Dating : I Conducted A Controlled Experiment And Found the One Common Factor In All My Failed Relationships…

They may have left me on read, but I was the one caught red-handed.

Background and Motivations for the Study

Like many women, I’ve spent countless hours in therapy unpacking why men continue to lead me on, let me down, or temporarily use me to fulfill their unmet emotional needs. But despite years of paying older women hundreds of dollars to feed me theories about why men abruptly stop responding to my attempts to contact them via texts, calls, and ten cent Venmo payments, I’ve always had the nagging feeling that maybe it wasn’t them — maybe it’s me.

Hypothesis and Methods

The instructions for this assignment were to develop an experiment to explore whether correlation implies causation. I posited: might there be a causal relationship between my presence and the failure of my relationships? In this experiment, I will test my hypothesis by developing a log of all my failed romantic endeavors, and assessing whether I was involved. Several excerpts follow, and a full list can be found in Appendix A.

Findings

Trial 1, September 17th, 2002, 12:16 pm: Bobby and I got married during recess before he said we had to annul our marriage when his parents found out I wasn’t Catholic and because I smelled like onions.
Was I There?: Count me Catholic guilt-y, ’cause that one was me. And yeah, I did smell like onions. At least we both wept that day.

Trial 2, May 13th, 2013, 9:08 pm: Ricky took me to the prom, only for me to catch him making out with my friend Shelby in the bathroom stall. The theme was A Global Affair, and indeed it was. Shelby was an exchange student from Toronto.
Was I There?: You bet. Who came into the bathroom to adjust her strapless bra underwire before it cut off circulation? Yep. Yours truly. Honestly, I could have avoided being there for that one if I didn’t just have to have the sweetheart neckline.

Trial 3, March 4th, 2018, 1:04 am: Gary asked me to go to EDM concerts with him every weekend for three months, only to tell me he couldn’t possibly have time to date while he put together his portfolio for art school.
Was I There?: You know, I really thought I had a square alibi for that one, given that he told me he needed space for a few months to paint me from memory, but the evidence is in the Instagram DMs folks. Who responded “blonde! :)))” when Gary texted “hey what color was your hair lol”? No amount of drug store hair dye could hide the fact that that one was also me.

Trial 4, June 4th, 2020, 3:27 pm: My crush from middle school band messaged me on LinkedIn saying “Hey! Congrats on two years in your position!” Naturally, I flew across the country to show up at his door unannounced, but strangely, the girl at the door said he wasn’t home and she thought she had made that clear last year. Realizing that he probably had the same idea as me, I’ve been waiting for him to show up at my door with flowers ever since.
Was I There?: Still here!

Conclusions

When I look back at every moment of disappointment, betrayal, or sudden abandonment, I can’t help but observe that they all have one thing in common: I was there. After years of using my subjective feelings to blame men, it feels good to finally face the facts. I mean honestly — Ricky was a drama kid, Gary was a skater boy, and Bobby was a 7-year old. They had nothing in common. It is hard to accept that I am the independent variable causing failure in my relationships. But at least this gives me a path to move the state of the practice forward. For my next steps, I will transition from being an independent variable to an independent woman. Now that science has confirmed that I am inherently flawed and no one could ever love me, I can devote my energy to the additional research identified by this project, which includes whether I was there for my failed career pursuits or for the deaths of all of my plants.