It's My Father's Fault that Dating Me Is So Exhausting

It's kind of my father's fault that dating me, for some, has been so exhausting. Not really, but kinda, lol. 

I mean, even in his absence, he masterminded a one-sided game of crushing my efforts toward creating that father-son bond of which I dreamed and worked for daily. 

I spent nearly 40 years trying to convince him that I was, indeed, as safe to love as Mr. Softy ice cream on humid Baltimore summer afternoons.

And like a soldier, bloody, but unbowed, I nursed the wounds of his tactical ostracization. I became the parent, modeling fatherly behaviors with great hopes that he'd get the lessons and, perhaps, love me as much as he did heroin and cocaine. I repeatedly forgave him, from that time he told me in front of my sisters that I wasn't his son, to the time he said, "Nigga, I told you you ain't my mf'ing son," as I merely tried to share the good news that I had earned my driver's license the day before. I worked my ass off to show him that he was more than the mistakes that he had made. I looked for the same, but it never came. 

Although my father withheld it from me, I was no stranger to love. Early on, for survival's sake I suppose, I began to explore its complexities -- ultimately falling in love with...well...love.

Not the warm-fuzzies of simply loving or being loved, but rather the idea of love as The Divine Force connecting all things. 

My father, however, remained cynical, avoiding love like the plague; demonizing it as an insidious plot, camouflaged as a chubby baby shooting poisonous arrows to make weak fools of Black men. 

But I continued to fight for his love, reaping sinister knock-offs from surrogates who knew I'd take anything just to feel love.

I later moved away to Brooklyn, New York, hoping to escape my self-imposed torment, but ended up burrowing through the city's dirty streets during twilight, searching for others who were searching for me. And on occasion, when I allowed myself to feel for a spell, I'd find my eight-year-old self in the mirror begging me not to leave him. Begging me to see him.

So, I'm sure it comes as no surprise that "I got some stuff with me," which often becomes manifest as fear of abandonment and of rejection. 

Unfortunately, I'm not alone. According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, sons of absent fathers are more likely to suffer emotional problems, face abuse and neglect and abuse drugs and alcohol. And according to The Father Code, men like me have increased rates of divorce and relationship issues. 

Although I've always and very sincerely loved love, I didn't trust her. And when I found her lurking too closely, I'd lace up my Chuck Taylors and run like hell towards the hills and away from the very thing for which I'd incessantly prayed -- Love. Like my father, I had become love's cynic, too scared to believe in her; too scared not to.

At times, I had blindsided amazing partners and potentials, prematurely exaggerated their molehills into mountains and their idiosyncrasies into deal-breakers. Running because they forgot to call me back or say, "I love you," in my time. Disappearing because they didn't like public displays of affection or sitting side-by-side in movie theaters. 

I soon realized that I was the common denominator in my messes, the rogue thread unraveling each of these blessed opportunities to engage love. That I was vulnerably operating from the toxic idea that love, for me, would always feel as tumultuous as it had between me and my father. 

But in my mid-forties, something magical happened. After a seven year-long relationship with one of the greatest guys on earth ended, I began to take inventory of my character, liberating myself through examining my role in our break-up. It wasn't fun. In fact, it was ugly and hurtful. Although we had both made great contributions to the relationship, I realized that I was, and had always been too broken and insecure to love another person.

I started therapy, and yikes! During a session, my therapist -- whom I love like tight hugs and shoulder massages -- admitted to me that he was confused about my practice of forgiving people before ever dealing with the issue I had with them. He told me that I had anger, stemming from my unwillingness to allow myself to feel emotions. And when he asked me how I was able to forgive so easily, admitting that doing so wasn't a part of his personal ministry, I heard myself respond with the following. "Because I've had so much practice." 

Hearing those words come from my mouth broke me down. I cried the ugly cry. The Black funeral cry. I repeated it.

"Because I've had so much practice. I've been forgiving my father all my life."

In that moment, I awoke to the painful reality that I hadn't yet found myself worthy of love. Nope. Mr. Lovebug didn't love himself.  Because I didn't believe myself worthy of love, and was still trying to recover tall he love my father denied me. 

Almost immediately, I began embracing my journey -- the parts that "I" perceived as bad, as lovingly as I had the parts I perceived as good. 

I realized that I had a lot of work to do, starting with apologizing to my eight-year-old self for abandoning him; for neglecting to remind him just how beautiful and perfect he was and had always been. For forgetting to tell him that the same amount of God that was in everybody was in him too.

Although today I am still a    work-in-progress, I am proud to say that I am harvesting the fruits of my labor. My dating experiences have been far more thoughtful, and seemingly less multifarious for those I've dated. 

I make it a practice to initiate each dating experience with total transparency, offering potentials safe platforms from which they may decide if I am, indeed, the type of man with whom they want to be involved. 

And a handsome byproduct of my self-work is that I can finally embrace the truth that everyone has a journey of experiences -- some arguably good and some arguably not so great -- but all purposed in molding them into very special people with much of love to give in their own special ways.


Derrick Watkins is a native Baltimorean and graduate of Morgan State University. He is a freelance writer and photographer, currently writing his debut book For Sons of Absent Fathers, a novel that explores the highs and lows of his experience as the son of an absent father who reached out to Derrick for help and reconciliation when he learned that he was dying of cancer. Derrick's father Leslie died on December 22, 2016, one month after they mended their relationship. Catch Derrick's one man show For Sons of Absent Fathers;A One Man Show on October 15, 2017, 3 p.m., Eubie Blake Cultural Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Let's work together to heal our families and communities. 

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