If you think it sounds exhausting, confusing, and difficult to keep up with, imagine living it. It's a mess. And as of this week, I have a new rule:
Any person who is in a romantic relationship of any kind but tells me I should be happy to be single is required to break up with their significant other on the spot.
That's it. That's the new rule. You guys know how I feel about being told not to "look for it," and this kind of thing falls right into the same category of invalidating my emotions. I'm over it. I am literally going to start replying to this with "Okay, you two break up then."
Part of my problem of course, is that I really do hate dating 6 days out of 7, but I also hate being lonely, too. Yet which one of those things do I hate more than the other? It's nearly impossible to tell. I'm tempted to say loneliness because somehow I always come back to the dating game with a second wind. (What am I on now? My 20th second wind? Probably.)
This week's adventure includes a maneuver I'm still not entirely sure about. I was working on getting a group of friends together for the fourth of July, which started yet another emotional rollercoaster when I realized I was inviting Lana & her husband Mark & her baby William, Jenna & her fiancé Matt, Mags & her boyfriend Gordon, and Renee & her husband Graham to hang out with me.
…yeah. That one hurt.
The group ended up smaller than that, as some were out of town and others got sick, but there was still an inevitable odd-one-out sensation that I could definitely have done without. (Don't ask why I didn't invite Mr. Charming. We'll put it in simple terms: If he wants to see me, it's his turn to reach out.)
Regardless, I was headed over to Jenna & Matt's apartment, American flag cake in my hands, and I called an Uber. Somehow, my Uber driver (who has the same name as my older brother. Awkward. But it's okay, because I have the same name as his ex-girlfriend.) and I ended up talking about the dating life and the general temptation to give up on it because it sucks. We had a good laugh about the atrocities of dating apps, the weirdness of possibly running into exes while working, and the fact that really, all we want is someone relatively sane to watch Netflix with come winter when we're feeling tragically alone.
So I probably shouldn't have been surprised when we arrived at my destination and he said, "Listen, I don't want to be creepy, but in case November rolls around and you still need someone to binge TV shows with, do you want my number?"
Of course not. That would be weird.
I gave him my number instead. Well, my business card, because I was in a hurry. I told him to feel free to look me up on Facebook, which he did, so I could give him my phone number that way, which I did. We've arranged a potential first date on Sunday, at which point I will be asking the hard-hitting questions like "How old are you?" "Are you employed outside of Uber?" and, of course, "Is there anything I could call you other than my older brother's name that you would actually answer to?"
Although, all of that interrogating will require him to get back to me with a specific time and location, so we'll see if that ever happens. All I know is I have my usual why-do-I-do-this-to-myself pre-first-date anxiety. Not looking forward to it even a little bit, which is completely unfair because the guy was cute and we had a fun and funny conversation.
I just wish I actually enjoyed dating. It would make everything so much more pleasant.
No comments:
Post a Comment