Does it bother you that so many of my recent posts are predicated on time spent at bars? Do you want me to go back to posting ranty musings on pop culture garbage? That maybe I should blog about each episode of Daisy of Love or spend more time discussing Batman?
I hope not, because this post may be a bridge too far for you.
Saturday, I was celebrating frequent commenter Erin In Scranton’s birthday with a bevy of smart, attractive Scrantonians, when the conversation turned to dating disaster stories (datesasters? I do love portmanteau words). Because dysfunctional relationships and poor life choices are the cornerstones of my existence, my eyes lit up and my ears perked up, doglike. Fueled by alcohol, I pulled back the curtains of the sad, dark period of my life that consists of my first frustrated, fumbling attempts at dating post-divorce.
I was given two pieces of advice that, in retrospect, are incredibly stupid. The first was to “get back on the horse,” which is some kind of T. Boone Pickens metaphor for building a wind farm, I think. But he may not have meant that I should invest in renewable energy production. More likely, it was that I should start dating again as soon as possible in order to aid in the healing process.
The second pearl of wisdom came from a female friend, of all things. When I had remarked sullenly that it was like a decade of my life had vanished, she said – with an earnest seriousness – that I should behave accordingly and try dating significantly younger women. To recapture my youth.
My friends mean well. But sometimes they’re dumb.
In retrospect, neither of these were good ideas. The former led to at least one date where I did nothing but talk about my marriage, at her prompting, which I did in vague, melancholy terms that caused the girl to leave me with a hug that I might describe as ‘interventive’ and an exhortation to call her if I ever needed to talk (an experience which has led to a staunch reluctance on my part to talk about ‘The Inciting Incident,’ as I’ve codenamed it, in any great detail in fear of evoking either a ‘flight or pity’ response. The latter…did not work out so well as the former did.
Through some kind of prestidigitation, I’d met a girl about seven years younger than me. I described her to the bar-hoppers I was with on Saturday as ‘cute, but slightly vapid,’ a phrase that continues to haunt me, days later. Knowing that she was any level of vapid, I’m asked, why were you even talking to her? I have no defensible answer save that she was cute. Coupled with my learned unwillingness to believe that anybody worthwhile is interested in me (which I think I’ve maybe started to get over, finally), cute can go a long way toward forgiving obvious faults. Besides, I’m operating under the influence of two very bad pieces of advice. [I also, for the interested, am unable to arrest any senior OCP employees; any attempt to do so results in shutdown.]
When I intimated that I’d be interested in getting together with her for dinner or the like, she asked me if I owned my own car, as though it were the most important thing in the world.
To my credit, I snapped out of it right at that moment, but that doesn’t stop the moment from being a bit of a personal nadir. [Full disclosure: I drive a Ford Taurus, which I do own, ladies.] Now, to be fair, everybody has their own idiosyncrasies. There are standards that one must abide by, after all. I can’t date a woman that has never seen Star Wars, for instance. Or who owns the movie Glitter on DVD, even if it is for ironic value. And you can’t like Twilight. But those are completely different arbitrary standards, I assure you.
Comments are open for mockery below.
