two years of each other, and then my mother’s cancer came back when I was pregnant with the second one. She got super-sick and passed away right after my second child was born.

That started another period of me and my husband having issues because we no longer had a third adult to help in the household, along with the stress of my mom dying and us having two young kids. My husband was very attentive when they were little tiny babies. He liked to take care of them and it was very sweet. But after my mom passed away, he wasn't great with housework or cleaning, so that was a big issue in our house. 

When I was 34 years old, I had a really strong depressive episode. I started therapy and working really hard on myself and dealing with my self-esteem issues I had struggled with most of my life. About a year after that, I decided that I was in a really good place mentally; he and I were getting along pretty well and the kids were doing well and it probably felt the best that we had ever felt.

The more I enjoyed time with other people and I was happy, the angrier he would get at me.

I started thinking about what I was missing and what I had let go of, and this was when I started researching nonmonogamy on my own—listening to podcasts and reading articles and joining a Facebook group about it. I had always felt bisexual and I had never experimented with women, and there were other sexual activities that he was not interested in that I would like to do with somebody else. I was trying my best to emotionally prepare for it, to make sure that I was ready to risk any problems or negative feelings that came up. I researched for probably six months before I brought it to him. He was pretty excited about it. He thought it was a great idea. 

Meanwhile, our sex life hadn’t been great. There had been periods where we were kind of passionate, but generally it wasn't ideal for me. He wasn't great at taking direction or criticism. So after trying to explain what I wanted and needed in many ways, I just sort of gave up and went with it because he would get offended and frustrated. It was mostly maintenance for a long time after, especially after we had kids—that is, I didn't really enjoy it. I just did it so that he would be satisfied and in a better mood. 

I had a lot of ideas going into non-monogamy. I wanted to talk about sexual health and ground rules. He participated in our conversations but didn't have a lot of input. Eventually we decided to go for it and date separately. I honestly didn't know how it would go at first. He went on the first date and it was super-long—I remember he didn't come home till 1 in the morning. But it felt fine. I was happy for him. I was getting all the details and I thought it was really cool. 

After that, though, he didn’t really date anybody. He would go on a first date every once in a while, but nothing really took off. And meanwhile I had two ongoing relationships. One of them was with my girlfriend, who I’m still with today. I read her dating profile, and I remember thinking it was perfect. I read it aloud to my husband. I was like, “This person sounds amazing.” My husband was really excited and was like, “Yeah, go for it.” We started seeing each other at least once a week. 

Then, after the pandemic, I started seeing a friend of mine that I used to work with. We fell in love and I began a romantic relationship with him, too. He is busy with work and he has a wife and has stuff going on, but we see each other maybe twice a month. 

At first my husband was fine with these relationships, and he was friendly with both of them. But then we started to have tension between us. My husband was seeing a lady whose schedule was super-busy, so he could only see her once a month. We started fighting because she’d text him and say “I’m free tomorrow,” but I would have to work or I’d already have plans. He was really angry at me for not accommodating that schedule. He also blamed me that he had such a difficult time dating because I had held back on the polyamory for so long. 

If I had never been polyamorous, I wouldn't have known all the cracks and the bad parts of my marriage.

Eventually, we were fighting about everything. The more I enjoyed time with other people and I was happy in general, the angrier he would get at me. He would be really frustrated when I was happy. He would also accuse me of trying to "win at polyamory," which really bothered me. It wasn't a game to me; I just wanted everyone to be happy. I was developing a really healthy relationship with my girlfriend and falling in love with her in a way that I had not experienced before. We cared about each other and thought about each other a lot and it was such a struggle to do all those things with my husband. My other relationships all felt really healthy and nice, and home was just getting more and more stressful and upsetting.

At one point my husband said we should stop dating other people. And I said, “I can't do that.” We got in a really long, angry fight. He said some harsh, mean things about intimacy and our connection, so I stopped having sex with him, because he was very cruel about it, and I didn't feel safe or good about it anymore. 

Before the holidays in 2022, he had a breakdown. We had a huge fight during which he admitted to some extreme mental health issues that had been going on a while and he was having difficulty taking care of the kids. I stopped working and didn't leave the kids alone with him again after that fight. I was trying to just be present at home and help take care of him and give him space. Shortly after Christmas, he got really aggressive with me—didn’t touch me, but he was very scary and threatened to hurt himself. His doctor talked him into going to an inpatient hospital. I hoped that it would help, but it didn’t; he was just as bad as soon as he got home.

And so I started working on an escape plan. I wasn't working. I didn't have money. Our only income was his disability check. I reached out to a lawyer and he got served divorce papers about three months later. That night went really badly—he screamed at me and was threatening me—so I took the kids and went to a hotel. He cut off my access to our bank account, and I only had a little bit in my own bank account. I technically was on medical leave through my job, but I went ahead and quit fully, so I got my 401k to live on until I figured out the divorce situation. 

I stayed with my partners off and on, or we would stay in a hotel for a few days, and then, after a few weeks of us hopping around, we stayed in a domestic violence shelter near where we lived. We stayed there for a month. Eventually I was granted custody of the house and the kids. My plan was to sell the house, so we could both live on that money and start a new life with it. After he vacated the house, I realized he’d trashed it. The place was a disaster. The whole thing was really scary. 

During this time, my partners helped a lot. They pitched in to clean and fix up my house. They all just jumped in to help me. I would've understood if they'd run off, but they didn't. They stuck around to get me get settled in my new apartment. They saved me.

I feel like if I had never been polyamorous, I wouldn't have known all the cracks and the bad parts of my marriage. Until I had a real relationship with my girlfriend and saw what a healthy relationship was, I didn't realize how unhealthy my marriage was. And I thoroughly enjoy polyamory. I love seeing my girlfriend with her husband and how much she loves him. I love seeing my partner with his wife and how much they love each other. I feel very welcomed into their families. The kindness and love that I found inside the polyamory community was more than I ever thought I would have. I don’t really have much family, so the people that I had gathered in my journey in polyamory were who really got me through the worst time in my life. 

I don't think polyamory caused the end of my marriage. I think me being happy and growing caused the end of my marriage. When I say I'm divorced, people who don't understand would think, “Oh, the polyamory is why.” That’s not why. I would have been miserable in my marriage longer or eventually left anyway. I'm sure my husband may blame polyamory because he thought we were okay before that, but it helped me see the bad stuff. 

Polyamory is not for everybody. Luckily it went well for me. I found myself in it and I feel very happy. I've learned life is short, and I know now that I'll always be polyamorous.

Growing up in a developing country with limited opportunities, my mom always said, “If you are going to do something, give it your best, even when no one is watching.” She also used to say, “Hard work will get you places.” I’ve always stuck to those mottos in my professional journey. But my most recent boss came into my life to test me to my very core. 

I work as a marketing executive in the hospitality industry for one of the most influential resorts in Central America. I have been working with my current boss for about three years, and she is the sad inspiration behind this story. I did not always have the same boss or anxiety to work under someone content with the bare minimum. After almost two years in a management position, I felt accomplished. I worked for a fabulous resort chain, earned a decent amount of money, and had great co-workers. At least, that’s what  I tell myself repeatedly to try to compensate for my boss’ lack of management skills. 

In my first month as a new young manager, my dislike and disapproval toward my boss grew. I began full of creative ideas to lead the team and help position the resort on the world map. As part of my new role, I would oversee one marketing associate's work, guide her to help achieve the annual goals, review her drafts before they went live, and continue to execute many tasks that stemmed from my previous role—anything communications-related. 

When the new hire came into the office, my boss said, "Anything that you don't want to do, give it to the new one." I felt my heart pumping blood faster, and the heat grew more assertive. I went home that day thinking maybe she saw me similarly: I existed on the team to execute the tasks she did not want to do.

These feelings of discontent are building up inside me like cancer. I am afraid someday I may explode.

Months went by, and I continued to live by the mottos my mom had taught me —even if my boss did not see it. I was the type of employee who would stay in the office past 7 p.m. to make sure the product campaigns were complete and on-brand, even when that meant no extra hours would be compensated or acknowledged by my direct supervisor. 

I began noticing how I would clock in every day at 8 am and out at 7 pm, while my boss would arrive at 9:30 am and leave before 4 pm. She would say, "I have a doctor's appointment," "I am not feeling well," or "Something happened to my cat" daily. I felt guilty for comparing her work schedule to mine, but at the same time, we were obligated by law to clock the same amount of hours. 

I began to get angry when she would say she’d  do things "at home" to justify leaving earlier; the next day, she would say, "I forgot to do it, but I will do it today." This felt like a cold bucket of ice dropped on me on a Sunday morning. It was cruel to me and others that she was not upholding the company's values and the most basic ethical standards. I have never said this to her face, not even during one-on-ones or performance reviews, because how could I approach this nicely? And more importantly, how could I not get fired for doing so? And why should I be following up with her tasks when she is the boss?

I try to vent to my friends, because otherwise, I will choke. These feelings of discontent are building up inside me like cancer. I am afraid someday I may explode. As a person, my boss is great: She lets you take sick days without feeling guilty, she checks in about your weekend, and when she feels in the mood, she steps up and is capable. The problem is that she doesn’t show up for her team. With her, it’s more like a once-in-a-while occasion. 

Here’s a sample Monday at my job: I have to brace myself with patience and a strong poker face because every Monday at 9am, she is not ready for our one-on-one meeting. she asks, “Can you give me ten more minutes?” she asks. “I need to send an email.” Later, she says, “Sorry, I did not have time to prepare for the meeting. Do you mind reviewing your list first?” After careful points raised by me, she says, “Oh yes, I had that on my list to discuss today.” At that point, 30 minutes into the meeting, I start praying:

“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.”

After that prayer, I have about an hour to decompress over lunch right before another meeting with the whole team. This meeting can go two ways: She either did not prepare and will let us know with the usual “I did not have time to prepare for the meeting,” or she did not prepare and will say, “I don’t have anything to add, you can begin with your updates for the week.” After we are all done talking about our updates, I usually get emails from her asking for short turnover times because she forgot to communicate with me about the specific task. 

I feel stressed and disappointed that this has become my work environment. Every week, I am either anxious due to lack of planning and communication, or mad that I haven’t found a different job. What gets me into this spiral of distress is that I love what I do, my team, and the company. Having an uninspiring, unassertive, irresponsible, and careless boss strips me of my passion and motivation to improve and be the best version of myself. It feels like we are all on a canoe, each with a paddle, but the person leading us is lost. 

I began attending mass more often. There is someone who will listen. My boss has brought me closer to God; I thank her for that. I prepare my armor on Sundays, and hope that the coming week will be better than the last one. When the clock hits 9pm, I make my bed and crawl to my dreams to put my anxiety to bed. Then Monday starts again, and my boss is there to remind me of my mottos.

I was spending the weekend in Paris. While enjoying my first coffee of the day in a cozy Parisian café, I got a text from a guy I barely know. He congratulated me on my coming out as a trans woman on the social media app Threads.

I was a bit confused. 

First of all, I haven’t come out as trans to anyone in a long time. I’m privileged with looking very feminine and with starting my transition from male to female at a young age, which has erased most, if not all, male traces from my body and from my life. Nowadays, I live a feminine life and only mention my past if truly necessary or through creative writing in essays like these.

Second, I don’t use Threads. 

I thanked him for his support and then asked him how exactly he gathered this bit of information. He told me about a Threads profile in my name, with my pictures.

Over the last five days, a person had been living a fictional life in my name on the app on which they posted all sorts of comments and pictures. Some of these posts had gathered almost 500 likes.

I gasped. I felt a sweat breaking through the outer layer of my skin, and I dropped the croissant on the plate in front of me. I took a deep breath and started a deep dive into this fake profile.

The fact that someone lived a secret life in my name—it scared me in a way I’d never felt before.

At first, it appeared that this person’s main goal was to speak up about transgender rights. My impersonator posted things like:

Let’s make this clear once and for all: trans women are women, trans men are men.

The impersonator continued by posting a couple of pictures of me wearing a bikini. I recognized them from my personal Instagram account. The caption was: 

Tell me why you wouldn’t call me a woman when I look like this.

After that, it got more personal. The impersonator started sharing stories about my dating and sex life. I recognized faint details about a story I once posted, but this person gave their own twist to the story. The impersonator proclaimed that I was going on a date and that the guy in question abused me.

It didn’t stop there. The more I read, the more layers were revealed. Not just of my impersonator’s personality, but also of our modern-day society.

In one of the posts, the impersonator shared a couple of screenshots. They were conversations they had in my name with some men. All the conversations were sexually tinged and the men expressed their interest in sleeping with me in foul ways.

Eventually, the most obvious layer was revealed: the hate comments. Random people who shamed (fictional) me for outing myself so boldly. They proclaimed that I’m an abomination of nature and that I will never be a true woman.

All these revelations left me shaking. My mom saw the panic in my eyes, but I didn’t know how to talk to her about this. The fact that someone lived a secret life in my name, conducted conversations, and started dramas in my name—it scared me in a way I’d never felt before.

I’ve never really been bullied for being transgender and I’ve always tried to stay as far away as possible from negativity, but here it was spelled out for me how hateful some people still are towards people like me.

I’m also not an openly proud fighter for equal rights for LGBTQ+ people. I don’t want to speak up about it with open conversations and big gestures. I do want to educate people about the topic, but in my own way—by writing about it, sharing it through art. I tackled my womanhood as something beautiful, and my transition as something people could learn from.

Now thinking about all of this, I don’t know what frightens me the most: knowing that someone pretended to be me and spoke up about the topic in a way I would never agree to. Or knowing how a part of this society still feels about people like me, despite my beauty, my kindness, and my femininity.

Knowing that people will take my hard-fought work and use the information for things like this, it made me take a step back. For a moment, I lost hope for a better, more equal future.

A couple of days after the incident, I put all my accounts on private. The fake account got deleted and the impersonator disappeared. I typed in the name one last time and found some mentions of people asking where she went. They were worried about her. They showed their love and support for her and hoped that everything was okay. I considered commenting on their posts to tell them the truth, but I didn’t.

I closed the app, deleted it, and let her name die out.

I read a lot of celebrity autobiographies. I am fascinated by who they were when the camera wasn't focused on them, and at first I expected to find stories of trauma-filled childhoods, bullying, and prejudice. To my utter surprise, most of the books I read had nothing like that in them.

I realized it wasn't the story they wanted to tell. Some do spill the tea on their growing pains, but for the majority, that isn't the narrative they want to be associated with. At some point I started to wonder if I could adopt the same mindset. It's opened up a new level of awareness about myself and the world around me.

For as long as I can remember, I've always stammered. My uncle came to live with us when I was little, and my siblings and I learned it from him. They shed theirs before they finished primary school, but I stammered on. I was young and oblivious, so I never noticed that the way I spoke wasn't normal until I was eight years old.

I was caught in some shenanigans with my friends and was brought to the headmistress and when I tried to explain myself, she ridiculed me. That was the start of the many torments I endured throughout my life.

Six months ago, if anyone were to ask me about my life experience with this impediment, I would regale the person with the myriad abuses I've faced. From friends, family, and strangers. At school, at work, or in public places. I've had people stare at me as though I had the plague or treat me like I had learning difficulties. Kids would point at me, whisper, and giggle. I've heard unkind things uttered right in my presence. I've also had memories I've forced out of my consciousness because they are too painful to retain.

There were so many things I wanted to do, but “what would people think?” always resonated in my mind.

I won't tell those stories anymore because I have a better story of compassion. Of joy, awareness, and acceptance. And change.

Growing up, I had a confidence that stammering didn't erode or diminish. It had me putting my hands up in school, waving it with gusto so that my teacher picked me to answer questions. Not only that, I was carefree and boisterous, which eased the effects of the jabs from my peers. Really, smarts and confidence are all you need for a positive school experience. I had no trouble making friends because I'd let everyone copy off my assignments and tests.

However, adulthood smacked the sureness away, and I began to melt into my environment, pussyfooting around everything. At the university, I wasn't shy, but I kept to myself and tried never to attract attention. There were so many things I wanted to do—activities I wanted to participate in, offices I wanted to run for—but “what would people think?” always resonated in my mind, and that was how I robbed myself of a rich university experience.

I was so absorbed in myself that I became disconnected from the class camaraderie. Once, a friend told me that everyone thought of me as an alien because I didn't mix with them. I was so surprised. For so long, I had been drowning in self-pity and self-sabotage because I assumed everyone didn't think I was good enough. I didn't realize that I was missing some key ways my fellow students tried to make me feel comfortable.

Throughout my life, many people have been kind about my stammer. My peers at the university always accommodated me. In group presentations, they would give me the smallest portions, or they would whisper to the lecturers to go easy on me.

My siblings have never made me feel bad about myself, and neither have my friends, though I hate when they finish sentences for me. My parents’ ham-fisted attempts to force me to speak with fluency caused me a great deal of shame and pain growing up, but now, they no longer sigh unhappily whenever I struggle to get words out. They just behave as normally as possible.

So far, it's never affected my dating life. Once I braved it and asked a boyfriend what he thought about it, and he replied blankly, "What?" I guess it's because I stammer less than before. I watch a lot of TED Talks, and I practice fluency by copying the speakers.

Currently, I work as a nurse, and I do get furrowed eyebrows, sometimes mocking smiles when I struggle to get syllables out, but I don't let it get to me. I just think about my progress, and it uplifts me. It's not my fault, and certainly not my problem that the other person is insensitive.

I am working towards a hundred percent fluency, because I want a better life. Stammering really cramps my style; I can't tell a joke well, people judge me at first impression, I can't be vociferous or argue convincingly. When I try to rush out words, it seems like I'm having a fit. I also try to avoid public confrontations because the other person would make mincemeat out of me. Nursing wasn't my first-choice career—it was journalism. I wanted to report news on TV or do interviews, and I still do.

To all of you who know people who stammer, be supportive. Encourage them to love and be kind to themselves, and also strive to be better.

One of my high school teachers humiliated me by forcing me to conduct the morning assembly. Another teacher took me into her office and counseled me to always take a deep breath before I speak. I met a guy in his thirties with a debilitating stammer, and his behavior was really pitiful. It was almost as if he had no self-esteem. I was sure he had more people like my first teacher in his early life than the one who encouraged me.

It hurts to have words and dreams in your heart and not in your reality. Let us all be better.

I didn’t intend to be a 28-year-old woman who has never been in a romantic relationship. When I was younger, I figured that by this age I would have already been coupled up at least once. I’ve been out with a couple of people that didn’t last past two or three dates, had friends introduce me to single friends of theirs, and had an almost-relationship with a man who lived overseas (I realized early on that a long-distance boyfriend was not for me). I’ve even tried to meet someone at in-person events, but nothing came out of them except for new friends to follow on Instagram.

Being single at this age is why I relate so much to the character of Penelope Featherington in the Bridgerton Netflix series, despite having some dating experience and already having my first kiss. Like Penelope, I can’t flirt, let alone keep direct eye contact, with a man I find attractive. I can’t tell when a man is flirting with me or just being kind. I, too, am a woman on the curvier side who is still learning to appreciate her figure. I am what they would call in Penelope’s time a “spinster”— “a woman who seems unlikely to marry,” according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. 

While the average marrying age in 2024 is far later than during the Regency Era, I thought I would have been further ahead by now. And in my hometown in Canada, which is the capital city of my province, there is still quite the societal expectation to get married in a person’s twenties or at least attempt a long-term committed relationship. Once you hit your late twenties, in my hometown, it’s expected that one has gone through all the necessary steps it takes to get into a relationship: date around, be in a relationship for a certain number of years, possibly get engaged and be married. So far I have only gone as far as dating, and while most of the time I feel neutral about not having experienced a committed relationship, I do feel like I’m missing out on a big part of life that a lot of my peers have experienced.

There’s always a part of me that wonders if I’ll get to experience finding my person.

When I eventually tell people (usually with a lot of hesitation) that I’ve never been in a committed relationship, I get mixed reactions from the people I confide in. Some are surprised, some people look/feel sorry for me, and sometimes people’s default coping mechanism is countering it with positivity. I get comments like, “You’ll find someone someday” or “There’s plenty of fish in the sea!” 

Perhaps they’re secretly wondering how such a thing could happen in the connected world we live in today. Maybe you’re wondering, too.

When I was a child, I didn’t dream about having kids or being married when I got to this age.  My big dream for my adult self was to live independently in a big city and live my life the way I wanted to. In high school, I was a studious and goal-driven student. I was involved in many student clubs, had a good group of friends, and hobbies that kept me busy. I wasn’t entirely closed to the idea of being in a romantic relationship, but I also wasn’t focusing all my energy in seeking one out. And growing up as a child of protective Filipino immigrant parents, I got the message early on that it was important to focus on school before I started to date. High school came and went without me getting into a romantic relationship. I could have rebelled and secretly dated like many of my friends who also had protective Filipino immigrant parents, but I didn’t feel the need to, as I was enjoying spending time with my friends.

When I started university, my pool of possibly finding a romantic partner widened. There were attractive guys everywhere. However, I didn’t know how to flirt nor recognize when someone was flirting with me; I tended to think they were just being polite. I had hoped that I would meet someone organically and start dating that way. But apart from a crush on a close university friend, nothing transpired.  

After graduation, I decided it was time to date for the first time and use dating apps. My dating experience started during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. I met some great guys and some not-so-great guys, but none of them led to a relationship. During this period, I had my first kiss and make-out session, and touched a man’s body (this is when I realized that I like men who have nicely defined and muscular biceps along with a kind personality). I eventually found that dating apps made me feel overwhelmed and not quite myself when I was on them—which, after talking to my girlfriends, is apparently a common experience. The constant rollercoaster of trying to figure out if the other person likes you, if they’ll reply, and if they’ll ask you out for another date was excruciating.

I have a mix of friends who are single like me, in long-term relationships, married, and engaged. It has been wonderful to see their relationships progress from someone they were still deciding on to someone they can’t imagine being without. I’m always genuinely happy to see my friends thrive and find someone to love. But I’ll admit that there’s always a part of me that wonders if I’ll get to experience finding my person someday. 

If you had asked teenage me, she would say she was ashamed that she hadn’t gotten to experience romantic love by this age. However, being single for this long has allowed me to redirect the energy, attention and love finding a significant other to my friends, family, and ultimately myself. I know that if I hadn’t had this time to deepen my relationships with friends and family, my relationships with them would be entirely different.

I’ve also had a lot of time to build a deeper connection with myself, understand what qualities I want in a significant other, and come to accept if a romantic relationship is not fated for my life. I am not ashamed of my singlehood anymore, because my life is full of the other types of love - familial love, friendship love, and self-love.