Let me tell you about my imaginary boyfriend.
Unfortunately, he doesn't work in finance or have a trust fund.
Dear friend,
I recently discovered that I have a new habit. One that I didn’t consciously create. Whenever I return home, particularly after a long day, in the thirty seconds it takes me to get off the elevator and unlock my apartment door, I imagine something. I imagine that someone else is waiting on the other side. Specifically, my imaginary boyfriend—he’s home and he’s so excited to see me.
I know that this little fantasy sounds embarrassing and maybe kind of sad, but it usually lasts for approximately one second, the breath between unlocking that second lock and pushing open the door. Though sometimes, I imagine that he’s heard the initial sound of me undoing the first lock and is now scrambling to take chicken out of the freezer, just like I asked him to hours ago. I imagine that when I finally get the second lock to unlatch, the one that requires an extra tug, I’ll open the door to him saying “hi!” and pretending like he didn’t forget about the chicken and isn’t frantically trying to mentally plan what the hell we’re going to cook for dinner tonight without me suspecting anything.
And then, when I actually open the door, the fantasy is over. I see that my apartment is empty (which, thank god) and I close the door and proceed with my life as a single woman as usual.
I’ve never mentioned my imaginary boyfriend to anyone. He doesn’t have a name and his looks change depending on who I’m attracted to at that moment. Usually he takes the form of whatever dude I’ve been “talking to” lately—as if I’m mentally auditioning these guys for the role of future live-in boyfriend. But he and I spend a lot of time together. He asks me how my day was. He secretly watches me when I’m dancing in the kitchen. He sits on the other side of my couch watching TV with me and laughs when he catches me crying during the season finale of Great British Bake-Off.
Sometimes we look like this. He’s not a priest though.
I have hundreds of this tiny domestic fantasies. My imaginary boyfriend accompanies me on walks around my neighborhood. We go upstate on the weekends and he doesn’t care that he always has to be the one to drive because I still don’t really know how. We watch fireworks together on the Fourth of July and try to figure out how we can visit both of our families on Christmas Day without being stuck in traffic for hours.
Don’t get me wrong, my imaginary boyfriend can also be really annoying. Sometimes we get into imaginary fights. He gets huffy when I take too long putting on eyeliner just to go to the grocery store. He doesn’t like it when I leave dishes in the sink overnight. He has unknowingly forced me to increase my budget for snacks and regular waxing appointments. He spends a lot more time at the gym than I do and sometimes he suggests we go together. And once in a while, to my own horror, I agree. Then, after being there for a while, I give up on whatever machine I was using and go back to the locker room to wait around for 20 minutes while he finishes up whatever weird-ass exercises he saw some guy do on YouTube earlier that week and decided he had to try. He is often too heterosexual in that way.
And there’s more. His love languages are physical touch (which I love) and gift-giving (which really stresses me out). I write him love notes for no other reason than that I’ve spent my adult life collecting romantic stationary that I’ve never been able to use on anyone. When I have a string of bad days at work, he gently asks if I’ve ever seriously considered leaving my job. Sometimes I shop for underwear with him in mind.
I know what you’re going to say. “You’re a strong independent woman!” “You don’t need to have a man to wear sexy underwear!” “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the motherfucking flowers for her fine-ass self.” At least that’s how I think that last one goes. I don’t know. I’ve never read that book. Also, Virginia Woolf was a lesbian.
This is a deep cut, so IYKYK
I think there’s an impulse to convince us single folks that our solitude is actually empowerment. That because I am fully independent, I am living out the ultimate feminist ideal. So as a life-long member of the “don’t need no man” club, it can be hard to say out loud that one of the reasons I want to be in a relationship is because I want to feel vulnerable sometimes too. I want to meet a man who makes me feel safer, more desirable, and less alone. Just last night, I was on my way home, exhausted after an exhausting day, on a train that crawled on the local track for over an hour. My imaginary boyfriend was sitting next to me, squeezing my hand in the moments when I wanted to scream, and letting me rest my head on his shoulder when I wanted to close my eyes because I was so fucking tired. But as a single woman on the subway late at night, I could do either of those things.
I said I’ve never mentioned my imaginary boyfriend to my therapist, but unsurprisingly, she kind of knows about him. Hell, she might even be the reason why he exists. Sometimes, when I feel sad about being single, my therapist asks me what I wish I had instead. I wish I had someone to help me carry 50 lbs of groceries home. I wish I had someone I could watch a movie with on Friday nights. I wish I had someone who could take care of dinner when I get stuck late at work dealing with some emergency that for some reason, only *I* know how to solve.
The presence of my imaginary boyfriend signals the absence of a real one.
One of the tropes of the strong independent woman is that she doesn’t have time for a man; that her life is full enough as it is. But if I told myself I didn’t have time for a boyfriend, how could I hold space for the possibility of a relationship, and a good one at that?
By having an imaginary boyfriend, I can have an imaginary relationship. I can fantasize (and maybe even manifest) the kind of person I want to be with. Not in a 6’5, blue eyes way (because 6’5 is wayyy too tall for me and I pretty much exclusively date brunets), but in a way that helps me approach dating with clarity and intention. The times when my imaginary boyfriend is around are the times when I envision how a real boyfriend might be able to fit into my life. He sees me the way I want to be seen. And the times when he’s annoying me are the moments in which I recognize that I might have some room to grow as a future girlfriend (I really want to be the type of person who doesn’t leave dishes in the sink overnight, but I just can’t seem to get there). My imaginary boyfriend helps me see the places in my life where there’s room for someone else to join me. And tonight, that place is on other side of my couch, silently laughing at me for crying while watching the Olympics. Again. We’re having a really lovely time.
Sincerely,
Still Single 💖
Your comment on solitude and empowerment makes me think of this early 2010s meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/women-laughing-alone-with-salad
Many of the smartest, most creative women (who like men) have had imaginary boyfriends.