I have a soul and mind, therefore love's damned

Ladies, what do you think about finding love in this era?

I'm asking as a 23-year-old woman who's been dating on and off for the past few months, trying to keep an open mind. What I've consistently come across is men wanting sex, many even saying they need it to "test compatibility.".

Then I open social media and watch those same conversations about women's body count, purity, and "value." Men shame women for something they actively participate in creating through the very dating culture they promote.

I don't understand it.

I have a soul. I have a mind. I have thoughts that keep me awake at night, goals I'm relentlessly working toward, hobbies, passions, fears, values. I'm an entire human being.

So why does it sometimes feel like all of that disappears the moment I'm seen as a potential partner?

"What do you bring to the table?".

I've always found that question strange.

What exactly are \*you\* bringing that I don't already have? I work. I cook for myself. I train. I have ambition. I enjoy learning. I love sitting with difficult questions and thinking about life. I'm building a life I'm proud of.

So why does it feel like my worth eventually gets reduced to whether I'll have sex or become a mother?

Dating has honestly changed the way I see men. I don't like admitting that, because I know it isn't fair to paint half the population with one brush. But experience shapes perception, and mine has left me struggling not to see men as primarily driven by lust.

For context, I've never had a situationship. Never had a one-night stand. Most of my dates didn't even make it past the first meeting.

Yet the amount of "So... are we ever gonna fuck?" texts after I politely held my boundaries was genuinely astonishing.

I'm not angry that men find women attractive. Attraction is human.

I guess I'm just disappointed that, so often, it feels like curiosity about who I am ends where access to my body begins.

At this point, I don't even know if I believe in love anymore.