What You Need To Understand About Dating A Writer
So many people seem to fall in love with the idea of dating a writer, but they don’t understand what that entails. The thing about writers, is we navigate our way through the world in acts of creation. We interpret our lives, and cope with our trauma by creating physical manifestations of all that clutters our heart and mind. We process our experiences by writing about them. When you choose to be a part of our lives, that translates into acceptance of not only who we are, but acceptance of the fact that you will be a life experience we are most likely going to write about.
So many people are infatuated with the idea of being a muse. They love knowing that they inspired a positive poem, personal essay, or anything that strokes their ego. They don’t understand that our emotions can go both ways. Often times, people who date writers can be offended when we honor our full spectrum of emotions in our writing, because our negative emotions are not directly beneficial to them. They don’t understand that shared experiences are also ours to individually interpret and process, even if they feel that our truth doesn’t parallel their own.
Even though the situation may have been experienced together, our emotions about it are our own to sift through. Our trauma and happiness is ours to cope with or process however we need to. You don’t get to date a writer, and then try to tell them that they aren’t allowed to write about what they learned or felt through the experience of you, so long as your identity remains anonymous. Writing is an essential part of who we are. You knew that from the beginning.
It’s honestly really simple: If you don’t like reading about yourself, don’t date a writer. If you don’t like reading negative things about yourself, don’t leave a writer with wounds to heal. Don’t give us something to write about.
© Gina Clingan 2020
