Dating, Sexual Politics and the Messy Truth About Humanity
As a divorced, self-professed 'emancipated' single mother (one who is in no rush to meet “Mr Right” because I’ve already been and done the gene-pool merging and procreation thing) I’m happily exploring the world of dating. At this particular juncture in my life, and at this notably polarised socio-political moment, I find myself in a uniquely reflective position.
Recently, I’ve been writing a lot about sexual politics, a subject I find increasingly fascinating. The more I date (men!) and the more objectively I reflect on and critique these encounters, the clearer it becomes to me just how and why our world is so utterly f*cked up.
Learning Through Relationships
Since my amicable divorce (we “consciously uncoupled” à la Gwynnie and Chris), I’ve been lucky enough to avoid dating any sociopaths of the magnitude of my ex-boss*. However, I did have one disastrous 18-month relationship that left me, quite literally, homeless, penniless, and hiding from abuse with police involvement and even a hospital visit.
And yet, as painful as that experience was, I can see my part in it. He was not entirely bad, and I was not entirely innocent in creating that dynamic. If I’m brutally honest with myself, I knew the warning signs, but some subconscious part of me thought he was exactly what I needed. The universe, in its perverse wisdom, agreed, because the pain and deep self-reflection that followed forced me to confront my co-dependency and lack of boundaries. That relationship, toxic as it was, pushed me to grow in ways I never would have otherwise.
I can now see that I was seeking a physically strong, practical man who could metaphorically “protect me from the baddies” and - yes - put up shelves or build me a cabin in some hypothetical apocalypse. What I got, though, was that plus a caveman-style streak of coercion and control. At first, his raw masculinity was thrilling, even sexy. But as a radical fourth-wave feminist and avid student of post-colonial literary theory, it became manifestly obvious that we were a dangerous match and that I couldn’t live with him long-term.
The Man Behind the Mask
He wasn’t just a “bad guy.” He was, in many ways, a wonderful, wounded human being, failed by society. His father abandoned him as a baby, and he grew up in a rough East End council flat with a frazzled but loving mother. He and his brother recalled scavenging Oxo cubes for snacks because there was no food. He had raw talent - an uncanny eye for sports (I’ll never forget the very first time he picked up a shotgun and hit 30 out of 30 clays straight off!) but no real opportunities. His school had no playing fields, and he was expelled at 15. Dyslexic and unqualified, he turned to manual labour, then to drugs, both using and dealing.
By the time I met him, he was 13 years clean and sober, having built a small fortune as a property developer after starting out as a carpenter. He’d pieced together his own strange version of personal growth via Joe Rogan podcasts and sheer grit. Despite the chaos of our relationship, I still respect him for that. He was doing his absolute best with the limited map of the world he’d been given.
Most Men Are Lovely
Even with that catastrophe fresh in my mind, I still believe most men are fundamentally lovely. Most are genuinely trying to do their best (for themselves, their families, and the wider world) even when I disagree with them politically or philosophically.
Here’s just a sampling of the men I’ve met 'romantically' in the past three years:
The aforementioned 40-something Eastender, ex-gangster, ex-cocaine addict turned property developer with a deep (if unacknowledged) desire for fatherhood.
A late-40s, ridiculously handsome, sleeve-tattooed French skydiving instructor who has jumped over 10,000 times.
A widowed, 50-something Glaswegian architect, a single dad with health anxiety and a fear of UFO abduction.
A 38-year-old Stirlingshire fencer and part-time farmer whose passions include pub quizzes, pints, and polishing his vintage tractor.
A 33-year-old moustachioed, Benson Boone-lookalike high-stakes poker player and business owner.
A 27-year-old Scottish ice hockey star and mechanical engineer.
A 45-year-old ethically non-monogamous head gardener on a well-known private estate.
A 20-something American collegiate rower (6’3, all muscle, fluent in Mandarin) and aspiring Top Gun pilot.
A 50-something Glaswegian mortgage broker who re-built a business empire after losing everything in 2007/8.
A 39-year-old divorced, painfully “woke” vegan consultant psychiatrist with three degrees from Cambridge (and a compulsive need to frequently remind everyone about them).
A 48-year-old Royal College of Art graduate convinced he’s the ONLY artistic genius to grace our age.
A 38-year-old ex-British army officer and now Blackrock devotee, obsessed with his extensive collection of formal wear and Douglas Murray, private dining clubs, and (if we’re honest) probably in denial about his dating gender preference.
Each romantic encounter has been profound and memorable in its own way - some for their beauty, others for their unsettling truths. But it was the most recent one, with the army officer turned asset manager, that shook me on a cellular level and has been the one that disturbed me (to date) the most.
Douglas Murray and the end of The Fling That Never Was..
So throughout the course of our (one and only) date, he was evangelical about Douglas Murray’s On Democracies and Death Cults. I try to stay open-minded and not jump to uninformed conclusions. So the following week I listened to it cover-to-cover. During our date, I had promised to be objective and not make assumptions about something before having read the source material. But the experience of sun-lounger-listening to Murray (on Audible speaking his own book's words) cast a soul-darkening and sinister shadow over my holiday.
This is the message I sent that ex-cavalry officer - the message that ended our (very brief and entirely unconsummated) fling:
“So, I really tried to give Douglas Murray’s On Democracies and Death Cults a fair shot - Indeed I'm forcing myself to listen to the whole thing - but it’s made me feel physically sick. It’s so menacingly one-sided and dripping with disdain and prejudice against social democracy and wonderful institutions like the UN and NATO and indeed EVERYTHING about the post-WW2 world that I hold dear and am so grateful to have grown up in. I can barely process it without wanting to scream.
I’m genuinely gobsmacked by how awful his thinking is. He cherry-picks history and omits the ragingly obvious fact that Palestinians - particularly Gazans - have been systematically oppressed, psychologically tortured, and robbed of their land since 1949. He writes as if everything heinous that is unfolding in Israel and Gaza began on October 7, as though decades of brutality and displacement just didn’t exist before that horrific terrorist event. It’s gaslighting on a spectacular global scale.
His treatment of Britain’s colonial legacy is equally warped. Murray paints the British Empire as an exclusively benevolent force for good, wiping away any acknowledgment of the catastrophic damage it caused. Britain, after all, was the one to abandon the Israel-Palestine mess to the UN and neighbouring Arab states post WW2. His refusal to see this complexity - his willful blindness - is dangerous. It’s precisely this kind of revisionism that fuels ongoing geo-political conflict.
What’s worse is the palpable disdain he has for anyone outside his narrow definition of acceptable humanity. His distaste, no, disgust for immigrants, Arabs, and anyone who questions the historical actions of the white, male, British elite is staggering. This delusion that Britain’s history is beyond criticism isn’t just wrong - it’s part of the deep rot at the heart of our world. It’s colonial, imperialistic, misogynistic vileness dressed up as intellectualism with the faux-gentlemanly-politeness dial turned up.
The way I see it, Murray’s perspective - and the perspectives of people like him, and there are ‘Douglas Murrays’ in every culture - is why we keep having wars. It’s as though he refuses to learn any lessons from history unless they fit his narrative of national superiority.
His hatred of Islam, his contempt for anyone who isn’t white, British, male, or upper-class, is palpable. And honestly? I can read him like a book. I think all that neo-con, alt-right vitriol stems from a deep inferiority complex, probably rooted in the chip on his shoulder about attending a state school before getting that Eton scholarship, and maybe from unacknowledged fears tied to his sexuality. I’d wager that some part of him believes he has to outdo his pompous, fear-ridden contemporaries in right-wing rhetoric or risk the same fate that befell other phenomenal queer men in history - Alan Turing chemically castrated, Oscar Wilde imprisoned.
Whatever the source of his bile, I just can’t stomach any more of his unobjective nonsense. Listening to him makes my stomach churn. Enough is enough.”
What Dating Teaches Me About Humanity
Dating, for me, has become less about “finding the one” and more about holding up a mirror to the human condition. Every man I’ve met - whether he’s a French skydiver, a poker-playing entrepreneur, or a cavalry officer clinging to Douglas Murray - has taught me something about myself, about power dynamics, about what it means to be alive in this fractured, beautiful, messed-up world.
When I zoom out, I see that our romantic relationships, much like our politics, are just reflections of our collective wounds and hopes. They are mini-theatres where history, class, gender, trauma, and ego all play their parts. Some men carry their pain like armour; others hide behind bravado, intellectualism, or “success.” But underneath it all, most are just trying (imperfectly, vulnerably) to be loved, to feel seen, to matter.
And isn’t that what we all want?
When I think of Generative Humanity, I think of our capacity to create rather than destroy, to build connections rather than walls. Dating a diverse cast of characters has reminded me that generativity begins with curiosity. It begins with saying: "I see you. I may not agree with you, but I want to understand your map of the world and what made you who you are."
That’s not always easy, especially when faced with ideologies as toxic as Murray’s, but I think the real revolution begins in the smallest moments of empathy. It begins when we decide to step out of old patterns (whether they’re co-dependent relationships or colonial worldviews) and instead ask: How can I generate something better? More honest? More human?
So, no, I’m not looking for Mr Right. I’m looking for something much bigger: a conversation that heals, a connection that challenges, and a life lived wide awake.
A Note to You, Dear Reader
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from love, heartbreak, and the chaos of modern dating, it’s this: we are all just stumbling towards connection. Every single one of us—men, women, all genders, all histories - are carrying both wounds and wonders inside us.
The world feels fractured right now, but maybe that’s the invitation. To pause. To see each other, not as political opponents, or romantic prospects, or stereotypes, but as full, complicated human beings who want to feel safe and seen.
So here’s my ask of you: Be brave enough to love people where they are, not just where you wish they’d be. Challenge harmful ideas when you hear them, but also listen deeply - because understanding is not the same as agreeing, and curiosity is not weakness.
If we each take a step towards generosity of heart, if we dare to keep learning (and unlearning), we can create something better. We can build a world - relationship by relationship, conversation by conversation - that is kinder, truer, and more human.
Because, in the end, generative humanity starts with us.
#andsoitis
* experiences with my sociopathic ex-boss warrant a whole article all to themselves... one for another rainy day...
