It Happened To Me: Oldster's Sari Botton Tried To Have A Fling. (An Update To Her Wildly Popular xoJane Experiment.)

"My therapist told me to trade in my safe relationship routine for something radical: casual dating. Here's what happened..." PLUS: How it has all turned out, a decade later...

Hello!

Little-known fact about the writer of today’s Big AJPT Story: Though she is now the Queen of Substack (check out her THREE* hugely successful publications here), she once was a hilarious bare-it-all contributor to my last publication, xoJane.

Thank you, Sari, for continually and generously teaching me how Substack works over the months since I’ve been here. And thank you for being gracious enough to let me publish this NEW and UPDATED version of one of your best xoJane stories. Now, if I can get you to do an update on the piece about your Diet Coke and gum addiction, my life's purpose will be fulfilled.

I love you, Sari! And I thank you for letting me publish your work again!

The rest of you: Enjoy, and I'll be back tomorrow with something I already know you don't want to miss, because you told me so.

xoJane

*She really works her ass off.

Me with my now husband, Brian, shortly after we began dating in October 2003.

By Sari Botton

Have you ever, later in life, gained key insight into an old way you used to behave? It’s kind of mind-blowing, a eureka moment that helps you to better understand—and find greater compassion for—your younger self.

Okay, but how about updated insights, after you’d already thought you had yourself figured out? After you already published personal essays making some kind of sense about your crazy old ways? Let me tell you, it’s a little humbling.

It’s what happened to me several times as I was working on my memoir-in-essays, And You May Find Yourself…Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo. As I worked on the book, the lens through which I wanted to tell all the stories came into sharper focus. I realized what all the pieces had in common was that, earlier in my life, I kept trying to pass myself off as someone I wasn’t (actually a number of someones), shoe-horning my false selves into situations and relationships where I didn’t really belong. It never worked out well for me or any of the other parties involved. And it took me until I was in my mid-40s to even begin to realize that’s what I’d been doing.

About a third of those pieces had been published previously, and they needed to be significantly revised to reflect this new self-awareness. One of those began as a piece I wrote for xoJane in 2012. I wrote it before I fully grasped what my choices and behaviors were about, and so the xoJane version was lighter, and had a slightly different focus.

I’d pitched it as "It Happened to Me: Post 9/11, Clinging to a Fling." The gist of the original essay was along the lines of, "Silly me, I never figured out how to have a fling!" The updated, reprinted here, has some of that. But in my revision, with my newfound wisdom, the bigger take-away became: "I never learned to casually date, but the truth I've come to learn is, that was never going to be for me, and it's okay. And I learned that about myself the hard way, by trying to turn the nice but feckless younger guy I met at a 9/11 vigil into my happily-ever-after..."

I wrote other pieces for xojane back then, too, also with a lighter touch. My greatest hits:

• "Attack of the Killer Gluten-Free Banana Muffins" (about how well-intentioned people always bought me gluten-free baked goods with bananas in them, and I HATE BANANAS)

• "Hi, I'm Sari and I'm a Diet Soda and Sugarless Gum Addict" (I still sometimes get emails from people asking me if I'm still battling this addiction...)

• "Why I Hate Condoms-Aside from the Usual Reasons" (because they reminded me of times I found them on partners who shouldn't have had them, given that we were exclusive and I was on the pill.)

I recall fondly working with the wonderful Emily McCombs [Emily was and is the best editor and person. -Jane] on those pieces. I was so excited the first time she accepted a piece of mine, telling me she loved my voice. It helped me gain confidence in myself as a personal essayist, and I’ve taken that with me as I’ve advanced in my career as a writer, editor, and teacher. I’ll be forever grateful.

Brian and me last summer, before the Oldster party we hosted at our house in Kingston, NY.

The Fling

Of all the feelings the tragedy of September 11th, 2001 could have evoked in me, I wasn’t prepared for this one: I was suddenly in the mood.