At 31, I was single and alone. I had broken up with my boyfriend and shortly after I also ditched Mr. Seduction. I didn’t need relationship drama when I wasn’t even in a relationship. So I minded my own business, trying to figure out what to do next with my life, when I met Mr. Kryptonite on Facebook. He sent me a friend request, he looked decent, so I accepted.

He was in his mid-forties. The age gap was huge, but so were our backgrounds and our views on life, to put it mildly. He was intimidating and yet I felt attracted to him. The only thing we truly had in common were our sense of adventure and the physical intimacy. Not long after we started dating, I received a message that I needed to leave for Sint Maarten, as I had applied for a job there. We quickly established that we weren’t going to start anything serious, since I would be leaving soon. And he supported my overseas opportunities. Being older, he had far more life experience and he kindly shared those insights with me as inspiration.

From the very beginning, we were dating with a deadline. Bittersweet, as I thought I really started to like this man. We initially had two weeks and we eagerly made use of them. Those two weeks eventually turned into two months. Dating him was also confusing for me. I felt like I was seeing life differently, yet I also felt I couldn’t safely express myself around him. I couldn’t fully be myself, but at the same time, I discovered parts of myself I didn’t even know existed. And I loved the idea that there was more to me than I had known before. It was like I was going into a sideroad with a dead end. This sideroad was nice to have entered but not the main path I needed to travel on.

We parted ways when I left for Sint Maarten the first time. Still, we remained in contact and I saw him whenever I returned. The whole affair lasted about two years. That’s why he is referred to as Mr. Kryptonite. Even though I left him time and again, I went back, drawn to something I couldn’t resist at the time. But every time I was with him, I felt smaller. Not because he tried to make me small, but because I adjusted myself to fit into his world. I confused attraction with connection and chemistry with love. I was searching for something that simply wasn’t there. The gap between us was too big. We expressed, experienced and expected love in fundamentally different ways. Eventually, I understood that what we wanted from each other was not the same thing.

In the end, this connection taught me that chemistry alone is not enough. No amount of attraction can bridge the gap between who you are, who you want to be and who you become when you’re with someone. I realized that dating men was also a way of getting to know myself better. Different people awaken different parts of you. And it’s up to you to decide whether this person, and this version of yourself, is worth holding onto.