Thrill of the Chase

Several months ago, when a grown man proved himself a coward and disappeared into the ether rather than face me with the simple admission that he did not want to see me again, I gave up. That incident, on the coattails of so many others, made me lose my ability to hope for something better than what I’ve been getting. But it made me lose something else as well – something I’ve clung to and justified since I developed my first crush on a boy.


I’ve lost the will to chase.

Ladies aren’t supposed to chase. Men are “biologically designed” to do the pursuing, and we are supposed to sit back and let them. Men like a challenge. They like a little mystery. They will never “buy the cow when they can get the milk for free”.

But I’ve never been that girl. I have always been the girl who was generous with her body and her emotions and her home-cooked meals. Who was not afraid to talk to a stranger or ask a boy for his number. I was motivated by a fear that if I didn’t make the first move, no one ever would. All those times I made the first move made me confident and vibrant and comfortable in my own skin. 

As a result I have manifest that fear into reality, because men do not want to approach a woman that rock-solid, unless they are looking for a glass of milk.

By giving up “the chase” – and internet dating, and hoping for Prince Charming and replacing it with the mantra, “I will not chase”, I have left my romantic future entirely to chance. This is new, and it’s scary and freeing and utterly calming. I have Rachel to thank for this. It was at her bidding that I made my final call to GDGuy letting him know that I would not be contacting him again. “Let him know you’re not going to chase him,” she said. And she was right.

Not long after I went on a couple of outings with a tall funny guy who liked to kiss me and desperately wanted to take me home with him. But weeks would go by without a word between us, and I did not feel us getting any closer – or any closer to his bedroom. 

I told myself I would not chase, and it fizzled, because he was more interested in getting me into bed than he was interested in me.

I am repeating the mantra a lot lately, as I navigate through something I assume to be a fling, even though it feels like it’s not. Any time I feel the urge to poke it and dissect it I take a deep breath and whisper, “I will not chase.” As Erin pointed out to me the other night, it’s when we stop hoping and looking for something better that it falls into your lap. So even though I don’t dare hope for something more than what it is, you never know. 

He’ll have to chase me first.